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BRIDGEPORT ART TRAIL NEWSLETTER
Welcome to our Bridgeport Art Trail newsletter, providing a listing of arts and cultural events.
It’s officially summer and with it are several fantastic outdoor cultural events in Bridgeport!
Downtown Thursdays, McLevy Green’s summer concert series continues this week with Boxcar Jones & Jessie’s Girl, Bridgeport Symphony Pops Concert kicks-off the Seaside Park Skyblast Fireworks Show, and The 2015 Bridgeport Arts Fest takes place on July 11th.
Plus, don’t miss City Lights Gallery’s SAMESEX 2015 EXHIBIT and PRIDE MARCH. The gender inclusive art exhibit of painting, photography, wigs, head dresses, fabric art, and projected art opens Thursday, July 9th with a street party and live music!
We’re also happy to feature artist Caroline Valites as our June Artist of the Month!
Valites, who has a studio and is a Board Member at Bridgeport’s American Fabrics Building (AMFAB), works with alternative process photography, installation, sound, and sculpture. She describes her work, “Through these mediums I explore the complexities that exist between human suffering and the phenomenon of the physical world in which we live. Tools such as photography are emblematic of our difficulties with loss.”
Be sure to check out all the details below!
-The Bridgeport Art Trail Team
Check out the full calendar of Bridgeport Art listings at the Bridgeport Art Trail Website. |
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LIVE MUSIC: Downtown Thursdays
McLevy Green
Thursday’s in June & July, 5-8pm
Starting June 18th
Event Description: Downtown Thursdays is a FREE weekly outdoor summer concert series that happens every Thursday at McLevy Green (5:30-9PM) in Downtown Bridgeport from June 18 to July 23.
Downtown Thursdays features local and area musicians. Lawn chairs and leashed pets are welcome! Invite your friends, family, co-workers and neighbors, and visit some of the fantastic downtown restaurants and businesses.
Jessie’s Girl and Boxcar Jones
June 18, 2015
Jessie’s Girl – The Worlds Hottest ’80s Tribute Band – they are ready to rock the stage on the Green! Come out and hear their renditions of hits songs while dressed up as unforgettable characters of that decade! A performance like no other, and a party you have to experience to believe.
Boxcar Jones came together to honor and celebrate the music of James Taylor. The band is comprised of well-known musicians from the east coast.
Tim McDonald – Guitar/Vocals (Danny Kortchmar, Burt Teague)
Matt Oestreicher – Keyboards/Vocals (Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys)
David Livolsi – Bass (John Scofield, Roberta Flack)
John Durso – Drums (The Sims Brothers)
NEW TO DOWNTOWN THURSDAYS!
We will be hosting an after party to this year’s summer concert series after every show at one of our Downtown locations! This show’s after party will be at Barnum Publick House.
More Info
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SPECIAL EVENT : Greater Bridgeport Symphony Pops Concert
Friday, June 26, 2015 at the Bandshell in Seaside Park
Sponsored by Elizabeth M. Pfriem
Concert begins at 7:30 PM
Concert is FREE
VIP seating available for $25 per person
Event Description: The Greater Bridgeport Symphony returns to Seaside Park for a fabulous Pops concert under the stars, the prelude to the exciting Skyblast Fireworks show. Bring your lawn chair or blanket and snacks, or come to the Barnum Skyblast Clambake!
Arrive early (6:15 PM) and enjoy Steve D’Agostino – Singin’ & Swingin’ The Great American Songbook.
Steve D’Agostino has been performing the songs from the “Great American Songbook” for over 30 years. His journey to a commitment of “expression” through the music and lyrics made popular in the United States and around the world by vocalist such as Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, took root a long time ago.
Steve’s years of experience are evident with every performance as he tenderly delivers melodies on ballads or relaxes the placement of a lyric on any “medium” to “up-tempo” swing tune. This vocal artistry has taken Steve from “coast to coast” and through the dedication of he and his live band, Steve has become “the standard” of this genre of music on the local scene.
Steve’s debut album “The Great American Songbook” has sold internationally since 2010. His second album, “Live At The Metropolitan Room” was just released in April 2015. http://www.stevedagostino.com/
More Info
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ART EXHIBIT: SAMESEX 2015
City Lights Gallery
Opening Recption, Thursday, July 9th, 5:30-9:00PM
Description: SAMESEX 2015 at City Lights Gallery is a gender inclusive art exhibit and event of painting, photography, wigs, head dresses, fabric art, and projected art. Featured work includes photographic and audio documentation of individuals expressing their thoughts on gender identity by “Gender Projected” fabric art by Nancy Moore and Ellen Schinderman and lenticular images by Miggs Burroughs that change as the viewer walks by.
OPENING RECEPTION THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015, 5:30-9:00 p.m.
$10 Suggested Donation.
The exhibit and opening festivities celebrate gender equality for all, discrimination for none and the creativity of the artist community. SUPPORT City Lights with a $10 admission fee and receive 2 drink tickets, enjoy food, live music and activities.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS INCLUDE: Miggs Borroughs, Patte Corcoran, Sue Czark, David Enriquez, Daniel Eugene, Thomas Evans, Arthur Gerstein, Kenn Hopkins, Cassandra Mendoza, Ricky Mestre, Cherish Minor, Stefan Novotny, Joe Radoccia, Sassie Saltimboca, Santiago Sanchez, Ellen Schinderman, Richard Taddei
SAMESEX Drag Contest & Pride Parade
As a part of the Annual 2015 SAMESEX Art Exhibit at City Lights Gallery “Opening Night Festivities” there will be a “DRAG CONTEST for QUEENS & KINGS”!! THREE $100 PRIZES for the categories of “BEST HAIR”, “BEST MAKE-UP” & “BEST OVERALL LOOK”! The 2015 theme for the SAMESEX Art Exhibit is “Gender Identity”. Contestants must register the day of the event & participate in the PRIDE PARADE culminating the evening events to be entered!
More Info
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SPECIAL EVENT: Bridgeport Arts Fest
McLevy Green
SAVE THE DATE: July 11th
Event Description: The Bridgeport Arts Fest is a one day celebration of LOCAL + ORIGINAL art, artists, crafters, community organizations and performers that takes place in downtown Bridgeport at historic McLevy Green on July 11, 2015 from 10am to 6pm, and is followed immediately by the After-Party (6-11pm). The Arts Fest is a family- and community-friendly affair and is FREE to attend. In addition to artists, you’ll enjoy live entertainment, activities, demonstrations and area food and drinks.
More Info
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CALL FOR MODELS AND INTERVIEWS: Gender Projected
More Info
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“Plegaria” by Yolanda Vasquez Petrocelli
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CALL FOR ART : City Lights Annual Members Exhibit
City Lights Gallery
Exhibit on View: 8/13-9/19
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 7/25/15
Event Description: The purpose of the Annual Members exhibit is to build community, show new work and present a diverse sampling of regional art . It is the one time a year that City Lights requests a $50 contribution in the form of an exhibiting members fee. (Most events and programs are free admission.) Exhibiting members receive a 70% commission rate, and the guarantee to exhibit in a minimum of one show per year.
AN ADDITIONAL BENEFIT: Join us at our annual fundraiser on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 at Captain’s Cove.
Exhibiting members who contribute $50 are invited to attend this City Lights event as our guest. To participate please make a donation to City Lights & Company, or go to our website www.citylightsgallery.org and contribute via PayPal.
For more info or to send art for submission email us at clgallerybpt@gmail.com by July 25, 2015. Please use “Art for submission” in the subject title. Submit images of work in jpeg form, an artist’s statement, and price list that includes title, size, medium.
More Info
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW
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ART EXHIBITION: “A Lifetime Making Comics”
City Lights Gallery
On Exhibition: May 28th-June 27th 2015
Event Description:
SHAZAAM! Look up in the sky… it is a bird, a plane… No, it’s the City Lights banner at 37 Markle Court… heralding the new exhibit, “A LIFETIME MAKING COMICS” featuring the creators and artists of Beetle Bailey, the Flash, Superman, DONDI, Wonder Woman, Dennis the Menace, The Green Lantern, Hi and Lois, Batman and more. The exhibit is free and open to the public and will run to June 27, 2015. .
View original art, working sketches, prints and original copies for sale. Local artists include, Chance Brown, Frank McLaughlin, Mort, Brian and Greg Walker and Irwin Hasen. This exhibit is in memory of Irwin, who recently passed at 96, after a long lifetime of making comics, which included the comic strip DONDI.
Special Thanks to Dan Makara and Frank McLaughlin for their assistance with the coordination of the exhibit and lending art from their private collections.
Check out the article “Comic-book legend Irwin Hasen remembered at City Lights” in the CT Post!
More Info
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Art Attribution: Beetle Bailey by Mort, Brian and Greg Walker Dondi and All Star Comics illustrations by Irwin Hasen
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ART EXHIBIT : Remythologies: New Inventions of Old Stories
Housatonic Museum of Art, The Burt Chernow Galleries
On View: June 11 through July 24, 2015
Event Description:
The Housatonic Museum of Art presents Remythologies: New Inventions of Old Stories curated by Stephen Vincent Kobasa. This exhibit will be on view in the Burt Chernow Galleries, 900 Lafayette Blvd., Bridgeport, CT., from June 11 through July 24, 2015. The Burt Chernow Galleries are free and open to the public. Click here for gallery hours.
How do we account for the survival of stories? Poets and cultures die, but their necessary and remarkable lies still continue to be accounted for. Although the forms these works are given also have a history, it is what they contain that is the most accurate measure of our defining memories.
There is no art-making that does not confront the past, but there is art which reinvents that past without abandoning it. A struggle against tradition still depends upon what it opposes. As the writer Berger Evans once noted, “We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.” This exhibition is meant as a study of what our past still demands that we must either embrace or defy.
Artists included in this exhibit: Jason Buening (New Haven), Susan Classen-Sullivan (Canterbury), Jaclyn Conley (Brooklyn), William DeLottie (Pomfret), Kevin Harty (West Haven), Will Holub (Mystic), Brian Huff (New Haven), Nathan Lewis (Seymour), Phil Lique (New Haven), Nomi Lubin (New Haven), Willard Lustenader (New Haven), Margaret Roleke (Redding), Joseph Saccio (New Haven), Kyle Staver (Brooklyn, NY) and Mark Williams (New Haven).
More Info
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Our actions and thoughts are negotiated within the privacy of our minds.This isolation is one of the greatest and most difficult elements of being. Language, spoken or physical, is our only conduit for relaying thoughts to one another, and is just as complex and fragile a system as light or sound. As we continue to participate in a technologically driven culture of connectivity and distance our relationship to the corporeal becomes more and more significant and at stake.I work with alternative process photography, installation, sound, and sculpture. Through these mediums I explore the complexities that exist between human suffering and the phenomenon of the physical world in which we live. Tools such as photography are emblematic of our difficulties with loss. The photograph is symbolic of our longing to make a moment permanent. Science and religion attempt to answer many of our difficult existential questions but both are inadequate. As a society we have designed technologies such as the Internet that attempt to bridge the distance between us metaphorically and physically. Ironically, the internet and its devices become both a conduit and a barrier. The Internet allows us to passively communicate, but lessens our evolvement and effect on one another.
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Language, spoken or physical, is our only conduit for relaying thoughts to one another, and is just as complex and fragile a system as light or sound… I work with alternative process photography, installation, sound, and sculpture. Through these mediums I explore the complexities that exist between human suffering and the phenomenon of the physical world in which we live.
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| I am classically trained in analogue and alternative photographic mediums. I treat photography as a material. I am interested in processes that are rigorous and methodical in their preparation and practice. Although working in the darkroom is an experience I enjoy most, the lag between making and viewing limits the viewer’s ability to see evidence of the process in the final image. In practicing photography I find myself most interested in the camera as an apparatus. The camera is much like the human body; it sees, absorbs and records memory. For me, installation enables the viewer to become both participants and observers in the work. I use room size camera obscuras, the pinhole, light and projection as well as magnetism and sound in my installations.Where there are connections there are possibilities for gaps. Much of my work expresses anxieties associated with uncertainty. Whether it is love and loss, science and religion, language and empathy, or technology and communication as humans we ebb and flow through moments of clarity where we ask questions that lead back to moments of entropic confusion. |
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A Series Between Events
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Where there are connections there are possibilities for gaps. Much of my work expresses anxieties associated with uncertainty. Whether it is love and loss, science and religion, language and empathy, or technology and communication as humans we ebb and flow through moments of clarity where we ask questions that lead back to moments of entropic confusion.
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Q. How would you describe your artwork/style?
A. My work is most often photographic based, but I do not lend myself to a specific medium. It straddles the line between conceptual and process oriented art. I use metaphor to create emotionally charged work that often deals with uncertainty and loss. Ultimately my work is autobiographical, but that may not be apparent to the viewer.Q. What medium do you work in?
A. I do not discriminate against media, however I tend to work with ephemeral and non-material like media such as light, sound, and magnetism. I always love to get my hands in alternative photographic chemistry. I also enjoy building and making interactive installations.Q. What is your process like?
A. It depends, I typically have two modes of working, but it’s usually project based. One mode is to plan a project based off of conceptual components that will be the basis for most of the decisions in the work. The other process is simply experimenting. Whether it is darkroom photography or the double slit theory, I become fascinated with the system, and it then becomes a starting point for a project. |
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What inspires you?
Physical phenomenology, and my background in science and photography are not only inspiration but incorporated as elements within my work.
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Corporeal Thresholds
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Q. How do you think you’ve changed or developed as an artist?
A. In my formative years I strictly used photography as my medium. During my time in grad school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst I began to use sound, light, wood, sculpture and installation. My art has always had a psychological and philosophical component but during grad school I was able hone in and develop a deeper understanding of my work.Q. Can you tell me about your role at the American Fabrics Building?
A. Currently, I have a studio at the American Fabrics Building and I am on the board, which organizes events such as the American Fabrics Open Studios. I organized and participate in a weekly academic based crit group. Our goal is to facilitate conversation and excitement about art making, and to foster collaborations and connections outside the academic sphere.Q. What was one of your favorite projects to be a part of?
A. Last open studios I organised a participatory installation in the parking lot of the American Fabrics building. I set up a camera obscura looking out at a purposely upside down and backwards sculpture fixed to the side of the building. My part was to explain what a camera obscura is and I encouraged them to photograph their experience with their smartphone cameras. I loved seeing the joy on everyone’s face when they realized they were seeing the outside world projected inside.
You can look at their beautiful work on the American Fabrics Facebook page here:
Q. Bridgeport continues to be a site that artists are attracted to. Why did you decide to pursue your art here in Bridgeport at AMFAB? How do you think the arts can impact the city?
A. I studied alternative photographic processes under Thomas Mezzanotte at the American Fabrics Building on and off from 2001-2010. During my intern and assistantship I became friends with the community and decided to share a space with Richard Killearney of Ocheltree design. Not only did I bond with the artists in the building but we have such a huge range of skill and talent that as a community we can accomplish anything. If I need help with a welding project, sewing project, graphic design project – there is someone who would love to help. Artists impact cities because we have such an incredible ability to foster community and problem solve. We are great at organizing and creating events that build morale and excitement.
Q. Anything else you’d like to share?
A. Stay tuned for updates on upcoming exhibits and events!
Learn More about Caroline Valites at: www.carolinevalites.com |
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Camera Obscura
Wave Propogration Between Two Absolutes |
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