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Arts Workshop Schedule

2/22/2014

Here's the schedule for the Chicago Heroes & Arts Journeys workshop series that Borderbend has been presenting at Mozart Park:

Winter 2014 Term:

Spring 2014 Term:

March 31: Nelson Algren
April 7: Carlos Cortez
April 14: Lisel Mueller, Penelope Rosemont & Franklin Rosemont
April 21: Katherine Dunham & Jean Baptiste Point du Sable
April 28: Carl Sandburg
May 5: László Moholy-Nagy & Mies van der Rohe
May 12: The Art Ensemble of Chicago
May 19: Carl Sandburg
May 26: Memorial Day (no session today)
June 2: Celebration / Final Session of the Spring Term

Summer 2014 Term:

Fall 2014 Term:

September 15: W.W. Denslow & Edward Gorey
September 22: Oscar Brown, Abbey Lincoln & Maggie Brown
September 29: TBA
October 6: Chicago-Based Ecologists and Environmentalists
October 13: TBA
October 20: TBA
October 27: TBA
November: TBA
November: TBA
November: TBA
November: TBA
December 3: TBA
December 10: TBA

Click on the dates of past workshops to find 0ut more about what we have been doing so far.

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Our Next Arts Workshop: Ed Roberson & Sun Ra

2/18/2014

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You're invited to our next Chicago Heroes & Arts Adventures workshop --

Monday, February 24th (6:00-7:15, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624

all ages, free & open to the public

During this next workshop, we will focus on the work and legacies of Ed Roberson and Sun Ra. Ed Roberson is an amazing Chicago-based poet, and Sun Ra is a pioneering instrumentalist, composer and bandleader whose dynamic vision has exploded conceptions of music, space and identity. We are delighted that Ed will be joining us at the workshop.

After growing up in Birmingham, Sun Ra moved to Chicago where he developed key aspects of his musical approach, including his iconic Egyptology-suffused space persona. Sun Ra later lived in Montreal, New York City, and Philadelphia...but Chicago and Sun Ra have a special connection.

This workshop will include the following:

Ed Roberson will read a selection of his poetry.
We will discuss one or two of Ed's poems.
We will listen to several songs by Sun Ra and his Arkestra.
We will write poetry and create visual art inspired by Ed Roberson and Sun Ra.

Location: Mozart Park is on Armitage Avenue in Logan Square -- several blocks east of Pulaski Road, just south of Dickens and Shakespeare Streets.

Please contact us by clicking here -- if you have questions about this workshop and/or if you would like to RSVP. Thanks!

Links:

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Why Make Art? : Interview with Carron Little

2/15/2014

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For my interview project with Borderbend, I set out to explore some of the unanswerable questions that have been squirming to escape my mind, and fired them on Chicago artists in search of some marinated wisdom. I ask why art is important in communities, why humans value art, why artists care, and what makes art art. All of their words have helped me on my path as an art student, and a person making sense of this world. Their challenges to survive in the art world of Chicago are inspiring yet devastating, their passions are strong, and their work is meaningful and genuine. Enjoy, and keep your eyes open for any of their upcoming work. Thanks for reading.
- Hannah Brookman

Carron Little

Why Make Art?

For change.

“When I was a young, I was very political and did a lot of direct action. At the age of sixteen I became a representative for youth CND in Yorkshire and Humberside, in the north of England. I had a big group of fifty young people. One of the first public performances I did was to organize all of these young people and to go to every main station in each major city in Yorkshire and Humberside, and we staged a nuclear fallout in the stations, so suddenly fifty people would drop to the floor, and people would come with theses radiation bins.”

Carron is now using performance to bring awareness to the Chicago public. Her most recent performance took place at Bridgeview Bank for Open House Chicago in October. It was called Unto Each Their Own Safe, and was conducted by Little’s extravagant alter ego, The Queen of Luxuria. “The philosophy of the Queen is to challenge the notions of patriarchal power, hence the celebration of the diamond dust breast plates, I call them gender plates.” On this special day, the Queen, and her lovely assistants were posted up at the bank to play games with the public. “I created this interactive performance where the public went up to these three different stations and either play chess or there was this game, Octagon, based on one of Duchamp’s games, and I created a Jenga/Queen of Luxuria style stacking game.” There was a fourth game, which the Queen herself administered. In this game, the participants would move around ‘gender plates’ and discuss their finances and earnings with the Queen of Luxuria.

“If a person was earning $30,000, according to the Queen of Luxuria, the minimum wage should be $80,000, so I would make up the difference. If a woman was sat in front of me I calculated her working life and multiplied that by the money she hadn’t been paid over her lifetime. One woman earned to $30-60,000 bracket. She was unhappy at work so I gave her an extra $80,000 so she could take the year off and find a job that she really wanted to do. And she was happy in life. If somebody was unhappy in life I would give them an extra $20,00 so they could take a holiday or go to the spa every once in a while. People that were retired were getting over a million dollars which wasn’t what I was expecting how much women would get. It really is a profound statement on the inequality of our lives.”

“We as a society still have a long way to go in terms of creating peace and equality in the world and 40% of countries are still in a state of war. I often think about how women are treated all over the world, and our quality of lives and even in the western world, it went up since last year, it was 73 cents to the dollar and now its 77 to the dollar. I’ve been in positions where I’ve had greater qualifications starting out a job but was still paid less than my colleague that had less educational qualifications.”

“Every time I lose hope or contemplate giving up, which I don’t, I refuse to, I just look at the statistics of how many women have had solo shows in museums or how many are represented by commercial galleries. Even a gallery that I show at, I invited the director over for a studio visit and I asked him ‘how many women have you represented in your gallery over the year?’ And the next year he made a point to show one female artist for every male artist, and just by having that conversation I made him aware , its such a prevalent problem.

“The next big project that I’m starting to work on is ‘The City Alive With Dreams’. From 2012 to 2013 I interviewed one person a week about their dreams and then I wrote poems about their dreams and invited them to select their favorite line. One person I interviewed selected, “the sacred key of ecstasy and orgasmic health opened the door to everything that is a part of me” the poetry really documents the extremes of human experiences as a story or a reflection of the interview. I'm really excited to put those ideas into public space. I’m inviting all of the people who have participated to a meeting to discuss how they would like their stories placed in a public space, but I’m also thinking, how am I going to make it interactive so that theres lots of different things to think about. It’s really part of my artistic practice to create these interactive performance; it’s part of my feminist aesthetic. I think it’s a really critical part of womens practice and the way in which we all parade in the world.”

Apart from creating her own pieces, Carron also runs Out of Sight, a public performance festival in its’ fourth year, and growing. Carron also teaches art in city schools and is looking forward to a new teaching position in the SAIC performance art department. She currently has a piece opening at Fluxus in Minneapolis, is finishing The City Alive With Dreams, and is drawing all the time.

“The rhesus monkeys are the closest monkeys to us, but anthropologists have studied their behavior and said that they have greater empathy and community towards each other than humans display towards each other and my hope is that humans will become more intelligent through culture, and be able to figure out more peaceful ways. Through culture, my hope is that we will eliminate war and eliminate violence. We still have a way to go, and it won't happen in my lifetime but hopefully I can be a part of the train of change” -- Carron Little

Find out more about Carron Little by visiting her website at carronlittle.com.

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Margaret Burroughs-Inspired Arts Workshop

2/13/2014

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You are invited to come to our next Chicago Heroes & Arts Adventures workshop --

Monday, February 17 (6:00-7:15, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624

all ages, free & open to the public

Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs was an amazing visual artist, curator, educator and community organizer who founded the DuSable Museum of African American History. We will dedicate this workshop to Margaret Burroughs' life and legacy, as well as creative responses to her work. Also -- celebrating Margaret Burroughs' work is one way to celebrate Black History Month!

This workshop will include the following--

We will look at and talk about several examples of Burroughs' artwork, and talk about her legacy in Chicago and beyond.
Participants will write poetry and create collages inspired by Margaret Burroughs' artworks.

Above: artworks by Margaret Burroughs, courtesy of the South Side Community Art Center

Links:

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Why Is Art Important? : Interview with Lindsay Obermeyer

2/11/2014

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Lindsay Obermeyer

Photo by Samantha Bennett

Why is art important?

“I’m interested in seeing how the arts can reach out to communities that don't generally think of themselves as having access to the arts. I work in the community to create art as a way of trying to connect people together. Because often people don't talk to each other, the work that I do tends to break the ice. With The Red Thread Project, I physically connected them together.”

Lindsay Obermeyer is a textile artist, currently living in St. Louis, Missouri. Her interest in textiles has brought her down many paths. She has published knitting patterns, sewn dance costumes, owned a yarn store, produced ‘craft as fine art’, and most notably, founded The Red Thread Project, a community based performance piece. The project started as a dare from a colleague to connect a university to a town. “I physically connected them together,” said Obermeyer. She hand-knit dozens of hats, and linked them with a knit cord then invited the public to wear them. The closeness and absurdity created by the situation fostered more than simply physical connection; as the troop of hat-bearers paraded through the town, they also created friendships. Obermeyer did the performance multiple times then brought the hats to a homeless shelter to teach the men to sew, before they disconnected the hats and got to keep them.

“It kept growing. It was affective for a lot of people especially for kids, it was about character education, less about art. Because even trained art educators didn’t get what I was teaching about art. They didn’t understand that yarn is a pliable line, that when knitted creates a shape, that when bent creates form of mass that then can be worn, and it has color and texture. Basic elements of art here! But because they're trying to think of art as painting and drawing and sculpture, and textiles and craft, they couldn't make the connection. So I often came in as a character educator, teaching kids about their community; that even though they're in 4th grade, they have a voice and a connection to everybody around them and that they better darn well start paying attention.”

Though Lindsay has now retired The Red Thread Project, she has not stopped bringing her art into the community. She was recently commissioned by the chamber of commerce of St. Louis to do a performance piece to bring attention to an unpopular neighborhood. “We would roll out astro turf, and sit and knit in the parking space. It was a neighborhood that had a lot of gang activity, and here we were benignly knitting. So it was a political statement; like, ‘you know what, we can have this shit go around us, but were just going to knit.’ We had a lot of kids involved. It was a way of driving interest to a blighted area. I was using the arts to make a neighborhood more palatable. And I got paid to do that!”

Lindsay was paid to create an enjoyable atmosphere in a neighborhood. This is because, “economically, art is a machine,” she explains. “Not that it trickles down to the artists often, but it does drive commerce.” Obermeyer gave me numerous examples of ways cities thrive through art. Paris is her favorite example, but she also recognizes the influence of the arts on Chicago. “When people talk about Chicago, they talk about the Bears and the Cubs, but they also talk about the Art Institute and the Sears tower. And thats art.” She mentioned St. Louis’ efforts to establish a larger arts community, as well as Paducah, Kentucky’s new flourishing art scene. Obermeyer sees that as art becomes more accessible, more people are attracted, and the economy grows.

Lindsay has created a successful career as an artist. As she likes to say, she manages herself as a business, and makes sure she gets paid for her work. She is currently knitting almost 600 skeins of yarn for a 12 x 26 knit bomb piece for the Motorola offices, and will be presenting a paper on the relationship between textile arts and the medical arts at a textile conference in Nebraska at the Textile Society.

“It’s not that hard. It just takes tenacity and a willingness to let go of preconceived notions of high art and low art, and fine art and fine craft, and just make.” - Lindsay Obermeyer

To see more of Lindsay Obermeyer's work, visit her site at http://www.lbostudio.com/

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Jens Jensen-Inspired Arts Workshop

2/8/2014

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Monday, February 10 (6:00-7:15, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

all ages, free and open to the public

Our next Chicago Heroes & Arts Journeys workshop session focuses on the life and legacy of the great landscape architect and ecologist Jens Jensen. Here's what we'll be planning:

We look at and talk about several examples of Jens Jensen's designs -- such as his plans for Humboldt, Garfield, and Columbus Parks (Chicago, IL); Shakespeare Garden at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL); and The Clearing Folk School (WI).
Carey Lundin gives a presentation about her documentary Jens Jensen: The Living Green.
We read a passage from Jensen's Siftings.
Workshop participants write mesostics, and create vispo and illustrations inspired by his plans and writings.

Photos: Garfield Park Conservatory (designed by Jens Jensen). Courtesy of the Chicago Park District.

Drawing of Humboldt Park by Jens Jensen

Links:

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Can I Ask, "What Is Art?" : Interview with Saul Aguirre

2/8/2014

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Saul Aguirre

What is art?

To Saul Aguirre, a Mexico City born Chicago artist, art is a civil obligation, “a personal cultural investment.” Aguirre’s work does not try and capture beauty or please the eye and ease the mind. Though you may find beauty in his pieces, aesthetics are not in his job description. “As an artist you have a job,” says Saul, “you can’t just throw paint on the wall and say ‘I’m an artist’ there has to be a purpose to a piece of work.”

Much of Aguirre’s work addresses his Latino background. One of his first pieces was a painting juxtaposing an indigenous man with a business man, which he created at the age of sixteen. It was finding something worth painting about that made art important for Saul Aguirre. “I noticed I was creating things that had already been done, and I thought ‘well why don’t you talk about something that matters to you.” History matters most to Aguirre, and he believes his work to be important because it is informative. One performance called Tokeo, performed at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 30, 2013, addresses the presence of GMO’s in our food. In this piece, Aguirre wears a gas mask and ceremoniously wraps tamales made of dirt, shredded American dollars, and a few corn niblets. After each is wrapped, and offered to the sky, he then offers them to the audience. “People start realizing that there is something going on with the GMO’s. Even if I just make one person think about it, I did my job as an artist. If I make twenty people think about it I’m good.”

Saul believes social criticism is the job of artists.”If we don’t give social criticism or a social process of thinking in peoples minds were not doing our jobs. I could sit down and paint beautiful flowers, hundreds and hundreds of beautiful flowers and make hundreds and hundreds of dollars but just to be complacent.” He sees other artists painting deserts and campesinos, and he claims “thats their own guilt, I have no guilt.”

“But it’s all artists responsibility to deal with social problems?” I ask him from across the checkerboard coffee table. “Not necessarily.” Replies Saul, “A lot of artists want to be history but they need to start thinking in a progressive way to be history, they cannot just say ‘this is beautiful.’ They have to be progressive with the work they do. Thats what makes the difference. There are two different ways of seeing art. You could have an amazing technique and become a great artist, or you could have a social criticism and become a really good artist.”

Saul is successful in the latter. He has survived as a self sustaining artist for 23 years, and worked full time as a taxi driver and a swim instructor and completed almost four years for college in the meantime. Right now he is looking forward to finishing his fourth year at SAIC, and has recently curated an exhibition of sociopolitical printmakers living in Chicago.

“I think art has to be sociopolitical at all times, as much as possible. All history is important and we need to talk about it in the arts.”- Saul Aguirre

To see more of Saul Aguirre's work, please visit www.saulaguirre.com/

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Remembering Fred Anderson

2/2/2014

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The great tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson passed away in 2010 at the age of 81. He touched many people's lives with his remarkable playing and musical vision, and his Velvet Lounge is a one-of-a-kind music venue where thousands of great performances have happened over the years. One thing that I love about his music is his unique musicality; the interplay that one hears with the different people he worked with is something that completely unique. He was always curious, thoughtful, and soulful. His music and spirit live on!

Here are some remembrances that people have of Fred Anderson --

"I saw Fred play many times, interviewed him more than once, and had a number of pleasant conversations with him. He was always humble and cordial, with none of the ego that drives some artists. While I feel sad that he is gone, I am really glad he has been here. He really made a difference to his world and he did what he wanted to do right up to the end of his life. In a way, he was a lucky man, and Chicago was definitely lucky to have him." -- Bill Meyer, writer

* * * *

"As I began my creative music journey, Fred Anderson -- along with other members of the AACM -- allowed me the freedom to explore at the Velvet Lounge. Fred embraced me and my efforts and encouraged my creativity in a safe and loving space....for that I love him." -- Renée Baker, musician and composer

* * * *

"Fred's soul is inhabiting other spaces now, and those spaces now get to be blessed. Yuganaut played the Velvet last October while we were on tour, and Fred was there, holding court, loving us and encouraging us. Meeting him was an act of generosity unto itself, 'Can I help you load in? Need stands? Mics? Anything?' Incredible. I mean...the love is there in the playing, yes, but it just extended into every moment of his life -- the playing was just the MUSIC extension of the love that was Fred. Continue your journey, O great lov-er!" -- Stephen Rush, musician and composer

* * * *

"Thanks to Fred Anderson and the original Birdhouse on North Clark Street, I met him and heard Hal Russell for the very first time. This was in 1979, and my life was forever changed. Listening to Fred play a very inspiring duet with drummer Tim Daisy at the Okka Fest last summer in Milwaukee was a surreal moment. His performance was truly memorable." -- Steve Hunt, musician

"I will always remember Fred Anderson for a lot of reasons, but here are some memories that stand out to me. August 14th, 2007 was my first gig as a leader at the Velvet Lounge. I was nervous as hell. I was telling Fred about being nervous. He said, 'Man, just play the music -- everything will be all right, just play your music.' I'll never forget that. Fred always encouraged me to keep pushing on, and to play the music.

"Another story is when we went to Pisa, Italy for the Insolent Noise Jazz Festival. There was a night when almost everybody was out in the streets partying, and Fred and I were probably the only folks at the hotel. I always thought that was funny. I'm going to miss Fred so much, he was a great mentor who gave me my first chance to perform. He didn't care if we played standards or whatever. That was the kind of place the Velvet is, where Fred would welcome you with open arms. I lost my grandfather a couple years ago, and now I lost another. He will be in my heart forever." -- Saalik Ziyad, musician and composer

* * * *

"Fred Anderson did a show with his trio at Elastic in June 2006. There was a poster made for the event which depicted him towering over the building Elastic is in. We liked to joke that it looked like a Godzilla movie...something like: 'Fred Eats Elastic!'. It was so appropriate, because Fred was such a towering figure! Also, not many people know this, but we really solidified our decision to start Elastic during a DKV show at The Velvet Lounge. We always saw that as being a good omen for us, and it has been!" -- Sam Lewis, musician

* * * *

"While I was not a frequent visitor to the Velvet Lounge, I was aware of Fred Anderson and his compatriots (especially some of the AACM members whom I had a chance to play with most often in the 1980s). I heard Fred play several times but, alas, not often enough. I have a deep respect for Chicago's founding tradition of non-traditional jazz -- exploring, exposing, and extrapolating. Fred Anderson was one of those artists whose life and work taught purposeful meaning to many of my musical friends and to myself. -- Jon Hey, musician and composer

* * * *

"What I remember is that he was kind to me, and open-minded enough to be interested to play with me at Chicago Calling in 2008 at the Velvet. He didn't quite know what to do with what I was doing while we were playing. I think he might have thought of me as a crazy percussionist." -- Eric Glick Rieman, musician and composer

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Fred Anderson-Inspired Arts Workshop at Mozart Park

2/1/2014

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You are invited to come to our next Chicago Heroes & Arts Adventures workshop --

Monday, February 3rd (6:00-7:15, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)

Mozart Park Fieldhouse
2036 N. Avers Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624

all ages, free & open to the public

We continue our arts workshop series at Mozart Park with a session that focuses on the music and legacy of the great saxophonist Fred Anderson. We will talk about some highlights of Anderson's life and music, and then watch part of the music documentary Timeless: Live at the Velvet Lounge (Delmark, 2006). Then workshop participants will create collages that are inspired by Anderson's music.

Fred Anderson was an inspiration to generations of musicians -- through the music he created, as well as thanks to the legendary Velvet Lounge which he ran for several decades until he passed away in 2010.

This workshop is all ages, free and open the public. Arts supplies will be provided. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Fred Anderson Trio performing at the Abrons Art Center, during the 2009 Vision Festival. Fred Anderson (tenor saxophone), William Parker (upright bass, kora), Hamid Drake (frame drum). Photos by Peter Gannushkin, used with permission.

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Arts Workshop Schedule

Our Next Arts Workshop: Ed Roberson & Sun Ra

Why Make Art? : Interview with Carron Little

Carron Little

Margaret Burroughs-Inspired Arts Workshop

Why Is Art Important? : Interview with Lindsay Obermeyer

Lindsay Obermeyer

Jens Jensen-Inspired Arts Workshop

Can I Ask, "What Is Art?" : Interview with Saul Aguirre

Saul Aguirre

Remembering Fred Anderson

Fred Anderson-Inspired Arts Workshop at Mozart Park

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