Andrea Adams

SHADOW AND LIGHT an exhibit celebrating the 2024 Solar Eclipse - 1

Shadow and Light: an exhibit celebrating the 2024 Solar Eclipse

Concept:

The Arts Council is hosting a shadow and light themed art exhibit to commemorate the Solar Eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. With so many visitors in the area the weekend before the eclipse, it is a great time to show off our local and regional artists!


This exhibit aims to celebrate this celestial event with the use of shadow and light in either the artistic representation with 2D media, the use of light through the media, or multimedia pieces that use light as a component in the artwork. The juror will be looking for the following examples:

  • artwork in any media with high contrast of shadow and light
  • artwork depicting the theme of shadow and/or light
  • artwork done in media that plays on shadow and light (i.e. glass, transparent paper, multimedia pieces that use light in the installation)
  • Here are examples of shadow and light historically used in art:
    https://aelaschool.com/en/art/light-shadow-chiaroscuro-art/

Calendar:

  • Registration deadline: March 6, by 11:59 p.m.
  • Artwork drop off: March 11, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
  • Acceptance notifications via email: March 12, by 4 p.m.
  • Non-accepted artwork pick-up: March 13 & 14, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
  • Exhibit dates: March 20 – April 12, during regular gallery hours
  • Reception: April 6, 5:30-7 (the weekend of the Solar Eclipse)
  • Artwork pick up: April 18 & 19, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Please click the links below for the online or printable prospectus and registration form


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Art in the City virtual gallery

Check out the coolest new place to rent in Downtown Evansville for your next party

If you’re looking for a cool, unique place to host your next party, then check out the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana’s space in Downtown Evansville.

The Arts Council has a first-floor art gallery and a second-floor rooftop event deck, which overlooks Main Street in Downtown.

The unique pairing is unlike any other event rental space in the city, and makes for the perfect place to host a corporate or private event. Both spaces feature fine art from local artists, giving your party interesting atmosphere and plenty to admire.

Best of all, rental fees for hosting an event at the Arts Council help fund our annual calendar of programming — your party is supporting the arts.

Check out some of the key details below, and then reach out to us to book your event at the Arts Council.

Key details

Location: 212 Main St. Downtown Evansville, Indiana 47708
Rate: $100/hour (including set-up and clean-up time)
Accessibility: ADA compliant restrooms and elevator access to the Rooftop Art Deck
Capacity: 100 (Rooftop Art Deck) & 125 (Bower-Suhrheinrich Foundation Gallery)
Catering: host choice, alcohol permitted
Amenities: Including but not limited to 50 black folding chairs, six 6-foot black folding tables, basic kitchenette

For more information

For more information about facility rental, please contact the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana at (812) 303-3178 during regular business hours, or email Gallery Director Andrea Adams.

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Check out this new exhibit that combines the telephone game with textile art

Dawn Murtaugh explains the new telephone textile art exhibit

A group of textile artist banded together during lockdown to create a new exhibit inspired by the children’s game of telephone.

You remember the game: One person says something to one person, and that person repeats the phrase to the next, repeated several times until the phrase morphed into something different by the end.

Fifteen members of Studio Art Quilt Associates Indiana chapter decided to play their own version. Over a period of five months, three groups of five artists worked together. One artist would submit a photo, which was interpreted into a quilt by another, that artist took a photo of their quilt and then sent that to another, ultimately resulting in four interpretations of the original photo. The end result is 60 quilts, inspired by 15 photographs. None of the artists were shown the original photos before, or during the process.

“The collaborative experience of a single photo evolving through four interpretations brought an awareness of how we see life from our own perspective, are inspired by others, and share our vision of the world through our own creativity. The results were surprising, sometimes quizzical, but always insightfully creative,” according to an exhibit statement provided by SAQA-IN. Each piece has includes an artists statement to explain their thought process. As part of a new initiative at ARTSWIN, artist statements and entry tags are available in both English and Spanish.

You can view the exhibit April 19-April 30. A closing reception for the show is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday, April 30.

Studio Art Quilters Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the art quilt. https://www.saqa.com/

See something you would like to purchase? Email Andrea Adams at [email protected] for more information.

Andrea Adams: Thisday and Thatday

I’ve seen the memes about the days of the week being irrelevant during the stay at home order, and that only Thisday and Thatday exist now. At first, I resisted the idea of complete anarchy of time. I tried to make sure my socks matched every work day and that I didn’t have too much wine at dinner before Friday.

I remember even putting on makeup for my first couple of Zoom calls. Oh, Past Andrea. So naive, so optimistic. Adorable. 

Today, on this Thisday, I am barefoot, and I have abandoned my makeshift desk in the kitchen to stay on my bed (it’s made at least) and work from the Chromebook. I do plan to have a couple of glasses of wine after dinner this evening, as I am attending a recreational Zoom event. I probably won’t even brush my hair for it. Structure and foundation have crumbled for me, someone who has realized lately how much she thrives on timelines and schedules. It was fun to throw routine to the wayside at first. I can wake up after 7:30 a.m.? I don’t need to shower until after lunch? I can eat a bowl of Doritos in bed at 10:30 a.m.? And don’t get me started on what “bedtime” means anymore. 

The novelty is wearing off. I can no longer use seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race as a clock (I reserve the right to reconsider this when I get to the All Stars seasons). Since time can’t be measured by work hours and weekends off anymore, it’s my mission to find a way to tally mark the days creatively. On Thisday, I draw cartoons of my breakfast and lunch chatting each other up. Thatdays are Crazy Makeup and Costume Days. Tomorrow is Latin Music Day (which may or may not also involve costumes). And Today is obviously Writing the Weekly Blog Day. The new normal is a different normal, and we might as well use these moments alone to make it weird and interesting. 

Andrea Adams is the Gallery Director at the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana.

Published April 20, 2020

Andrea Adams: The art of curating a family

Last week, I opened up about finding moments of creation in small daily acts of art, and it got me thinking about how I view the curation and hanging of exhibits as making my own larger art piece out of many. Arranging 40 unique works of art and making sure nothing is lost or too loud is a task that I certainly ask Anne and Zach to help with every single time. The best moment in hanging a show is when the chaos turns into something cohesive and starts telling a story. It’s a magic that artists are familiar with, I’m sure.

There’s this cat who has been coming around since we’ve been home all the time. She was timid about approaching too close at first, but now (since I started feeding her), she literally will climb the window screen to try to get into my bedroom, presumably to get petted. It’s pretty annoying, but only because I know that I will eventually let her in and then I will have a cat. She’s claimed me as her family and there’s really nothing I can do about it. Did she have a family who was loving her before she started hanging out here? If I start ignoring her, will she go back to them? Will I feel a pang in my heart if I do?

Catherine the Cat

We don’t get to choose what family we start with, but we are certainly at liberty to create or add to one as we learn and love throughout a lifetime. Friends and lovers and coworkers. Ancestors and old high school buddies and artists we admire from afar. Long lost brothers. Pretty calico kitties who sleep on our patio. All these precious and necessary chaotic pieces make a whole and teach us what it means to individualize. It’s a curation project we should never finish because the story we are telling is on-going. When things start making sense, that’s the magic of creating something cohesive.

I feel lucky to be chosen by Catherine the Cat to help her feel safe and loved. I guess her needing me makes me feel that way, too.

Dang it, I have a cat now, don’t I?

Andrea Adams is the Gallery Director for the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana.

Published April 13, 2020