Sunday, June 3, 2007

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

Westcott Art Trail and Sale
Westcott Community Center

Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

During the 5th annual Westcott Art Trail and Sale, dozens of artists will be selling their hand-made wares from their studios, gardens and porches. The public can obtain free maps of the artists' locations at Westcott Street businesses; the Westcott Community Center; and other locations. The art trail will showcase unique pottery, photographs, garden sculptures, paintings and drawings, wearables and other works by local artists. The Westcott Art Trail and Sale is a fund-raiser that benefits the Westcott Community Center.

The Open Screen

Price: Free
White Warehouse
200 S. Geddes St. at West Fayette, Syracuse

BYOFV! (Bring Your Own Film / Video) And/or come as a viewer. Make sure your work is cued, maximum 10 minutes in length, first come first screened. Accepted formats: 16MM, SUPER 8, DVD, VHS, cassette tapes. Refreshments will be available, but BYOB as well.

"The Open Screen" is an informal forum for local filmmakers and video artists presented in conjunction with a region-wide arts collaboration, including the opening of Lipe Art Park, the exhibition ReZist!, and an open house in the White Warehouse/Arts Building.

ReZist! is a private arts showcase highlighting the work of 50+ local artists in an effort to promote networking and unity within the arts community. Brought to you by your friends at (R)Evolution Art Studio. For more information, email evolutionaryresource@hotmail.com.

All that Jazz
Syracuse Chorale
Warren Ottey, conductor

Price: $15 adult; $8 children 15 and under
Blessed Sacrament School
3127 James St., Syracuse

All that Jazz, the Syracuse Chorale's annual fundraiser, will be a series of solos, small ensemble works and large choral renditions of songs from the Jazz era. Seating is Cabaret/Nightclub style, and gourmet treats will be served. Plan now to reserve a table with friends or family.

Hanna Richardson and Phil Flanigan CD Release Party

Price: $10
Wellington House
7262 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville

Hanna and Phil celebrate their new CD, Live at the Fleece, recorded last year in England. Come relax while hearing some classic, swinging, American music.

Way Off Broadway Variety Show

Price: $5, family $12 (maximum 12)
United Church of Fayetteville
310 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $40, $36, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Visual Arts Showcase #59
CNY Arts

Price: Free
WCNY
415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Showcase features the work of area artists in a juried show. This season's work was selected
by Jennifer Pepper, Director of the Cazenovia College Gallery, and Wendy Harris, a working artist from Syracuse University.

Art from the CNY Region of the National League of American Pen Women

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

Works by 15 award-winning artists will be on display.

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Diane Menzies/Jane Daroskikh: Painting and Sculpture
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Local artist Janie Darovskikh, lives in Skaneateles and is a figurative artist working in traditional sculpting methods such as carving, clay and wax modeling, plaster and bronze casting. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, the Suomalainen Perustus Grant, support from the New York Foundation on the Arts and numerous other awards. She exhibits in the United States and internationally. Her art has taken her to Kulusuk, Greenland; the Ural Mountains of Russia; Yangshuo, China; and to Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. Jane is passionate about Nordic mythology, cultural exchange and her belief in art as an international language. "The process I use involves a constantly evolving search to learn, grow, exchange, feel and create. May the work tell a story of an adventure, a feeling, a dream or a journey."

Diane Menzies, also a local artist, lives in Jamesville, NY. The drawings selected for this exhibition are from a series entitled "The Passing." These mystifying drawings served as a cathartic expression of the joys and sorrows Menzies experienced while a hospice attendant for those dying of AIDS. When the works were exhibited at the Jean Cocteau Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reviewer Diane Armitage wrote: "The gothic tension that Menzies creates might seem overwrought if not for the fact that her environmental concerns and melancholy response is right on target. Her psychological distress is not a bid for personal attention. It is, rather, a transpersonal sublimation of individual identity in favor of an emotional identification with torn bark, barren ground, and polluted air and water. Because of the careful way that Menzies limits her visual elements and establishes an air of stark abandonment, her mood of intense grieving appears as more than empty rhetoric."

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Visual Arts Showcase #59
CNY Arts

Price: Free
WCNY
415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Showcase features the work of area artists in a juried show. This season's work was selected
by Jennifer Pepper, Director of the Cazenovia College Gallery, and Wendy Harris, a working artist from Syracuse University.

Art from the CNY Region of the National League of American Pen Women

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

Works by 15 award-winning artists will be on display.

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

The Fathers' Project: Ellen Blalock
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A portrait of teen fathers and their children, told through photographs, video and audio presentations.

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Diane Menzies/Jane Daroskikh: Painting and Sculpture
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Local artist Janie Darovskikh, lives in Skaneateles and is a figurative artist working in traditional sculpting methods such as carving, clay and wax modeling, plaster and bronze casting. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, the Suomalainen Perustus Grant, support from the New York Foundation on the Arts and numerous other awards. She exhibits in the United States and internationally. Her art has taken her to Kulusuk, Greenland; the Ural Mountains of Russia; Yangshuo, China; and to Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. Jane is passionate about Nordic mythology, cultural exchange and her belief in art as an international language. "The process I use involves a constantly evolving search to learn, grow, exchange, feel and create. May the work tell a story of an adventure, a feeling, a dream or a journey."

Diane Menzies, also a local artist, lives in Jamesville, NY. The drawings selected for this exhibition are from a series entitled "The Passing." These mystifying drawings served as a cathartic expression of the joys and sorrows Menzies experienced while a hospice attendant for those dying of AIDS. When the works were exhibited at the Jean Cocteau Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reviewer Diane Armitage wrote: "The gothic tension that Menzies creates might seem overwrought if not for the fact that her environmental concerns and melancholy response is right on target. Her psychological distress is not a bid for personal attention. It is, rather, a transpersonal sublimation of individual identity in favor of an emotional identification with torn bark, barren ground, and polluted air and water. Because of the careful way that Menzies limits her visual elements and establishes an air of stark abandonment, her mood of intense grieving appears as more than empty rhetoric."

Networked Nature
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

"Networked Nature" uses innovative technology to combine art, science and politics. The group exhibition inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

"Networked Nature" was organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, a leading new media organization affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

Tommy Emmanuel
Guitar League

Price: $24 in advance; $28 at the door; children under 12, free
Syracuse Center for the Performing Arts
728 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

From America to Australia and back again, with stops throughout Europe and the Far East, the global proliferation of fingerstyle guitar will be celebrated by world-renowned acoustic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel in a concert hosted by the Guitar League. When he was just eight years old and growing up in Australia, Tommy Emmanuel heard a recording of Chet Atkins, the legendary American guitar player. Years later, Chet became a fan of Emmanuel's energetic and entertaining performances, and granted him the degree of "Certified Guitar Player," a title he bestowed on only himself and one other guitarist.

At this concert, Tommy will be joined by special guest Loren Barrigar, the premiere fingerstyle guitarist in central New York and one of the founders of the Guitar League.

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $35, $31, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Visual Arts Showcase #59
CNY Arts

Price: Free
WCNY
415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Showcase features the work of area artists in a juried show. This season's work was selected
by Jennifer Pepper, Director of the Cazenovia College Gallery, and Wendy Harris, a working artist from Syracuse University.

Art from the CNY Region of the National League of American Pen Women

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

Works by 15 award-winning artists will be on display.

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

The Fathers' Project: Ellen Blalock
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A portrait of teen fathers and their children, told through photographs, video and audio presentations.

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Diane Menzies/Jane Daroskikh: Painting and Sculpture
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Local artist Janie Darovskikh, lives in Skaneateles and is a figurative artist working in traditional sculpting methods such as carving, clay and wax modeling, plaster and bronze casting. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, the Suomalainen Perustus Grant, support from the New York Foundation on the Arts and numerous other awards. She exhibits in the United States and internationally. Her art has taken her to Kulusuk, Greenland; the Ural Mountains of Russia; Yangshuo, China; and to Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. Jane is passionate about Nordic mythology, cultural exchange and her belief in art as an international language. "The process I use involves a constantly evolving search to learn, grow, exchange, feel and create. May the work tell a story of an adventure, a feeling, a dream or a journey."

Diane Menzies, also a local artist, lives in Jamesville, NY. The drawings selected for this exhibition are from a series entitled "The Passing." These mystifying drawings served as a cathartic expression of the joys and sorrows Menzies experienced while a hospice attendant for those dying of AIDS. When the works were exhibited at the Jean Cocteau Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reviewer Diane Armitage wrote: "The gothic tension that Menzies creates might seem overwrought if not for the fact that her environmental concerns and melancholy response is right on target. Her psychological distress is not a bid for personal attention. It is, rather, a transpersonal sublimation of individual identity in favor of an emotional identification with torn bark, barren ground, and polluted air and water. Because of the careful way that Menzies limits her visual elements and establishes an air of stark abandonment, her mood of intense grieving appears as more than empty rhetoric."

Networked Nature
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

"Networked Nature" uses innovative technology to combine art, science and politics. The group exhibition inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

"Networked Nature" was organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, a leading new media organization affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $35, $31, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $35, $31, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Visual Arts Showcase #59
CNY Arts

Price: Free
WCNY
415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Showcase features the work of area artists in a juried show. This season's work was selected
by Jennifer Pepper, Director of the Cazenovia College Gallery, and Wendy Harris, a working artist from Syracuse University.

Art from the CNY Region of the National League of American Pen Women

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

Works by 15 award-winning artists will be on display.

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

The Fathers' Project: Ellen Blalock
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A portrait of teen fathers and their children, told through photographs, video and audio presentations.

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Diane Menzies/Jane Daroskikh: Painting and Sculpture
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Local artist Janie Darovskikh, lives in Skaneateles and is a figurative artist working in traditional sculpting methods such as carving, clay and wax modeling, plaster and bronze casting. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, the Suomalainen Perustus Grant, support from the New York Foundation on the Arts and numerous other awards. She exhibits in the United States and internationally. Her art has taken her to Kulusuk, Greenland; the Ural Mountains of Russia; Yangshuo, China; and to Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. Jane is passionate about Nordic mythology, cultural exchange and her belief in art as an international language. "The process I use involves a constantly evolving search to learn, grow, exchange, feel and create. May the work tell a story of an adventure, a feeling, a dream or a journey."

Diane Menzies, also a local artist, lives in Jamesville, NY. The drawings selected for this exhibition are from a series entitled "The Passing." These mystifying drawings served as a cathartic expression of the joys and sorrows Menzies experienced while a hospice attendant for those dying of AIDS. When the works were exhibited at the Jean Cocteau Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reviewer Diane Armitage wrote: "The gothic tension that Menzies creates might seem overwrought if not for the fact that her environmental concerns and melancholy response is right on target. Her psychological distress is not a bid for personal attention. It is, rather, a transpersonal sublimation of individual identity in favor of an emotional identification with torn bark, barren ground, and polluted air and water. Because of the careful way that Menzies limits her visual elements and establishes an air of stark abandonment, her mood of intense grieving appears as more than empty rhetoric."

Networked Nature
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

"Networked Nature" uses innovative technology to combine art, science and politics. The group exhibition inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

"Networked Nature" was organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, a leading new media organization affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Aldo Tambellini: A Cultural History of Syracuse
ThINC

Price: Free
Company Gallery
110 W. Fayette St. (corner of Clinton), Syracuse

An exhibition of photographs taken by artist, avant-garde filmmaker and video pioneer, Aldo Tambellini. These photographs, taken in 1948 with a Kodak Box Camera, are among the first images he shot, when he was 18 years old. Tambellini documented the people and places of his early life in Syracuse, around Pine Street and East Genesee. These images depict the life and surroundings of the residents of the 15th Ward, a section of Syracuse of important historical significance. The 15th ward was originally a Jewish settlement. As the Jewish community started to establish itself in Syracuse, it moved up towards the South of East Genesee Street and many African Americans moved into the 15th ward.

In an effort to articulate the historical and contemporary relevance of these images, Lori Convington, a Syracuse based artist/activist and historian, will re-visit some of the locations in Tambellini's photographs to capture the contemporary locations and individuals. Along with engaging and informing text about about the individuals who once lived there and the area itself, Ms. Covington will connect a contemporary meaning for the viewer of Mr. Tambellini's historical photographs.

Art for the Soul
Delavan Art Gallery

Price: Free
Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibit features acrylic paintings by Hope Irvine, photography by Richard Schultz, and watercolor paintings by members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group.

Over the years, Hope Irvine, Ph.D. has become an accomplished painter as well as an innovative educator and community leader. Delavan Art Gallery is pleased to exhibit Dr. Irvine's sedimentary landscape acrylic paintings. "My paintings result from confrontations with vistas, especially in the American Southwest, Alaska and Iceland," Dr. Irvine explains in her artist statement. Since 1982, Dr. Irvine has held the position of Chair of the Department of Art Education while maintaining dual tenure and full professorships in both the College of Visual & Performing Arts and the School of Education at Syracuse University. Her commitment to the arts and education of others was rewarded by the Manhattan Borough President on June 22, 1982 when he declared the date "Hope Irvine Day."

Richard Schultz's photography ranges in subject from the commonplace to the absurd. Schultz writes in his artist statement, "It's a wild and wacky world that we encounter every day. Photography has been one way for me to express my reactions to the visceral stimuli of daily life." The photographer is Vice President of the David B. Schultz Insurance Agency and a proud native of Syracuse, NY. The majority of the photographs in this exhibit were shot between 2004 and 2007 and are shown exactly as they were when the artist came across the scene.

Also in this exhibition are watercolor paintings by 12 members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group of Onondaga County: Sharon Daniels-Duerr, Pam Dischinger, Sharon H. Gibbons, Bonnie Goetzke, Rita Keller, Loie Mechetti, Geraldine Meday, Joanne Neff, Virginia Raner, Nancy Shampine, Jan Waters and Kathryn Wehrung. The Art and Soul Watercolor Group is a collective of artists who meet weekly to discuss, share and study art together, using each other as inspiration and encouragement in the arts. The group supports Vera House, the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Mexico and Ophelia's Place along with other notable causes.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

Greek Cultural Festival

Price: Free
St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church
325 Waring Rd., Syracuse

5:30pm-6:30pm: Byzantine Music
5:30pm: Church Tour
6:00pm: Children's Dance Group
6:30pm-7:30pm: Touch of Culture
7:00pm: Church Tour
7:30pm: St.Sophia Dance Group
8:00pm: Church Tour

The Three Little Pigs
Syracuse Opera

Price: Free
Baldwinsville Library
33 E. Genesee St., Baldwinsville

For more information, phone 315-635-5631.

Die Another Death
Acme Mystery Company

Price: $25.95 plus tax and gratuities (includes meal and show)
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Interactive mystery/comedy dinner theater.

Miss Nelson is Missing
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Miss Nelson's class is the worst behaved in the whole school. Spitballs flying across the room, paper airplanes sailing every which way and uncontrollable children send the gentle, long-suffering teacher, Miss Nelson, over the edge. But the students of Room 207 are in for a surprise when Miss Nelson turns up missing and is replaced by the mean, mysterious Miss Viola Swamp, the scariest substitute teacher on the face of the earth. Miss Swamp assigns tons of homework and wields her ruler with dangerous authority. In desperation, the students set out to find their beloved Miss Nelson ... and they'll do whatever it takes to bring her back!

The Gifford Family Theatre proudly presents this witty, wacky musical adaptation of the award-winning children's favorites by Harry Allard and James Marshall. Originally commissioned and produced by BAPA's Imagination Stage, the adaptation by Joan Cushing (book, music and lyrics) was named the winner of the 2003 National Childrens Theatre Festival.

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $35, $31, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Friday, June 8, 2007

Visual Arts Showcase #59
CNY Arts

Price: Free
WCNY
415 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Showcase features the work of area artists in a juried show. This season's work was selected
by Jennifer Pepper, Director of the Cazenovia College Gallery, and Wendy Harris, a working artist from Syracuse University.

Art from the CNY Region of the National League of American Pen Women

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

Works by 15 award-winning artists will be on display.

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

The Fathers' Project: Ellen Blalock
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A portrait of teen fathers and their children, told through photographs, video and audio presentations.

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

Diane Menzies/Jane Daroskikh: Painting and Sculpture
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Local artist Janie Darovskikh, lives in Skaneateles and is a figurative artist working in traditional sculpting methods such as carving, clay and wax modeling, plaster and bronze casting. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, the Suomalainen Perustus Grant, support from the New York Foundation on the Arts and numerous other awards. She exhibits in the United States and internationally. Her art has taken her to Kulusuk, Greenland; the Ural Mountains of Russia; Yangshuo, China; and to Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. Jane is passionate about Nordic mythology, cultural exchange and her belief in art as an international language. "The process I use involves a constantly evolving search to learn, grow, exchange, feel and create. May the work tell a story of an adventure, a feeling, a dream or a journey."

Diane Menzies, also a local artist, lives in Jamesville, NY. The drawings selected for this exhibition are from a series entitled "The Passing." These mystifying drawings served as a cathartic expression of the joys and sorrows Menzies experienced while a hospice attendant for those dying of AIDS. When the works were exhibited at the Jean Cocteau Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, reviewer Diane Armitage wrote: "The gothic tension that Menzies creates might seem overwrought if not for the fact that her environmental concerns and melancholy response is right on target. Her psychological distress is not a bid for personal attention. It is, rather, a transpersonal sublimation of individual identity in favor of an emotional identification with torn bark, barren ground, and polluted air and water. Because of the careful way that Menzies limits her visual elements and establishes an air of stark abandonment, her mood of intense grieving appears as more than empty rhetoric."

Networked Nature
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

"Networked Nature" uses innovative technology to combine art, science and politics. The group exhibition inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

"Networked Nature" was organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, a leading new media organization affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Aldo Tambellini: A Cultural History of Syracuse
ThINC

Price: Free
Company Gallery
110 W. Fayette St. (corner of Clinton), Syracuse

An exhibition of photographs taken by artist, avant-garde filmmaker and video pioneer, Aldo Tambellini. These photographs, taken in 1948 with a Kodak Box Camera, are among the first images he shot, when he was 18 years old. Tambellini documented the people and places of his early life in Syracuse, around Pine Street and East Genesee. These images depict the life and surroundings of the residents of the 15th Ward, a section of Syracuse of important historical significance. The 15th ward was originally a Jewish settlement. As the Jewish community started to establish itself in Syracuse, it moved up towards the South of East Genesee Street and many African Americans moved into the 15th ward.

In an effort to articulate the historical and contemporary relevance of these images, Lori Convington, a Syracuse based artist/activist and historian, will re-visit some of the locations in Tambellini's photographs to capture the contemporary locations and individuals. Along with engaging and informing text about about the individuals who once lived there and the area itself, Ms. Covington will connect a contemporary meaning for the viewer of Mr. Tambellini's historical photographs.

Art for the Soul
Delavan Art Gallery

Price: Free
Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibit features acrylic paintings by Hope Irvine, photography by Richard Schultz, and watercolor paintings by members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group.

Over the years, Hope Irvine, Ph.D. has become an accomplished painter as well as an innovative educator and community leader. Delavan Art Gallery is pleased to exhibit Dr. Irvine's sedimentary landscape acrylic paintings. "My paintings result from confrontations with vistas, especially in the American Southwest, Alaska and Iceland," Dr. Irvine explains in her artist statement. Since 1982, Dr. Irvine has held the position of Chair of the Department of Art Education while maintaining dual tenure and full professorships in both the College of Visual & Performing Arts and the School of Education at Syracuse University. Her commitment to the arts and education of others was rewarded by the Manhattan Borough President on June 22, 1982 when he declared the date "Hope Irvine Day."

Richard Schultz's photography ranges in subject from the commonplace to the absurd. Schultz writes in his artist statement, "It's a wild and wacky world that we encounter every day. Photography has been one way for me to express my reactions to the visceral stimuli of daily life." The photographer is Vice President of the David B. Schultz Insurance Agency and a proud native of Syracuse, NY. The majority of the photographs in this exhibit were shot between 2004 and 2007 and are shown exactly as they were when the artist came across the scene.

Also in this exhibition are watercolor paintings by 12 members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group of Onondaga County: Sharon Daniels-Duerr, Pam Dischinger, Sharon H. Gibbons, Bonnie Goetzke, Rita Keller, Loie Mechetti, Geraldine Meday, Joanne Neff, Virginia Raner, Nancy Shampine, Jan Waters and Kathryn Wehrung. The Art and Soul Watercolor Group is a collective of artists who meet weekly to discuss, share and study art together, using each other as inspiration and encouragement in the arts. The group supports Vera House, the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Mexico and Ophelia's Place along with other notable causes.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

Greek Cultural Festival

Price: Free
St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church
325 Waring Rd., Syracuse

5:30pm-6:30pm: The Art of the Dance lecture
5:30pm: Church Tour
6:00pm: Children's Dance Group
6:30pm-7:30pm: Touch of Culture lecture
7:00pm: Church Tour
7:30pm-8:30pm: Greek Cuisine lecture
7:30pm: St.Sophia Dance Group
8:00pm: Church Tour

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

4:00 pm -- Ashley Cox, winner of SAMMY for Best New Artist
5:00 pm -- Stella-Polonia Dance Group from Toronto
6:00 pm -- Fritz's Polka Band from Vorony, NY
7:00 pm -- Figiel Brothers Band from Albany, NY
8:00 pm -- Stella-Polonia Dance Group from Toronto
9:00 pm -- Fritz's Polka Band from Vorony, NY
10:00 pm -- Figiel Brothers Band from Albany, NY

Balloon Festival

Price: $5 adults; $1 children; ages 5 and younger free
Jamesville Beach
Apulia Rd., Jamesville

6:00 - 7:30pm: Balloon launch (weather permitting)

Main Stage Entertainment
6:30pm: Letizia and the Z Band
7:30pm: Mat Kearney
8:30pm: Emerald City

For more information, syracuseballoonfest.com.

Come Dance with Me
Onondaga Civic Symphony Orchestra
Cayenna Ponchione, conductor

Knights of Columbus (Taft Rd.)
E. Taft Road, North Syracuse

Miss Nelson is Missing
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Miss Nelson's class is the worst behaved in the whole school. Spitballs flying across the room, paper airplanes sailing every which way and uncontrollable children send the gentle, long-suffering teacher, Miss Nelson, over the edge. But the students of Room 207 are in for a surprise when Miss Nelson turns up missing and is replaced by the mean, mysterious Miss Viola Swamp, the scariest substitute teacher on the face of the earth. Miss Swamp assigns tons of homework and wields her ruler with dangerous authority. In desperation, the students set out to find their beloved Miss Nelson ... and they'll do whatever it takes to bring her back!

The Gifford Family Theatre proudly presents this witty, wacky musical adaptation of the award-winning children's favorites by Harry Allard and James Marshall. Originally commissioned and produced by BAPA's Imagination Stage, the adaptation by Joan Cushing (book, music and lyrics) was named the winner of the 2003 National Childrens Theatre Festival.

Idol: The Musical
Syracuse Civic Theatre

Price: $29; $39
Carrier Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Co-produced with BiPolar Productions. Satirical comedy that explores the hysteria of fans of the pop-culture hit.

Read a Review!

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare---Abridged
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park

Price: $10
The Warehouse, Main Auditorium
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

All of Shakespeare's plays presented in 110 minutes.

Read a review!

Debbie Does Dallas, the Musical
Rarely Done Productions
Aubry Ludington, director

Price: $20
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

The fashion for transforming movies into stage musicals may well have hit rock bottom with Debbie Does Dallas, The Musical, an adaptation of the '70s pornographic movie. Calling it a musical is going a bit far. It is closer to an extended revue skit, a scrappy, smutty spoof of a porn movie that strips out the hardcore, replacing it with musical numbers suggestive of the acts taking place. The plot and dialogue that remain are, to say the least, flaccid. Debbie Benton, typical of all-American teens, is "saving herself for marriage" and dreaming of becoming a football cheerleader. Accepted for the Texas Cowgirls squad, she has only two weeks to earn the fare to Dallas. An after-school job paying $2.90 an hour won't cover it, and her boss suggests other ways in which to serve him. Each time, she sings, she is "Another Ten Dollars Closer to Dallas." Her girlfriends join in and their company, Teen Services, has no difficulty finding men willing to pay for services rendered. The songs, by Andrew Sherman, are bright and peppy, with one or two nice ballads such as "Small Town Girl" and "God Must Love a Fool" that would be worthy of a real musical. For the most part, though, they are there to serve as a musical pointers to the sex content - ditties such as "The Dildo Rag," performed by the proprietor of a candle shop (a Mr. Hardwick, of course) and "Dallas I'm Coming," as poignant a song about being deflowered as you've ever heard.

No one under 18 will be admitted.

Read a Review!

A Picasso
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

1941: Picasso has been summoned from his favorite Paris cafe by German occupation forces for interrogation.

Read a Review!

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $44, $39, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Saturday, June 9, 2007

In the Blind Spot of a War: Images from the West Bank by photographer Stephen Shaner
The Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Stephen Shaner, a Skaneateles native and former newspaper photojournalist, is currently working on a long-term documentary project in Israel and the Palestinian Territories which he began in 2002. The black-and-white photographs on display highlight Shaner's ongoing exploration of rural Palestinian villages existing in close proximity to Jewish settlements and outposts in the southern West Bank. Largely ignored in the mainstream media, these tiny communities are on the verge of extinction due to land confiscation, shifting borders, violence, and economic constraints.

Art for the Soul
Delavan Art Gallery

Price: Free
Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibit features acrylic paintings by Hope Irvine, photography by Richard Schultz, and watercolor paintings by members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group.

Over the years, Hope Irvine, Ph.D. has become an accomplished painter as well as an innovative educator and community leader. Delavan Art Gallery is pleased to exhibit Dr. Irvine's sedimentary landscape acrylic paintings. "My paintings result from confrontations with vistas, especially in the American Southwest, Alaska and Iceland," Dr. Irvine explains in her artist statement. Since 1982, Dr. Irvine has held the position of Chair of the Department of Art Education while maintaining dual tenure and full professorships in both the College of Visual & Performing Arts and the School of Education at Syracuse University. Her commitment to the arts and education of others was rewarded by the Manhattan Borough President on June 22, 1982 when he declared the date "Hope Irvine Day."

Richard Schultz's photography ranges in subject from the commonplace to the absurd. Schultz writes in his artist statement, "It's a wild and wacky world that we encounter every day. Photography has been one way for me to express my reactions to the visceral stimuli of daily life." The photographer is Vice President of the David B. Schultz Insurance Agency and a proud native of Syracuse, NY. The majority of the photographs in this exhibit were shot between 2004 and 2007 and are shown exactly as they were when the artist came across the scene.

Also in this exhibition are watercolor paintings by 12 members of the Art and Soul Watercolor Group of Onondaga County: Sharon Daniels-Duerr, Pam Dischinger, Sharon H. Gibbons, Bonnie Goetzke, Rita Keller, Loie Mechetti, Geraldine Meday, Joanne Neff, Virginia Raner, Nancy Shampine, Jan Waters and Kathryn Wehrung. The Art and Soul Watercolor Group is a collective of artists who meet weekly to discuss, share and study art together, using each other as inspiration and encouragement in the arts. The group supports Vera House, the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Mexico and Ophelia's Place along with other notable causes.

Tom Mazzullo Drawings
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Suggested donation, $5, adults
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Tom Mazzullo is quietly turning the age-old idea of still-life upside down. In Tom Mazzullo Drawings, fruits and vegetables no longer rest among plentiful pre-arranged settings atop tablecloths dressed with lacey doilies and wrinkles that fall gracefully to the floor. There are no half-filled water glasses for light to dance in or mirrored reflections to play tricks on the eye.

The objects are meticulously drawn to scale, an invitation to move in for a closer look. The delicate, silverpoint lines become more apparent, reflecting light as one's eye wanders fervently over the layered network of cross-hatching where every line counts. Mazzullo wants the viewer to "concentrate on one subject, one idea at a time." The artist feels he has succeeded when "a drawing's pale, perfect surface elicits a liveliness and presence greater than the simplicity of its construction."

Tom Mazzullo Drawings, which includes 20 silverpoint and four conté crayon drawings, is the artist's first solo museum exhibition.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

The Fathers' Project: Ellen Blalock
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A portrait of teen fathers and their children, told through photographs, video and audio presentations.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Aldo Tambellini: A Cultural History of Syracuse
ThINC

Price: Free
Company Gallery
110 W. Fayette St. (corner of Clinton), Syracuse

An exhibition of photographs taken by artist, avant-garde filmmaker and video pioneer, Aldo Tambellini. These photographs, taken in 1948 with a Kodak Box Camera, are among the first images he shot, when he was 18 years old. Tambellini documented the people and places of his early life in Syracuse, around Pine Street and East Genesee. These images depict the life and surroundings of the residents of the 15th Ward, a section of Syracuse of important historical significance. The 15th ward was originally a Jewish settlement. As the Jewish community started to establish itself in Syracuse, it moved up towards the South of East Genesee Street and many African Americans moved into the 15th ward.

In an effort to articulate the historical and contemporary relevance of these images, Lori Convington, a Syracuse based artist/activist and historian, will re-visit some of the locations in Tambellini's photographs to capture the contemporary locations and individuals. Along with engaging and informing text about about the individuals who once lived there and the area itself, Ms. Covington will connect a contemporary meaning for the viewer of Mr. Tambellini's historical photographs.

Networked Nature
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

"Networked Nature" uses innovative technology to combine art, science and politics. The group exhibition inventively explores the meaning and representation of "nature," from the perspective of networked culture. The featured works employ various scientific processes and locative media, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and robotics, and take the form of installations, video and sound art. Together, they make new contributions to the discourses of extant genres, such as sculpture, earth works and landscape imagery, while also demonstrating the scientific beauty and complexity of electronic and digital art.

"Networked Nature" was organized by Marisa Olson, Editor and Curator for Rhizome, a leading new media organization affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that uses new technologies in significant ways.

Balloon Festival

Price: $5 adults; $1 children; ages 5 and younger free
Jamesville Beach
Apulia Rd., Jamesville

6:00am: Balloon launch (weather permitting)
6:00 - 7:30pm: Balloon launch (weather permitting)

Main Stage Entertainment
1:15pm: Whiskey Mae
2:30pm: Los Blancos
4:00pm: Boys Like Girls
5:00pm: Under the Gun
6:15pm: Frostbit Blue
7:30pm: Candid

For more information, syracuseballoonfest.com.

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

12:00 pm -- Punani Cin Cin Band (Syracuse rock band)
12:40 pm -- Stella-Polonia Dance Group from Toronto
1:10 pm -- Stephanie & Her Honky Band from Buffalo
2:00 pm -- Little Poland Dance Ensemble, from Utica
3:00 pm -- Stephanie & Her Honky Band
4:00 pm -- The Tatry Polish Folklore Ensemble from Montreal
5:00 pm -- Stephanie & Her Honky Band from Buffalo
6:00 pm -- Lechowia Toronto's Polish Canadian Dance Company, from Toronto
7:00 pm -- Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push and Tatry Polish Folklore Ensemble
8:00 pm -- Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push and Pole of the Year presentation
9:00 pm -- Lennty Gomulka & Chicago Push and Lechowia Polish Canadian Dance Company
10:00 pm -- Lennty Gomulka & Chicago Push

Greek Cultural Festival

Price: Free
St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church
325 Waring Rd., Syracuse

1:00pm-2:00pm: Byzantine Music lecture
1:00pm: Children's Dance Group
1:30pm: Church Tour
2:00pm-3:00pm: Touch of Culture lecture
3:00pm-4:00pm: Touring Greece lecture
3:00pm: Children's Dance Group
3:30pm: Church Tour
4:00pm-5:00pm: Greek Cuisine lecture
5:00pm-6:00pm: The Art of the Dance lecture
5:00pm: Children's Dance Group
6:00pm: St. Sophia Dance Group
6:30pm: Church Tour
7:30pm: St. Sophia Dance Group
8:00pm: Church Tour

A Soiree with Peter and Kathleen Van De Graaff
WCNY

Price: $20 non-members
Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College
Syracuse University, Syracuse

For more information, phone 315-453-2424.

**POSTPONED -- Maureen McGovern in Concert with the Spirit of Syracuse Chorus
Spirit of Syracuse Chorus
Nancy Field, conductor

Price: $60 limited reserved seating; $30-$55 general admission ($5 student/senior discount)
Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Tickets are available through the OnCenter Box Office, by calling 315-435-2121, or through TicketMaster at 315-472-0700 or www.ticketmaster.com.

The Little Mermaid
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

Price: $5
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Interactive adaption of the children's favorite.

Miss Nelson is Missing
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Miss Nelson's class is the worst behaved in the whole school. Spitballs flying across the room, paper airplanes sailing every which way and uncontrollable children send the gentle, long-suffering teacher, Miss Nelson, over the edge. But the students of Room 207 are in for a surprise when Miss Nelson turns up missing and is replaced by the mean, mysterious Miss Viola Swamp, the scariest substitute teacher on the face of the earth. Miss Swamp assigns tons of homework and wields her ruler with dangerous authority. In desperation, the students set out to find their beloved Miss Nelson ... and they'll do whatever it takes to bring her back!

The Gifford Family Theatre proudly presents this witty, wacky musical adaptation of the award-winning children's favorites by Harry Allard and James Marshall. Originally commissioned and produced by BAPA's Imagination Stage, the adaptation by Joan Cushing (book, music and lyrics) was named the winner of the 2003 National Childrens Theatre Festival.

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $40, $36, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Miss Nelson is Missing
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Miss Nelson's class is the worst behaved in the whole school. Spitballs flying across the room, paper airplanes sailing every which way and uncontrollable children send the gentle, long-suffering teacher, Miss Nelson, over the edge. But the students of Room 207 are in for a surprise when Miss Nelson turns up missing and is replaced by the mean, mysterious Miss Viola Swamp, the scariest substitute teacher on the face of the earth. Miss Swamp assigns tons of homework and wields her ruler with dangerous authority. In desperation, the students set out to find their beloved Miss Nelson ... and they'll do whatever it takes to bring her back!

The Gifford Family Theatre proudly presents this witty, wacky musical adaptation of the award-winning children's favorites by Harry Allard and James Marshall. Originally commissioned and produced by BAPA's Imagination Stage, the adaptation by Joan Cushing (book, music and lyrics) was named the winner of the 2003 National Childrens Theatre Festival.

Death With Chocolate

Price: $15
Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Interactive murder mystery, featuring historical scenes where chocolate has played a role. Audience members will be able to sample a wide variety of chocolate treats.

For more information, phone 315-428-1864, ext. 312.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare---Abridged
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park

Price: $10
The Warehouse, Main Auditorium
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

All of Shakespeare's plays presented in 110 minutes.

Read a review!

Debbie Does Dallas, the Musical
Rarely Done Productions
Aubry Ludington, director

Price: $20
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

The fashion for transforming movies into stage musicals may well have hit rock bottom with Debbie Does Dallas, The Musical, an adaptation of the '70s pornographic movie. Calling it a musical is going a bit far. It is closer to an extended revue skit, a scrappy, smutty spoof of a porn movie that strips out the hardcore, replacing it with musical numbers suggestive of the acts taking place. The plot and dialogue that remain are, to say the least, flaccid. Debbie Benton, typical of all-American teens, is "saving herself for marriage" and dreaming of becoming a football cheerleader. Accepted for the Texas Cowgirls squad, she has only two weeks to earn the fare to Dallas. An after-school job paying $2.90 an hour won't cover it, and her boss suggests other ways in which to serve him. Each time, she sings, she is "Another Ten Dollars Closer to Dallas." Her girlfriends join in and their company, Teen Services, has no difficulty finding men willing to pay for services rendered. The songs, by Andrew Sherman, are bright and peppy, with one or two nice ballads such as "Small Town Girl" and "God Must Love a Fool" that would be worthy of a real musical. For the most part, though, they are there to serve as a musical pointers to the sex content - ditties such as "The Dildo Rag," performed by the proprietor of a candle shop (a Mr. Hardwick, of course) and "Dallas I'm Coming," as poignant a song about being deflowered as you've ever heard.

No one under 18 will be admitted.

Read a Review!

A Picasso
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

1941: Picasso has been summoned from his favorite Paris cafe by German occupation forces for interrogation.

Read a Review!

The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $44, $39, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

Read a Review!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Photographs by Ben Gest
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Gest's photographs depict people in moments of deep private thought. The figures appear emotionally removed from their environment as if withdrawing from a public self. The work focuses on the way who we are can change when we are in a group. Although the subjects are alone in the photographs, the presence of others is implied. The images depict people in the last moments of being in their own world before seeing people, or going somewhere where others will be around. These are the last breaths and the last seconds of personal time before the subjects put on a public face and adopt the persona that they use while in a group of people.

To create these images, Gest combines numerous photographs into seamless final compositions using digital technology. Each image may consist of twenty or more separate photographs taken from various vantage points. The visually surprising images direct the viewer in the construction of everyday narratives.

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Collector's Gene: Passion, Devotion and Learning uses a diverse selection of nearly 100 objects from the permanent collection to illustrate the collecting interests of Cloud Wampler, Colonel John Fox, Dr. Henry and Nancy Rosin, and Ruth Reeves. Henry Rosin says, "My collecting began as a child when I'd gather up the bottle caps under the stands at semi-professional baseball games in Brooklyn." He later turned his interests towards Japan where, as an Air Force flight surgeon, he accumulated a large group of Japanese sword fittings and hand colored photographs. The three other individuals profiled in the exhibition share similar experiences. Cloud Wampler, best known locally as the past Chairman of Carrier Corporation, was passionate about master prints, John Fox, stationed in Korea with the Army, insisted that the best way to learn about Korean culture was to go out and visit shopkeepers and merchants. Ruth Reeves went to India in 1956 on a Fulbright fellowship to study local brass casting techniques. She collected a large number of brass objects and a rare group of clay ceremonial sculptures. The university saw the educational potential in the collection and agreed to purchase her collection in 1963.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Defining Moments: American Masterworks from the Syracuse University Art Collection
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition illustrates the development of American Art from the middle of the 19th century and through the 20th century. The selection of paintings, prints and sculpture in this exhibit show how art in the U.S. progressed out of Eurocentric visual and cultural ideals to form a purely American aesthetic culture. Louis Comfort Tiffany married the French Art Nouveau style with the American ingenuity of the light bulb to design masterpieces such as the Murano Design Lamp (1893-95). During the 20th century, the U.S. became a major exponent of Modernism, with artists like Rico Lebrun and Yasuo Kuniyoshi leading the way. Lebrun's "Woman with Arms over Head" (1962-63) reflects his spontaneity and experimental philosophy, while the bright, acidic colors in Kuniyoshi's "Forbidden Fruit" (1950) exemplify the prevailing aesthetic current of the New York School shortly after World War II.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Women at Work: Members of the Art Students League of New York
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings from the University's permanent collection examines how Modernism and the formation of the Art Students League impacted the influx of women into the field and their development as professional and influential artists.

The selection of work begins with artists who were directly influenced by the 1913 Amory Show such as Peggy Bacon, Maria Wickey, and Isabel Bishop. The exhibition concludes with the advent of Abstract Expressionism, showing works by Jan Gelb, Minna Citron, Terry Haass, and Helen Frankenthaler. These works illustrate American art's stylistic evolution during the period. Early drawings like Harriet Frishmuth's "Study, reclining nude," reveal a classical, academic structure. This type of work gave way in the 1920s to the gritty and modern "realism" of Isabel Bishop's "Sleeping Man." After World War II, Abstract Expressionism began to take over, as seen in Minna
Citron's "Men Seldom Make Passes...," and later in the work of Helen Frankenthaler.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

Weekend and evening Galleries visitors can park in the Q4 (VIP) lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces aren't available the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Survivor's Art: Images of Hope & Healing
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Survivor's Art is an exhibition initiated by Vera House, a community organization created to assist families in crises related to domestic and sexual violence. As part of their project, The Art of Caring, Vera House brings together gifted artists and a caring community. The exhibition offers hope and healing and celebrates the joy of the arts in our lives.

Tom Mazzullo Drawings
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Suggested donation, $5, adults
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Tom Mazzullo is quietly turning the age-old idea of still-life upside down. In Tom Mazzullo Drawings, fruits and vegetables no longer rest among plentiful pre-arranged settings atop tablecloths dressed with lacey doilies and wrinkles that fall gracefully to the floor. There are no half-filled water glasses for light to dance in or mirrored reflections to play tricks on the eye.

The objects are meticulously drawn to scale, an invitation to move in for a closer look. The delicate, silverpoint lines become more apparent, reflecting light as one's eye wanders fervently over the layered network of cross-hatching where every line counts. Mazzullo wants the viewer to "concentrate on one subject, one idea at a time." The artist feels he has succeeded when "a drawing's pale, perfect surface elicits a liveliness and presence greater than the simplicity of its construction."

Tom Mazzullo Drawings, which includes 20 silverpoint and four conté crayon drawings, is the artist's first solo museum exhibition.

Balloon Festival

Price: $5 adults; $1 children; ages 5 and younger free
Jamesville Beach
Apulia Rd., Jamesville

6:00am: Balloon launch (weather permitting)
6:00 - 7:30pm: Balloon launch (weather permitting)

Main Stage Entertainment
1:15pm: Dave Hanlon's Cookbook
2:30pm: Cute Is What We Aim For
3:30pm: Joe Whiting Band
4:30pm: Kimberley Locke
5:30pm: Grupo Pagan

For more information, syracuseballoonfest.com.

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

12:00 pm -- Salt City Brass, Syracuse band
1:00 pm -- Lechowia, Toronto's Polish Canadian Dance Company
2:00 pm -- Salt City Brass
3:00 pm -- Lechowia
4:00 pm -- Miss Polonia Awards and Anya
5:00 pm -- Salt City Brass

Greek Cultural Festival

Price: Free
St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church
325 Waring Rd., Syracuse

12:30pm-1:30pm: Touch of Culture lecture
1:00pm: Church Tour
1:00pm: Children's Dance Group
1:30pm-2:30pm: Touring Greece lecture
2:30pm-3:30pm: The Art of the Dance lecture
3:00pm: Children's Dance Group

A Cavalcade of Popular Music
CNY Jazz Arts Foundation
Featuring Phil Klein, piano

Price: $10
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

One-man show highlighting the best in American song of the last 125 years.

Reservations are recommended -- phone 315-469-4675.

Schubert's Mass in G Major
The combined choirs of Fairmount Community Church and Bellevue Heights United Methodist Church
Nancy James, conductor

Price: Free
Bellevue Heights United Methodist Church
2112 S. Geddes St., Syracuse

The performance features Sandra Murphy, soprano; Thomas Sauve, tenor; and Jimi James, baritone; with members of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Reception to follow. For more information, phone 315-475-0011.

World Citizen Summer Solstice Concert
Syracuse Community Choir
Karen Mihalyi, conductor

Price: $10 - $25 sliding scale adults; free for children 12 and under
Erwin First United Methodist Church
920 Euclid Ave., Syracuse

The choir will sing songs that acknowledge and embrace our individual and collective connection to each other and the world as caretakers, guardians and activists. For more information, phone 315-428-8151.

A Picasso
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

1941: Picasso has been summoned from his favorite Paris cafe by German occupation forces for interrogation.

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The Unexpected Guest
Syracuse Stage
Robert Moss, director

Price: $40, $36, $22 (adults); $18 (teens); $15 (children)
Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A foggy night and a car runs off the road into a ditch. The driver gropes his way to a nearby house. He taps on the window. No answer. He enters the well-appointed study to find a man dead in a wheelchair. Nearby stands the dead man's wife, revolver in hand, and ready to confess to murder. Case open, but with Agatha Christie, it's far from shut. Great fun from the master of mystery herself.

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Kelly Kinsella Live!

Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

Liverpool native Kelly Kinsella performs her one-woman show as a preview to her "Kelly Kinsella Live! Under Broadway" which will be performed for seven days during The New York International Fringe Festival in Manhattan in August. She will perform monologues based on real-life characters she has worked with in her nine years as a dresser on Broadway. Excerpts from her hour-and-a-half show will make up this 30 minute performance.

Seating is limited. To reserve tickets, phone 315-695-2708.

Kelly Kinsella Live!

Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

Liverpool native Kelly Kinsella performs her one-woman show as a preview to her "Kelly Kinsella Live! Under Broadway" which will be performed for seven days during The New York International Fringe Festival in Manhattan in August. She will perform monologues based on real-life characters she has worked with in her nine years as a dresser on Broadway. Excerpts from her hour-and-a-half show will make up this 30 minute performance.

Seating is limited. To reserve tickets, phone 315-695-2708.