Fine Arts Night

I said, "Stand next to your art so I can take your picture." and here she is, my cooperative daughter. That's her mask, "the one that everyone thinks looks like a bear," she said. It has yarn accents. Good use of yarn, I thought.
Trevor was much more enthusiastic about being photographed. His Mom said that his mask looked just like him, and we all cracked up. You can't see it in this picture, but Trev has a huge red, yellow and black ruffled nose ring protruding from under his giant purple schnoz. (just kidding)
I tried to find Naomi's mask, the names were written on the inside so I was peeking under each one, but Delia admonished me "God Mom, quit touching the masks!" Her mortification amused me slightly, but really, I guess you would get kicked out of a museum for touching the art, so I quit. We will just have to guess which one belongs to Naomi, but I am betting it is sinister and comical at the same time.

And that was it. Every kid in Mountainview evidently made a made a mask for Fine Arts Night. They were crazy fun.

Many other kids were getting ready for a band concert, but I served my time earlier this week in that cafeteria. So we all got the heck out of there, stopped at the Dairy Mart for Good Humor treats, and headed home. Thanks to Angie for carpooling so Keith didn't have to be late for work again.
Here is what I started on Fine Arts Night. I think it will be a hat. Maybe. It is actually a sock pattern writ large. We shall see...

Decker's Creek Project

Sunday our family took part in an Eco Art Project Thingy organized by Basia Irland, a visiting artist at WVU. Many people walked, biked, kayaked, and waded the length of Decker's Creek, which if you aren't familiar, is an historic waterway that runs from Arthurdale through Morgantown.

Our group was made up of my cousin Malissa, her three daughters, her future sister-in-law, and me, Keith and Delia (and a dog, who is apparently really good at math). We symbolically carried the water in a baby stroller. Of course we did not actually get the water anywhere near the baby, because although Friends of Decker's Creek is working on improving the water quality, the creek water is contaminated by acid mine drainage and untreated sewer overflow. There are signs posted near the beginning of the Decker's Creek rail trail that explicitly warn people of the dangers hidden in the water.

Naomi got to carry the Symbolic Backpack. I thought that was cool until I heard the artist say they "painted" it with creek mud. I might be too sensitive to microorganisms and heavy metals, but that gave me the creeps.

Basia Irland seemed like a real nice lady. I hear she has done projects like this before with other waterways. She didn't seem too afraid of getting a staph infection from the water, so I guess I should just chill out about it.

Here Malissa is putting some creek water into the Symbolic Vessel that was made for the project. (which is somewhat funny to me, because Malissa and Nature have never been particularly close). By the time the Vessel made it to us, barely a mile from the end of the trail, it no longer had a stopper, and so the bag it was in and the logbook were all wet.



I guess my fear of waterborne illness really spoiled the whole thing for me. We didn't go on to the end of the trail because of poor planning on our part. We parted ways with the group after Malissa handed the vessel off to the next guy, who was WADING to the next stop. Brave Soul.

I have been known to revel in many a creek and never give a thought to where the water is coming from or what is in it. But Decker's Creek is orange, and I have read the warnings posted about the health hazards. I reckon that was the point of the exercise, to make people think about this waterway that runs through our town.

Up next. a few pictures of Decker's Creek.

Arts Walk 2009

Friday Night was the Morgantown Arts Walk. Local businesses open their doors late into the evening and allow local artists to exhibit their artworks. It is a great reason to get out into the community, so we decided to hit the streets as a family.

We started at Black Bear Burritos, where Malissa had her paintings hanging. Thursday night Keith went with her and helped her hang them, and almost fell off a barstool in the process. They're there, they're square (mostly, some are more rectangular), and they're awesome. Still hanging there now if you want to go check them out.


Next we walked across the street to 123 Pleasant Street. These are some of the pieces we really liked.






These last two are by some dude I don't know named Brian Pickens, but Keith and I really enjoyed them.


These silkscreened mirrors are by Elissa Chaney Dray, whom I don't know either, but I really enjoyed her stuff.

After we left 123 we walked around downtown, but things were getting really crowded by that time. I mean REALLY CROWDED. When we got into the Mon Arts office, the place was so crowded you couldn't walk around without touching someone. I couldn't take pictures, and after a few minutes, I couldn't breathe either, so we got the hell out of there.

One of the college kid nightclubs up the street had a torch out in front signifying that it was a stop on the Arts Walk. I said "Lets go in there." Keith said, disgustedly "It's a bar." I said "What is the 123?" so he conceded and we wandered in past the bouncer (who needs a bouncer at 7pm?). We wandered around for what felt like a long time before we found the art on exhibit. It was a huge pile of cardboard boxes, stacked and taped together to form a little room on the dance floor, just big enough for a few people to stand inside. All around the cardboard box clubhouse plastic baseball bats were lying around, inside and out. On a big projection screen over the bar a video of people in costumes beating the crap out of pinatas was playing. The video was kind of disturbing to me because the people in it appeared to be screaming and angry and violent. I guess that later in the evening the artist and friends would pick up the wiffle ball bats and beat the crap out of the cardboard house. I tried to get Delia to comment on the value of that setup as ART, but she wouldn't make a judgement. Although clearly she was unimpressed.