Friday, June 20, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

An artists' reception will be held from 6:00-10:00pm this evening and several of the artists will be on hand to discuss their work. Refreshments will be served and the Secret O' Life duo will be playing live beginning at 7:00pm.

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

Price: Free
Hospice of Central New York
990 Seventh North St., Liverpool

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not'?
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

The art featured in Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not?' includes art books, drawings, fabric art, film, illustration, installation art, intaglio prints, works in mixed media, paintings, photo etchings, photography, sculpture, and video art. The majority of artists represented come from the New York State area. The theme "whimsy" is inspired by its definition: 1. The quality of being quaint, odd, or playfully humorous, especially in an endearing way; 2. An idea that has no immediately obvious reason to exist. Since the gallery itself was created on a whim as a labor of love, it seemed appropriate for the theme of the exhibition to exemplify these characteristics.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Other Options
Redhouse

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

Other Options is a traveling and evolving exhibition which features artists' projects which re-interpret, alter and create infrastructure that affect their everyday lives. In an attempt to explore the nature of such flaws and contradictions in the nonprofit system such as the way these organizations are made to function in society, Other Options asks the question: How does the current matrix of specific regulations and compliances to which non-profit organizations are forced to adhere, affect the creative output, imagination, and flexibility of such organizations?

Other Options includes work by Forays (Montreal/New York City), Josh Greene (San Francisco, CA), Material Exchange (Chicago, IL), Mikey Merrill (Portland, OR), Phil Orr/Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, IL), ReTool (Pittsburgh, PA), and Joanna Spitzner (Syracuse, NY).

Opening Reception: H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Opening reception:

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

4:00 pm: Eddie Forman Orchestra
5:00 pm: Fritz's Polka Band
6:00 pm: Eddie Forman Orchestra
7:00 pm: Fritz's Polka Band
8:00 pm: Eddie Forman Orchestra
9:00 pm: Fritz's Polka Band

For more information, go to polishscholarship.com.

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

Enslaved Labor & The U.S. Capitol
Community Folk Art Center
Featuring Felicia Bell

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The Community Folk Art Center is honored to host guest speaker Felicia Bell, Director of Education and Outreach at the United States Capitol Historical Society. Currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Howard University, Ms. Bell will present her work about the building trades and use of slave labor to build the United States Capitol.

Her research has attracted the attention of lawmakers, and in November 2007 she gave expert witness testimony before Congress about the use of black labor to build the U.S. Capitol. Her testimony, along with others, resulted in a bill naming the Capitol Visitors Center's great hall, "Emancipation Hall." President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in December 2007.

Ms. Bell was inspired to do research and to create the Society's traveling exhibit, "From Freedom's Shadow: African Americans and the United States Capitol," after taking a guided tour of the Capitol where the contributions of African Americans was scarcely a subject of discussion. The exhibit examined the black experience at the Capitol from construction of the building to the experiences of current African American Members of Congress.

Before moving to Washington, DC, Ms. Bell was the Director of Education and Programs at the Coastal Heritage Society in Savannah, GA. She graduated from Savannah State University, the oldest public university in Georgia for African Americans, in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in history. She earned a master's degree in historic preservation in 2002 from Savannah College of Art and Design, which has been recognized as one of the nation's leading institutions in historic preservation.

Ms. Bell's presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and light reception. Bring a friend and join in the conversation.

The Strawbs: The Electric Tour
Redhouse

Price: $25 general admission
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

One of the better British progressive bands of the early '70s, the Strawbs differed from their more successful compatriots principally because their sound originated in English folk music, rather than rock. Founded in 1967 as a bluegrass-based trio called the Strawberry Hill Boys by singer/guitarist Dave Cousins, the group at that time consisted of Cousins, guitarist/singer Tony Hooper, and mandolinist Arthur Phillips, who was replaced in 1968 by Ron Chesterman on bass. In 1969, the Strawbs were signed to A&M Records, and cut their first album, the acoustic-textured "Strawbs," that same year.

The live "Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios" (1970) sold well, and was followed up the next year with "From the Witchwood." In 1971, Wakeman left the Strawbs in order to join Yes. The Strawbs' 1973 album, "Bursting at the Seams," featured two Top Ten U.K. hits, "Lay Down" and "Part of the Union," and one album track, "Down by the Sea," racked up substantial airplay on American FM radio.

Favorable critical response from the groups performance at the 1983 Cambridge Folk Festival led to a tour in the mid 1980s. The Strawbs followed this up with two new studio albums released in Canada. In 1993, they released their own retrospective concert album Greatest Hits Live!, which summed up many of the high points of their history.

Pride - A Deeper Love
Syracuse Gay and Lesbian Chorus
Shawn DeVito, conductor

Price: $15 in advance; $18 at the door
First Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse
109 Waring Rd. (at the corner of Nottingham Rd.), Dewitt

The evening's event will include a post-concert reception and door prize giveaway.

Tickets can be purchased at the Lavender Inkwell Bookshoppe, or reserved online at SGLCtickets@twcny.rr.com.

Father's Day
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors/students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Father's Day, written and directed by Jackie Warren Moore, is a play about the lives of black men as fathers. It encompasses the joys and the drama, pain and sorrows of being a black father in today's world. It is a story of men who grew up with fathers and those without the influence of a father in their lives. It is a complex weaving of the responsibility and vulnerability of parenthood.

Read a review!

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Plaza Suite
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Hilarity abounds in Neil Simon's portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before and was yesterday the anniversary, or is it today? This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. He calls a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little sexual diversion. Over the years she has idolized him from afar and is now more than the match he bargained for. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her or as mamma yells, "I want you to come out of that bathroom and get married!"

Read a review!

Bath House: The Musical!
Rarely Done Productions
Dan Tursi, director

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

Four men, four doors, four bath towels -- and lots of bawdy music! Need we say more? Mature audiences.

Read a Review!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Making Garden Art: Artist Demo with Liz and Rich Micho
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Liz and Rich Micho will demonstrate their unique method of creating stained glass garden ornaments that add color and art to your garden all year long.

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

12:00 pm: Salt City Brass Band
1:00 pm: Ashley Cox (SAMMY-Award winner)
2:00 pm: Salt City Brass Band
3:00 pm: Swarni (Polish Song and Dance Ensemble from Toronto)
4:00 pm: Salt City Brass Band
5:00 pm: Tatry Polish Folklore Ensemble (from Montreal)
6:10 pm: Mickey Vendetti and the Goodtime Band
7:00 pm: Shelly and the Barndogs (rock-n-roll rhythm and harmony)
8:00 pm: Tatry and Swarni
9:00 pm: Shelly and the Barndogs (rock-n-roll rhythm and harmony)

For more information, go to polishscholarship.com.

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

The Forgotten Ones: Enslaved: Children in the Caribbean
Community Folk Art Center
Featuring Dr. Sheila Aird

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The Community Folk Art Center is honored to host guest speaker Dr. Sheila Aird, Assistant Professor and Academic Area Coordinator of Global Studies at SUNY's Empire State College.

Dr. Aird's work "The Forgotten Ones: Enslaved Children in the Caribbean", fully examines the lives of the youngest victims of the trade in human cargo and explores both the physical and psychological ramifications of their enslavement. Although "The Forgotten Ones" sheds light on the lives of children in the Caribbean, it is the story of all enslaved children regardless of geographical location whose voices have been minimized in historical discourse.

Dr. Aird received her Ph.D. in Latin and Caribbean History and M.A. in History from Howard University. Prior to joining Empire State College, Dr. Aird was an adjunct Professor in the African American Studies Department at Syracuse University. Dr. Aird holds a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Anthropology with a focus on Historical Archeology from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

She has been involved in several historical archaeological projects in St. John Virgin Islands and is currently involved with a project that centers on the Harriet Tubman House in Auburn, NY. Additionally, she worked on an awareness program in Syracuse titled "Save the Faces." The citywide conservation and preservation effort centered on clay faces that had been sculpted on the basement walls of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, an abolitionist Underground Railroad site.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and light reception. Bring a friend and join in the conversation.

Pride - A Deeper Love
Syracuse Gay and Lesbian Chorus
Shawn DeVito, conductor

Price: $15 in advance; $18 at the door
First Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse
109 Waring Rd. (at the corner of Nottingham Rd.), Dewitt

The evening's event will include a post-concert reception and door prize giveaway.

Tickets can be purchased at the Lavender Inkwell Bookshoppe, or reserved online at SGLCtickets@twcny.rr.com.

Alice in Wonderland
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

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

Interactive family performance.

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Father's Day
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors/students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Father's Day, written and directed by Jackie Warren Moore, is a play about the lives of black men as fathers. It encompasses the joys and the drama, pain and sorrows of being a black father in today's world. It is a story of men who grew up with fathers and those without the influence of a father in their lives. It is a complex weaving of the responsibility and vulnerability of parenthood.

Read a review!

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Plaza Suite
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Hilarity abounds in Neil Simon's portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before and was yesterday the anniversary, or is it today? This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. He calls a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little sexual diversion. Over the years she has idolized him from afar and is now more than the match he bargained for. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her or as mamma yells, "I want you to come out of that bathroom and get married!"

Read a review!

Bath House: The Musical!
Rarely Done Productions
Dan Tursi, director

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

Four men, four doors, four bath towels -- and lots of bawdy music! Need we say more? Mature audiences.

Read a Review!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

12:00 pm: Tatry Polish Folklore Ensemble (from Montreal)
1:00 pm: Figiel Brothers Band (from Albany)
3:00 pm: Figiel Brothers Band
4:00 pm: Anya (from Connecticut)
5:00 pm: Figiel Brothers Band

For more information, go to polishscholarship.com.

Gordon Matta-Clark's documentary Food
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Food documents the legendary SoHo restaurant and artists' cooperative, which opened in 1971. Owned and operated by Caroline Goodden, Food was designed and built largely by Matta-Clark, who also organized art events and performances there. As a social space, meeting-ground and ongoing project for the emergent artists' community, Food was a landmark in the history and mythology of SoHo in the 1970s. (Gordon Matta-Clark, 1972, 43 minutes, b&w)

This film will be shown in conjunction with the gallery exhibit Other Options. Other Options includes work by Forays (Montreal/New York City), Josh Greene (San Francisco), Material Exchange (Chicago, IL), Mikey Merrill (Portland, OR), Phil Orr/Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, IL), ReTool (Pittsburgh, PA) and Joanna Spitzner (Syracuse, NY).

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion at 3:00pm.

Plaza Suite
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Hilarity abounds in Neil Simon's portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before and was yesterday the anniversary, or is it today? This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. He calls a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little sexual diversion. Over the years she has idolized him from afar and is now more than the match he bargained for. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her or as mamma yells, "I want you to come out of that bathroom and get married!"

Read a review!

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Father's Day
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors/students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Father's Day, written and directed by Jackie Warren Moore, is a play about the lives of black men as fathers. It encompasses the joys and the drama, pain and sorrows of being a black father in today's world. It is a story of men who grew up with fathers and those without the influence of a father in their lives. It is a complex weaving of the responsibility and vulnerability of parenthood.

Read a review!

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Monday, June 23, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

Price: Free
Hospice of Central New York
990 Seventh North St., Liverpool

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Stroke
Liverpool is the Place

Price: Free
Johnson Park
Corner of Vine and Oswego Streets, Liverpool

Syracuse's Sammy-winning soul band featuring bassist-singer Isreal Hagan. Rain Date: Tues., June 24.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

Price: Free
Hospice of Central New York
990 Seventh North St., Liverpool

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

The Truth: The Story of Mark Doyle and Joe Whiting
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A 40-year tale of rock excess, perseverance, and majestic friendship described by those who lived it.

The Truth is a biopic about the lives of Central New York rock and roll icons Mark Doyle and Joe Whiting. It explores the notions of success and failure in the music business, spanning forty years of musical partnership. Named for their 2007 album of the same title, The Truth demonstrates the capacity of true friendship. Featuring live concert footage from Oct. 20, 2007 at Redhouse.

The DVD will be for sale for the first time to the public at this event.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Mark Doyle and Joe Whiting at 8:00pm.

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

Price: Free
Hospice of Central New York
990 Seventh North St., Liverpool

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not'?
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

The art featured in Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not?' includes art books, drawings, fabric art, film, illustration, installation art, intaglio prints, works in mixed media, paintings, photo etchings, photography, sculpture, and video art. The majority of artists represented come from the New York State area. The theme "whimsy" is inspired by its definition: 1. The quality of being quaint, odd, or playfully humorous, especially in an endearing way; 2. An idea that has no immediately obvious reason to exist. Since the gallery itself was created on a whim as a labor of love, it seemed appropriate for the theme of the exhibition to exemplify these characteristics.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Other Options
Redhouse

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

Other Options is a traveling and evolving exhibition which features artists' projects which re-interpret, alter and create infrastructure that affect their everyday lives. In an attempt to explore the nature of such flaws and contradictions in the nonprofit system such as the way these organizations are made to function in society, Other Options asks the question: How does the current matrix of specific regulations and compliances to which non-profit organizations are forced to adhere, affect the creative output, imagination, and flexibility of such organizations?

Other Options includes work by Forays (Montreal/New York City), Josh Greene (San Francisco, CA), Material Exchange (Chicago, IL), Mikey Merrill (Portland, OR), Phil Orr/Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, IL), ReTool (Pittsburgh, PA), and Joanna Spitzner (Syracuse, NY).

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

Film Screening #2: Skritek
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

A Czech tragicomedy full of slapstick and vignettes, and even an unexpected shootout. A family of villagers moves up in the world -- to the county seat. Dad works as a butcher at a meatpacking plant, mom is a checker at a supermarket. The daughter is at odds with her homeroom teacher, while the son -- a vegetarian, anarchist, and avid pothead -- is apprenticing as a butcher to please his father. The kid's in hot water with both his forewoman and the police. But dad isn't much of an example, letting himself be tempted by the charms of a lovely young butcher. However much mom tries -- visiting the beauty parlor, her psychologist, or even the confessional -- her husband shows his interest by moving out. Mom plots revenge. And somehow an imp gets mixed up in it all.

Film screenings curated by John Craddock, Assistant Director of the Syracuse International Film Festival.

Art in the Afternoon
Everson Museum of Art

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

Curator of Education & Public Programs, Pam McLaughlin, will lead a lively group discussion about artwork in The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial. "What's going on?" "What do you see?" We will share our own interpretations by engaging with the work and each other to find meaning. There are no wrong answers!

Arts & Soul Cafe: Stephen Wise

Price: $20
Ohm Lounge
314 S. Franklin St., Armory Square, Syracuse

Syracuse native Stephen Weiss, who plays sax, flute, keyboards, Aboriginal didgeridoos, conch shells, and Native/African drums, was featured on the Stevie Wonder albums "Characters" and "Jungle Fever."

Elephant Shoes
Liverpool is the Place

Price: Free
Johnson Park
Corner of Vine and Oswego Streets, Liverpool

Two Liverpool-based guitarists, Joe "Biz" Bisignano and John Lerner, playing classic rock. Rain Date: Thurs., June 26.

Deutcher Gesangverein

Price: Free
Betts Branch Library
4862 S. Salina St., Syraucse

A cappella male chorus performs music in German.

For more information, phone 315-435-1940.

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

Price: Free
Hospice of Central New York
990 Seventh North St., Liverpool

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not'?
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

The art featured in Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not?' includes art books, drawings, fabric art, film, illustration, installation art, intaglio prints, works in mixed media, paintings, photo etchings, photography, sculpture, and video art. The majority of artists represented come from the New York State area. The theme "whimsy" is inspired by its definition: 1. The quality of being quaint, odd, or playfully humorous, especially in an endearing way; 2. An idea that has no immediately obvious reason to exist. Since the gallery itself was created on a whim as a labor of love, it seemed appropriate for the theme of the exhibition to exemplify these characteristics.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Other Options
Redhouse

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

Other Options is a traveling and evolving exhibition which features artists' projects which re-interpret, alter and create infrastructure that affect their everyday lives. In an attempt to explore the nature of such flaws and contradictions in the nonprofit system such as the way these organizations are made to function in society, Other Options asks the question: How does the current matrix of specific regulations and compliances to which non-profit organizations are forced to adhere, affect the creative output, imagination, and flexibility of such organizations?

Other Options includes work by Forays (Montreal/New York City), Josh Greene (San Francisco, CA), Material Exchange (Chicago, IL), Mikey Merrill (Portland, OR), Phil Orr/Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, IL), ReTool (Pittsburgh, PA), and Joanna Spitzner (Syracuse, NY).

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

The Film Class
Community Folk Art Center

Price: $5 regular; $3 students
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Centuries after they were brought to Palestine as slaves, black Bedouins still face discrimination. In 2004 filmmaker Uri Rosenwaks traveled to Rahat, a Bedouin town in Israel's Negev Desert, to teach a group of Black Bedouin women a class in filmmaking.

Afflicted with pessimism, unemployment, poverty and violence, Rahat is partially populated by Black Bedouins who were brought to the Middle East as slaves. Kidnapped in Africa by slave traders, they were auctioned off in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Zanzibar, and until 50 years ago, Black Bedouins were enslaved by the White ones.

When the Israeli film director first started work with the group, the women never mentioned the issue. Only after about 18 months of working and making short films together, did he suggest that they make a film telling the history of the Black Bedouins. Suddenly, a small and modest course in filmmaking became a forum for the airing of the unspoken taboos and the history of an entire society.

(53 minutes, English/Arabic)

Film Screening: The Synchronized Dance of Peanuts and Life as a Dog
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

Death Takes a Bow
Acme Mystery Company

Price: $35.95 plus tax and gratuities (includes meal and show)
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Interactive mystery dinner theater.

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Friday, June 27, 2008

WRAP (World Reclamation Art Project)
International Fiber Collaborative

Price: Free
2301 E. Colvin St.
(corner of Nottingham), Syracuse

Artist Jennifer Marsh and participants from all over the world have crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched, or collaged 3-foot square fiber panels that express concern about the world's extreme dependency on oil. The panels have been sewn together to completely cover an abandoned gas station.

For more information, visit internationalfibercollaborative.com.

The Form & Color Show
Orange Line Gallery

Price: Free
Coffee Pavilion
133 E. Water St., Syracuse

The Form & Color Show can look at objects simply on the surface; like how beautifully light reflects off a piece of glass in a window, making the colors underneath melt into one another. Or one can dive into the deeper meaning of shapes and what they represent to us and how they make us feel; perhaps, where we feel we belong at any given moment. The work making up this show ranges from the simple to the abstract, in style and thought. This body of work comes from a variety of sources, each person with a different history and past that each tell a different story. Or maybe they just enjoy shapes and colors.

New featured artists include
Jan Chard: glass
Jim Reed: oil on canvas
Debbie Trichilo: photography

Returning artists with fresh work include
Meg Gentile: oil/acrylic/wax on canvas
Mick Mather: digital prints
David McKenney: photography
Father Andrew Szebenyi: digital paintings
Melissa Tiffany: collage
Spencer Baker: photography

Invasion! The Culture of Fear in America
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This student-curated exhibition illustrates the concept of fear in the United States. The students, members of the Renee Crown University Honors Program taking the Spring 2008 course American Fear, felt that the theme of "invasion" underlies many of our historical anxieties relating to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other issues. The idea that different people, aliens or even epidemics, like the AIDS virus during the 1980s, might infiltrate society and bring about sweeping change has been cause for extreme fear in the American experience. The exhibition raises questions of identity, and the class hopes that visitors will "understand their differences and be less discriminating in their actions."

Among the exhibited works that illuminate the roots of our culture of fear are a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan," Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem Witch trials, the literature of the Red Scare, a variety of pulp science fiction magazines and Werner Pfeiffer's sculptural tribute to the victims of 9/11 "Out of the Sky."

Crystal LaPoint: PhotoImpressions
Westcott Community Center

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

The digital artwork of Crystal LaPoint, PhotoImpressions, embraces a dramatic range of styles. Crystal digitally redefines her own original photographic images into unique fine art prints, produced with museum-quality archival materials. Her work has been exhibited at the Delavan Art Gallery, OCPL at the Galleries, the Technology Garden, Everson Museum, Ann Felton Multicultural Center, and Hospice of CNY, and has earned awards at the New York State Fair and from the CNY Art Guild. A native of Pennsylvania, Crystal is a long time resident of Central New York. She attended Syracuse University, where she earned advanced degrees in both Piano Performance and Music Theory and Composition. She is a self-taught artist, a professional pianist, published composer and poet, and a mother of three children. Crystal is the PR/Communications Manager for the Central New York Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Artist's Statement: Serendipity -- that sums up my experience as a visual artist. I discovered the process of digitally manipulating photographic images as a blissful accident, and it has become my creative playground. The forgiving nature of the medium allows for endless trial and error. But it also invites fearless exploration and experimentation. My creative intuition grows in direct proportion to my fluency with this virtual toolbox, and I now approach each new photograph imagining a host of possibilities for its evolution. But it is always the unexpected twist, the daring leap, the "let's give this a whirl and see how it turns out!" that ultimately results in my best work. My current exhibit balances some quiet, austere pieces with vivid virtual textures.

The Whipping Post: Photos by Brantley Carroll
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Blending historical images and engravings or text, Brantley Carroll's exhibition explores the legacy of The Middle Passage and the American Plantation System of Slavery in the United States. The exhibition engages the viewer in a visual tête-à-tête with colonial slavery and starkly captures the instrumentation of abuses that slaves endured. Each photograph draws you in to witness and read the digitally interwoven images and text taken from antebellum slave auctions, warrants, historical maps and documents.

In a piece entitled Thomas Jefferson's Slave Sally Hemmings, a young woman looks out beyond the words and signatures pearled together to constitute the foundation of a country. This piece holds a special significance to the artist, amongst commonly recognized filigree marks -- Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin -- is a Charles Carroll, the artist's great, great, great-grandfather. "My father, Walter Carroll was reportedly very ashamed when as a young man he learned that he was the descendant of Charles Carroll. Carroll was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. An Irish Catholic immigrant, Carroll became a wealthy landowner in Maryland who founded the first industrial Iron Works in Baltimore and owned a large tobacco plantation. He owned one thousand slaves."

Artist Brantley Carroll contends, "that a nation, like an individual, must face its sins and make amends if it is to move toward greatness and enlightenment. It is the goal of my work to more fully understand and educate people about what the sins and realities of slavery and more importantly how its legacy pervades today."

Blake Fitch: The Expectations of Adolescence
Light Work Gallery

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

Blake Fitch's photographs capture her sister, cousin, and friends as they have grown from children to young adults. Fitch has been able to draw on the autobiographical nature of photography by creating candid and intimate images of her family.

H2ONY
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Juried exhibition of water themed works by New York State artists.

Exploring History With Art: Work!
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The third art exhibition in the series features occupations and places of work. Appropriately titled "Occupations & Places of Work," the exhibition showcases paintings illustrating different occupations and places of work in Onondaga County through the years.

Inside the exhibit gallery you'll see Onondaga Pottery, Comfort Tyler's Tavern, Good Shepherd Hospital, salt towers, and several others depicting the diverse places to work in Onondaga County from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries.

Works of Sandra Philips and Helen Woodmansee
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Exhibit features artists Sandra Philips, decorative painting and portraits, and Helen Woodmansee, paintings, etchings and monoprints.

Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not'?
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

The art featured in Whimsy: Celebrating the Power of 'Why Not?' includes art books, drawings, fabric art, film, illustration, installation art, intaglio prints, works in mixed media, paintings, photo etchings, photography, sculpture, and video art. The majority of artists represented come from the New York State area. The theme "whimsy" is inspired by its definition: 1. The quality of being quaint, odd, or playfully humorous, especially in an endearing way; 2. An idea that has no immediately obvious reason to exist. Since the gallery itself was created on a whim as a labor of love, it seemed appropriate for the theme of the exhibition to exemplify these characteristics.

Visual Arts Showcase #64: Open Call
CNY Arts

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

Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition
Everson Museum of Art

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

The Syracuse Ceramic Guild: 2008 Juried Exhibition presents new functional and non-functional work in clay involving a variety of clay bodies, construction, glazing and firing techniques, all of which were selected by Jo Buffalo, a local ceramic artist who has been a professor of art at Cazenovia College for 23 years.

The Object and Beyond: 2008 Everson Biennial
Everson Museum of Art

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

In celebration of the 2008 Everson Biennial the Everson has devoted the entire second floor of the Museum to the display of current artwork created by artists from the Central New York region. This year's call for entries elicited a strong response from artists of all ages and diverse practices. More than 266 artists residing in the Central New York region submitted more than 1,000 works for consideration by juror Edward Winkleman. Winkleman is an independent curator and director of Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York who specializes in contemporary art. He selected works by 55 artists for the exhibition which will occupy all four galleries on the second floor of the Museum.

Artists represented in the exhibition are diverse in their practices as well as their techniques, materials, and presentation. Winkleman's eye was on the look out for fine quality and craftsmanship and his goal was to showcase the broad spectrum of artwork being produced in the Central New York community from traditional to conceptual art.

Other Options
Redhouse

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

Other Options is a traveling and evolving exhibition which features artists' projects which re-interpret, alter and create infrastructure that affect their everyday lives. In an attempt to explore the nature of such flaws and contradictions in the nonprofit system such as the way these organizations are made to function in society, Other Options asks the question: How does the current matrix of specific regulations and compliances to which non-profit organizations are forced to adhere, affect the creative output, imagination, and flexibility of such organizations?

Other Options includes work by Forays (Montreal/New York City), Josh Greene (San Francisco, CA), Material Exchange (Chicago, IL), Mikey Merrill (Portland, OR), Phil Orr/Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, IL), ReTool (Pittsburgh, PA), and Joanna Spitzner (Syracuse, NY).

Unchained Memories: Readings from Slave Narratives
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

In the early 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project mounted a project to transcribe the memories of former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black performers sharing the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. Directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complement the words with vivid images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935.

Unchained Memories will be screening in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery throughout The Whipping Post exhibition. Come sit for a moment with 'elders' and listen to this stunning collection of slave stories.

Paul V. Moore High School Vocal Jazz Ensemble
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

Henninger High School Jazz Ensemble
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Scholastic Stage
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Oswego High School Jazz Ensemble
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

Syracuse Parks & Recreation Stan Colella All-Star Band
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Scholastic Stage
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Oz Noy Trio
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

Liverpool High School Jazz Ensemble
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Scholastic Stage
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The West Coast/East Coast Dream Band (Creatchy & The Cats)
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

YCCA Jazz Ensemble (Rome, NY)
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Scholastic Stage
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Ivan Lins Band
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

OCC Jazz Band
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Scholastic Stage
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 2008
Syracuse Jazz Fest

Price: Free
Jazz Fest Main Stage (Jamesville Beach)
Jamesville Beach Park, Jamesville

Menopause The Musical
Syracuse Stage

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Menopause The Musical brings together four women (a Power Woman, Earth Mother, Soap Star and an Iowa Housewife) at a NYC Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, who have nothing in common but a black lace bra and hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, plastic surgery and more! Menopause The Musical joyfully parodies 25 of the top "baby boomer" songs of the '60s and '70s celebrating women who are or will be experiencing The Change.

Read a review!

Plaza Suite
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Hilarity abounds in Neil Simon's portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before and was yesterday the anniversary, or is it today? This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. He calls a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little sexual diversion. Over the years she has idolized him from afar and is now more than the match he bargained for. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her or as mamma yells, "I want you to come out of that bathroom and get married!"

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Italians of Comedy
Comma D Productions

Price: $20
Palace Theater
2384 James St., Syracuse

What happens when you take meatballs, sausage and some humor and throw it all together? Answer: The outlandishly funny Italians of Comedy.

Italians of Comedy kicked off in 2007 when it made its first appearance at an Italian place in Schenectady, only to go on to show at Rutgers College, and the Broadway Comedy Club in NYC. The show is now back and heading to Dan Frigolette's home town, Syracuse, where Dan has previously set the precedent with his November show, Make Me Laugh. This time Dan will be bringing the flavors of his Italian culture combined with the hilarity the big city has to offer to make Syracuse laugh a little harder.

Comedians on the show have been featured in Las Vegas, on Comedy Central, on CMT's Comedy Stage, and on National Lampoon Live.

The two-hour show is family-friendly.

For more information, phone 315-415-7323.