Tuesday, May 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Icons

Orange Line Gallery
106 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Artists include Father Andrew Szebenyi, digitally manipulated images; Meg Gentile, acrylic on canvas; Dustin Angell, photography; Sarah Reale, Sharpie portraits on canvas; Mick Mather, monotype, monotype with linocut, tempera with linocut, and watercolor; Eddie Colelli, photography; Kevin Lucas, acrylic on canvas; David McKenney, 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.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

Read a review!

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.

Works of Kathleen Schneider, Teresa Vitale, and Dee Ann VonHunke
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Works by artists Kathleen Schneider (watercolors), Teresa Vitale (painting) and Dee Ann VonHunke (jewelry)

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

Read a review!

Black & White & Deb All Over
May Memorial Unitarian Society

May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A photographic exhibit by Deborah Stearns.

Movin' Out
Broadway in Syracuse

Price: $62.50, $52.50, $35.50
Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Movin' Out brings 24 Billy Joel classics to electrifying new life as it tells the story of five life-long friends over two turbulent decades. It all adds up to on unforgettable Broadway musical. Five-time Grammy winner Joel and legendary director/choreographer Twyla Tharp have joined forces to create this spectacular new musical that Time Magazine declares "The #1 show of the year!" The New York calls Movin' Out "a shimmering portrait of an American generation. These tornado driven dancers and rock musicians propel the audience into delirious ovations."

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!

Wednesday, May 28, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Icons

Orange Line Gallery
106 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Artists include Father Andrew Szebenyi, digitally manipulated images; Meg Gentile, acrylic on canvas; Dustin Angell, photography; Sarah Reale, Sharpie portraits on canvas; Mick Mather, monotype, monotype with linocut, tempera with linocut, and watercolor; Eddie Colelli, photography; Kevin Lucas, acrylic on canvas; David McKenney, 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.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

Read a review!

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.

Bedtime Stories
Redhouse

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

Bedtime Stories began as an exhibition focusing on the indeterminate space of the bedroom as a site for innocence, play, sexuality, deviant behavior, convalescence and death.

Artists Derrick Adams, Yasser Aggour, and Anna Tsouhlarakis explore identity and race, but not in a direct way. Each of these artists' work is more complex, more subversive, difficult, and harder at times to pin down, but it gets the job done by exposing the underpinnings of the dominant culture.

Exhibit curated by Arjan Zazueta.

Works of Kathleen Schneider, Teresa Vitale, and Dee Ann VonHunke
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Works by artists Kathleen Schneider (watercolors), Teresa Vitale (painting) and Dee Ann VonHunke (jewelry)

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

Read a review!

Soring Gala: Creative Arts Academy Showcase

Price: Free
Nottingham High School
3100 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

School-wide arts showcase, featuring artwork, sculpture, photography, drama, African and South American drumming and dancing, vocal jazz, instrumental jazz, concert choir, concert band, chamber orchestra, and gospel choir.

Spring Instrumental Music Concert

Price: Free
Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School
815 Fay Rd., Geddes

Movin' Out
Broadway in Syracuse

Price: $62.50, $52.50, $35.50
Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Movin' Out brings 24 Billy Joel classics to electrifying new life as it tells the story of five life-long friends over two turbulent decades. It all adds up to on unforgettable Broadway musical. Five-time Grammy winner Joel and legendary director/choreographer Twyla Tharp have joined forces to create this spectacular new musical that Time Magazine declares "The #1 show of the year!" The New York calls Movin' Out "a shimmering portrait of an American generation. These tornado driven dancers and rock musicians propel the audience into delirious ovations."

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!

Thursday, May 29, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Icons

Orange Line Gallery
106 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Artists include Father Andrew Szebenyi, digitally manipulated images; Meg Gentile, acrylic on canvas; Dustin Angell, photography; Sarah Reale, Sharpie portraits on canvas; Mick Mather, monotype, monotype with linocut, tempera with linocut, and watercolor; Eddie Colelli, photography; Kevin Lucas, acrylic on canvas; David McKenney, 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.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

Read a review!

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.

Bedtime Stories
Redhouse

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

Bedtime Stories began as an exhibition focusing on the indeterminate space of the bedroom as a site for innocence, play, sexuality, deviant behavior, convalescence and death.

Artists Derrick Adams, Yasser Aggour, and Anna Tsouhlarakis explore identity and race, but not in a direct way. Each of these artists' work is more complex, more subversive, difficult, and harder at times to pin down, but it gets the job done by exposing the underpinnings of the dominant culture.

Exhibit curated by Arjan Zazueta.

Works of Kathleen Schneider, Teresa Vitale, and Dee Ann VonHunke
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Works by artists Kathleen Schneider (watercolors), Teresa Vitale (painting) and Dee Ann VonHunke (jewelry)

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

Read a review!

Black & White & Deb All Over
May Memorial Unitarian Society

May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A photographic exhibit by Deborah Stearns.

Spring Vocal Music Concert

Price: Free
Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School
815 Fay Rd., Geddes

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.

Movin' Out
Broadway in Syracuse

Price: $62.50, $52.50, $35.50
Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Movin' Out brings 24 Billy Joel classics to electrifying new life as it tells the story of five life-long friends over two turbulent decades. It all adds up to on unforgettable Broadway musical. Five-time Grammy winner Joel and legendary director/choreographer Twyla Tharp have joined forces to create this spectacular new musical that Time Magazine declares "The #1 show of the year!" The New York calls Movin' Out "a shimmering portrait of an American generation. These tornado driven dancers and rock musicians propel the audience into delirious ovations."

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!

Friday, May 30, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Icons

Orange Line Gallery
106 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Artists include Father Andrew Szebenyi, digitally manipulated images; Meg Gentile, acrylic on canvas; Dustin Angell, photography; Sarah Reale, Sharpie portraits on canvas; Mick Mather, monotype, monotype with linocut, tempera with linocut, and watercolor; Eddie Colelli, photography; Kevin Lucas, acrylic on canvas; David McKenney, 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.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

Read a review!

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.

Bedtime Stories
Redhouse

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

Bedtime Stories began as an exhibition focusing on the indeterminate space of the bedroom as a site for innocence, play, sexuality, deviant behavior, convalescence and death.

Artists Derrick Adams, Yasser Aggour, and Anna Tsouhlarakis explore identity and race, but not in a direct way. Each of these artists' work is more complex, more subversive, difficult, and harder at times to pin down, but it gets the job done by exposing the underpinnings of the dominant culture.

Exhibit curated by Arjan Zazueta.

Works of Kathleen Schneider, Teresa Vitale, and Dee Ann VonHunke
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Works by artists Kathleen Schneider (watercolors), Teresa Vitale (painting) and Dee Ann VonHunke (jewelry)

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

Read a review!

The Warehouse Gallery
Lone Wolf Recital Corps, with Bill Cole

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Terry Adkins' Lone Wolf Recital Corps will present a closing performance of improvisational jazz and blues in conjunction with the exhibit Songs of Hearth and Valor with special guest Bill Cole, the acclaimed American jazz musician, composer, and educator. Cole specializes in non-Western wind instruments, including the Ghanaian atenteben, Chinese suona, Korean hojok and piri, South Indian nagaswaram, North Indian shehnai, Tibetan trumpet, and Australian didjeridu.

Cole is the founder and leader of the Untempered Ensemble and has performed with Ornette Coleman, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Sam Rivers, James Blood Ulmer, and Fred Ho. He records for the Boxholder label. He served as professor of music at Amherst College from 1972 until 1974 and Dartmouth College from 1974 until his retirement in the 1990s. He currently teaches in the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University.

Everything Might Be Different
Featuring Gina Lamparella

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

Baldwinsville native Gina Lamparella has appeared in six Broadway shows (Les Miserables, Jane Eyre, Imaginary Friends, Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters, Fiddler on the Roof starring Alfred Molina and Rosie O'Donnell, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring John Lithgow), several TV shows, concerts, tours, solo cabaret acts and other live theater. Everything Might Be Different is her latest one-hour cabaret act featuring music from a variety of genres including musical theater, pop and jazz; and also some stories about life in show business.

For reservations or more information, contact ginalamp@gmail.com.

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 Night Live From Redhouse!
Redhouse

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Friday Night Live from Redhouse is an improvisational comedy show similar to the hit television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? The troupe of five seasoned actors will perform a series of games and scenarios based on audience suggestion and participation. Friday Night Live is the brainchild of Tim Mahar and Laura Austin, both products of Second City. The troupe includes the following wildly talented individuals: Emily Kronenberg, Mike Borden, Andy Friedson, and the show's host Glen Gomez Adams of TK99's Gomez & Dave Morning Show.

Mahar and Austin have trained and performed with Second City, which is hailed as the home of "the world's greatest comedy theatre." In addition to his ongoing work with Second City in Chicago, Mahar's career includes radio and television work. He performed with "off the cuff" in Syracuse and New York and later created his own show entitled Live Radio. Austin's credits span television and film work as well as regional theatre throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Saturday, May 31, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

Read a review!

Spring Thing Arts and Music Festival

Lipe Art Park
W. Fayette St. between Armory Square and Tipp Hill, Syracuse

The Gear Factory Collaborative and (R)Evolution Studio present The Syracuse Spring Thing Festival: Celebrating Spring with the Arts featuring live music, visual art, dance, food, and interactive workshops including button-making, a group mural, and clay-pot painting.

Music: The Blacklites, The Magnetic Pull, Jessy Chick, Tots, Jeff Jones, and others.

Visual Art: Pottery, paintings, clothing, jewelry, sculpture, graffiti, and more.

Workshops: Group mural, button making, clay pot painting, and planting.

Performance: Sideshow-style performances including belly dancing, human block head, and a bed of nails.

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.

Icons

Orange Line Gallery
106 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Artists include Father Andrew Szebenyi, digitally manipulated images; Meg Gentile, acrylic on canvas; Dustin Angell, photography; Sarah Reale, Sharpie portraits on canvas; Mick Mather, monotype, monotype with linocut, tempera with linocut, and watercolor; Eddie Colelli, photography; Kevin Lucas, acrylic on canvas; David McKenney, photography.

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

Read a review!

Alice in Wonderland
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

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

Interactive family performance.

Go, Dog, Go!
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

P. D. Eastman's classic children's book comes to life in a free-for-all of movement, color, and space. This is a rollicking riot of canine chicanery, like a pop-up book that comes to life -- and never stops.

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!

Go, Dog, Go!
Gifford Family Theatre

Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

P. D. Eastman's classic children's book comes to life in a free-for-all of movement, color, and space. This is a rollicking riot of canine chicanery, like a pop-up book that comes to life -- and never stops.

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!

Sunday, June 1, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

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.

Syracuse Wurlitzer
Featuring Don Thompson, theater organ

Price: $15 adults, $2 children
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

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!

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 2, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

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

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

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.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Syracuse Cinephile Society

Price: $3 non-members, $2.50 members
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939 movie starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, the misshapen bell ringer of Victor Hugo's novel. Maureen O'Hara plays Esmeralda, the young woman he rescues from the scaffold.

Liverpool Schools Music Festival
Liverpool is the Place

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

Rain date: June 3. To see if a concert is rained out, phone 315-457-3895.

Tuesday, June 3, 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.

Kewpie Karma/80
The Warehouse Gallery

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

What does a Kewpie doll have to offer the world? If anything has karma, why not a Kewpie doll?

Yoshiko Miki's work addresses issues of death and rebirth. The death of her mother three years ago caused Miki to search for answers as to why some people leave life at such a young age. She found that the only way to address this was to disregard the idea of life having an ending point and instead to view life as a continuation. Influenced by her Buddhist background, Miki wondered who her mother might have been re-born as: "A man? Or a woman?" and where she could be: "Here in America with me? Or back in Japan with my father and my little sister?"

In reincarnation, the karma of a person continues into the next life; no matter what form they are reborn. Miki depicts her mother's reincarnation through Kewpie dolls -- an iconic image of happiness and love, words that also describe her mother's approach to life. The subject of rebirth is reinforced by the infantile nature of the dolls and by their number. The 80 dolls signify the importance of the numbers 8 and 0 which represent endless life; when drawn out, there is no beginning or ending point for either number. Significantly, when the number 8 is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, it becomes a symbol for infinity. Kewpie Karma/80 deals with themes of death, rebirth and karma through an iconic medium.

Yoshiko Miki (1987) was born in Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan. At the age of 16 she moved to the United States and lived in Lancaster, PA and would remain there for a year before moving to Syracuse. She graduated from Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt and currently is enrolled at the Pratt Institute at Munson-Williams-Proctor in Utica where she is studying fine arts with a concentration in sculpture.

Onondaga Art Guild Spring Show

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

For more information, phone 315-449-2240.

The Materials of Color: Paintings by Italian artist Maria Grazia Facchinetti
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Labyrinths
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A life-size maze of mirrors and dreams reveals an exceptional collection of works by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna: a fugue-like series of 25 drawings and etchings inspired by the Borgian notion of the labyrinth, with Icarus as protagonist. Twenty-three 7-foot tall mirrored panels form this massive installation that complicates and multiplies the space of the gallery, and infiltrates the observer.

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."

The Gathering
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Patrice Downes Centore: still life and landscape watercolors
Lauren Bristol: sculptural basketry
Diane Menzies: naturalistic oil paintings

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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.

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith
The Warehouse Gallery
Community Folk Art Center

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

Songs of Hearth and Valor, Recital in 8 Dominions, After Bessie Smith is artist Terry Adkins' multi-media tribute to Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues. Working with a variety of materials Adkins weaves sculpture into a narrative installation that is both a tribute to and a lament for the transformative power of Smith's vocal artistry.

In an essay that accompanies the exhibition Dr. Kheli R. Willetts, academic director of CFAC and assistant professor in the department of African American Studies at Syracuse University writes, "Adkins' work creates an environment which challenges us to engage with Smith beyond her status as a legendary musical performer. He has resurrected her as a creative deity whose stage has now become a temple and the viewers are transformed into her devotees as they enter the space."

Smith is regarded as one of the greatest blues singers of all time. She was the highest-paid black performer of her day and arguably reached a level of success greater than that of any African American recording artist before her. Yet in her adopted home of Philadelphia she remains unsung and even her grave remained unmarked until 1970.

Adkins commutes regularly from New York to Philadelphia where he teaches in the Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This exhibition is a continued exploration of his use of figures in history whose contributions to society are overlooked, under appreciated, or just not given the stature that he believes they should have in society. Although Adkins work emanates from an activist position, it evolves from abstract forms with the intent of educating the public about historical figures through ways that are not image based or narrative-based but that challenge the viewer to think abstractly in relating to the stories of the lives of the people concerned.

Terry Adkins has been exhibiting internationally since 1980. He is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Pennsylvania where he recently installed Darkwater: A Recital in Four Dominions, a tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois at the Arthur Ross Gallery. Adkins has published numerous essays and has completed several significant public commissions. In addition to being a highly respected artist and sought after guest lecturer, his artworks have been placed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other significant museums and collections. He received his B.S. from Fisk University and his M.F.A from the University of Kentucky.

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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.

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