Sunday, June 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.

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.

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.

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

Southwest Showcase Sunday: Showgroup Sunday
Featuring U.A.D

Price: Free
Spirit of Jubilee Park
161 South Ave., Syracuse

For more information, go to www.showcasesundays.com.

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!

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 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.

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.

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.

Liverpool Community Band
Liverpool is the Place

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

Special program of patriotic music. No rain date for this concert.

Popular and Patriotic Favorites
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Hege, conductor

Price: Free
Green Hills Market
5933 S. Salina St., Syracuse

Sarah Crocker, violin; Andy Russo, violin
Civic Morning Musicals
Music Journeys

Price: $25
Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Violinist Sarah Crocker, fresh from her first season with the Detroit Symphony, collaborates with
pianist Andy Russo

Beethoven Sonata in A Major, Op. 47, "Kreutzer"
Ravel Sonata for violin and piano
John Adams Road Movies
Gershwin/Heifetz Gershwin Preludes

Proceeds benefit Civic Morning Musicals and Music Journeys. For more information, phone 315-699-5856.

Tuesday, July 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.

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

Lost and Found
Center for New Americans

Price: Free
Center for New Americans
503 N. Prospect Ave., Syracuse

The exhibit features artifacts, artwork, family heirlooms, poems and other objects that tell the stories of loss and discovery which form a major part of the refugee experience. The refugees featured in the exhibit come from Vietnam, Burma, Sudan and Cuba.

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.

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.

Hip-Shake
Partners for Arts Education

Price: $35 adults, $20 students
Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Shakespeare meets the streets in Hip-Shake. Maybe you've never considered Shakespeare to be in the same league as Kanye West. But in Hip-Shake, you can hear how the linguistic and cultural odd couple of a hip-hop artist and an actor from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre find the similarities in their language.

Long-time Syracuse theater educator Len Fonte wrote the one-act play, with the collaboration of Rochester poet and performer Reenah Golden, to help both adults and young people get past the stereotypes associated with these contrasting forms of dramatic expression and appreciate the artfulness in both. It's full of humor, surprises, and impassioned language.

This performance benefits Partners for Arts Education (PAE), and is part of a celebration of this year's arts-in-education partnerships in Central New York.

The performance will be followed by a reception. To make your reservations, call Kristin at PAE at 315-234-9911. For more information, visit www.arts4ed.org/events/HipShake.shtml.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

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

Lost and Found
Center for New Americans

Price: Free
Center for New Americans
503 N. Prospect Ave., Syracuse

The exhibit features artifacts, artwork, family heirlooms, poems and other objects that tell the stories of loss and discovery which form a major part of the refugee experience. The refugees featured in the exhibit come from Vietnam, Burma, Sudan and Cuba.

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.

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

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.

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 #3: The Synchronized Dance of Peanuts and Life as a Dog
Contemporary Gallery

Price: Free
Contemporary Gallery
230 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

Thursday, July 3, 2008

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

Lost and Found
Center for New Americans

Price: Free
Center for New Americans
503 N. Prospect Ave., Syracuse

The exhibit features artifacts, artwork, family heirlooms, poems and other objects that tell the stories of loss and discovery which form a major part of the refugee experience. The refugees featured in the exhibit come from Vietnam, Burma, Sudan and Cuba.

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.

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.

Hello: My Name is Death
Acme Mystery Company

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

Interactive murder-mystery dinner theater.

Disney's High School Musical
The Talent Company
Christine Lightcap, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

The Talent Company brings its January 2007 SRO smash hit Disney's High School Musical back. Three of its stars, Tim Quartier, who reprises his role as Troy Bolton; Ana Thornton, reprising her role as Gabriella Montez; and Danielle Lovier, who will portray Sharpay Evans; were multiple award winners at the '07 and '08 SALTY and SALT Awards ceremonies.

The show follows the antics of East High students as they audition for the school musical, compete in a scholastic decathlon, and play the championship basketball game. Troy, captain of the basketball team, and Gabriella, the brainy, shy new girl at school, surprise themselves and others by trying out for the lead roles in the musical. They face the objections of Sharpay, the thespian queen and president of the drama club, and Ryan, her brother and vice-president of the drama club, who covet the roles for themselves, and friends Chad, number two on the Wildcats Basketball Team, and Taylor, president of the scholastic club, who want Troy and Gabriella to stick to what they do best -- basketball and academics.

The stage version features the original musical score including "The Start Of Something New," "We're All In This Together," "Get'cha Head In The Game," "Stick To The Status Quo," "Bop To The Top," "When There Was Me And You," "What I've Been Looking For" and "Breaking Free," plus three new songs, "Cellular Fusion," "Counting On You," and the song, not in the movie but heard on a bonus track of the original cast recording, entitled "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

Read a review!

Friday, July 4, 2008

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

Lost and Found
Center for New Americans

Price: Free
Center for New Americans
503 N. Prospect Ave., Syracuse

The exhibit features artifacts, artwork, family heirlooms, poems and other objects that tell the stories of loss and discovery which form a major part of the refugee experience. The refugees featured in the exhibit come from Vietnam, Burma, Sudan and Cuba.

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 by Carol Adamec, Cheri Haring, and Barbara Schramm
Skaneateles Artisans

Price: Opening Reception and Anniversary Party
Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Music by Peterson and Dennihy, alternative folk. Refreshments will be served to also celebrate our 1st birthday.

New exhibit featuring artists Carol Adamec (sculpture), Cheri Haring (pottery) and Barbara Schramm (traditional and trompe l'oeil painting).

July 4th Spectacular
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Syracuse Symphony Pops Chorus, Lou Lemos, director
Daniel Hege, conductor

Price: Free
New York State Fairgrounds
581 State Fair Blvd., Syracuse

An American celebration featuring favorites by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, John Philip Sousa and more.

Gates open at 5:00 pm. Pre-concert performance by the Syracuse University Brass Ensemble, 6:00-7:00 pm. Limited food vendors available.

Rain Location: Center of Progress Building.

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!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

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 by Carol Adamec, Cheri Haring, and Barbara Schramm
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

New exhibit featuring artists Carol Adamec (sculpture), Cheri Haring (pottery) and Barbara Schramm (traditional and trompe l'oeil painting).

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

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.

Candlelight Series: Concert of Popular Favorites
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Hege, conductor

Price: Free
Armory Square Park
400 block of S. Franklin St., Syracuse

Music Director Daniel Hege leads the SSO in a program featuring light classics and excerpts from Star Wars.

Rain location: Mulroy Civic Center.

Disney's High School Musical
The Talent Company
Christine Lightcap, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

The Talent Company brings its January 2007 SRO smash hit Disney's High School Musical back. Three of its stars, Tim Quartier, who reprises his role as Troy Bolton; Ana Thornton, reprising her role as Gabriella Montez; and Danielle Lovier, who will portray Sharpay Evans; were multiple award winners at the '07 and '08 SALTY and SALT Awards ceremonies.

The show follows the antics of East High students as they audition for the school musical, compete in a scholastic decathlon, and play the championship basketball game. Troy, captain of the basketball team, and Gabriella, the brainy, shy new girl at school, surprise themselves and others by trying out for the lead roles in the musical. They face the objections of Sharpay, the thespian queen and president of the drama club, and Ryan, her brother and vice-president of the drama club, who covet the roles for themselves, and friends Chad, number two on the Wildcats Basketball Team, and Taylor, president of the scholastic club, who want Troy and Gabriella to stick to what they do best -- basketball and academics.

The stage version features the original musical score including "The Start Of Something New," "We're All In This Together," "Get'cha Head In The Game," "Stick To The Status Quo," "Bop To The Top," "When There Was Me And You," "What I've Been Looking For" and "Breaking Free," plus three new songs, "Cellular Fusion," "Counting On You," and the song, not in the movie but heard on a bonus track of the original cast recording, entitled "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

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!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

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 by Carol Adamec, Cheri Haring, and Barbara Schramm
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

New exhibit featuring artists Carol Adamec (sculpture), Cheri Haring (pottery) and Barbara Schramm (traditional and trompe l'oeil painting).

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

Disney's High School Musical
The Talent Company
Christine Lightcap, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

The Talent Company brings its January 2007 SRO smash hit Disney's High School Musical back. Three of its stars, Tim Quartier, who reprises his role as Troy Bolton; Ana Thornton, reprising her role as Gabriella Montez; and Danielle Lovier, who will portray Sharpay Evans; were multiple award winners at the '07 and '08 SALTY and SALT Awards ceremonies.

The show follows the antics of East High students as they audition for the school musical, compete in a scholastic decathlon, and play the championship basketball game. Troy, captain of the basketball team, and Gabriella, the brainy, shy new girl at school, surprise themselves and others by trying out for the lead roles in the musical. They face the objections of Sharpay, the thespian queen and president of the drama club, and Ryan, her brother and vice-president of the drama club, who covet the roles for themselves, and friends Chad, number two on the Wildcats Basketball Team, and Taylor, president of the scholastic club, who want Troy and Gabriella to stick to what they do best -- basketball and academics.

The stage version features the original musical score including "The Start Of Something New," "We're All In This Together," "Get'cha Head In The Game," "Stick To The Status Quo," "Bop To The Top," "When There Was Me And You," "What I've Been Looking For" and "Breaking Free," plus three new songs, "Cellular Fusion," "Counting On You," and the song, not in the movie but heard on a bonus track of the original cast recording, entitled "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

Read a review!