Energized by exploring the characteristics of obsidian, Francisco Sotomayor combines artistry with technology to sculpt 12 pieces with images in each.
Francisco shows his obsidian sculptures at gem and mineral show
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Kick off summer in Mount Clemens with June events
Cars and spectators turn out for the 2022 Mount Clemens Car Show and Cruise. At press time, the 2023 event was set to take place June 2-3.
MOUNT CLEMENS — For those looking for weekend fun this summer, Mount Clemens has you covered in June.
From start to end, there’s more than enough going on in the city to entertain all month long.
On Saturday, June 10, the New Street Urban Fair brings a unique art show and vendor experience to the New Street corridor. Businesses along the street juried the art submissions and vetted the vendor list, all of which is shaping up for what Weiss calls a “fun and funky” event marking a post-COVID flourishing of New Street’s businesses.
“With New Street being full now … they just said, ‘We’d like to do something down by us,’” Michelle Weiss, Mount Clemens Downtown Development Authority marketing and events coordinator, said. “Most of my art shows and vendor shows are on Macomb Place.”
The New Street Urban Fair runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Businesses supporting the event include the Bohemian Goat, Yaya’s Plant Shop, TinyTree Gallery, Weirdsville Records and Paperback Writer Books.
Juneteenth falls on a Monday this year, but the celebration of slavery’s end begins on Friday, June 16, and runs through the holiday on June 19. The city of Mount Clemens is hosting its first-ever official Juneteenth festival running downtown on June 16 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on June 17 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“We’re trying to make this educational,” Weiss said. “We’re trying to inform the public as to what exactly Juneteenth is and why they celebrate it.
She added, “When I started this journey, I was surprised talking to people, how many people did not know what it was and thought it had something to do with Martin Luther King Jr. I thought this was quite interesting and maybe this is a good thing for people to understand what it is.”
The city’s event will take place along Macomb Place, similar to May’s Made in Michigan show, and entertainers will perform on the Fountain Stage.
Juneteenth celebrations have been hosted in Mount Clemens centered around the Cairns Community Center, and event planners for the Mount Clemens Juneteenth Celebration have ensured this year’s event will run all weekend long.
“We wanted to focus on embracing unity and togetherness … something fit for family,” Malea Howard, 2023 Mount Clemens Juneteenth Committee chair, said in a statement. “We have games, great food, music, guest speakers, mental health care resources, arts and crafts for the children, and so much more.”
Dubbed “A Community Family Reunion,” an evening dinner on June 16 kicks the weekend off. Saturday, June 17, is a “Family Game Day” with activities inside and outside the Cairns Center from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., while Sunday, June 18, is “Desserts with Dad,” allowing for a fun Father’s Day evening from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Juneteenth Monday’s theme is “Free at Last” and runs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Cairns Center will be packed with activities inside and out ranging from bounce houses, to food trucks, to business and resource vendors.
Finally, June ends with a series of bright and loud bangs as the Riversight & Sound Concert & Fireworks lights up the sky on Friday, June 23. Running since the 1980s, the fireworks have always taken place on the fourth Friday in June. Fireworks will be launched from the One Crocker Place parking lot and audiences can watch the show from the opposite bank. Northbound Gratiot Avenue will be closed and the open lot next to the Macomb County courthouse will be open for seating. R&B and funk group The Circle of Sound will play the concert prior to the fireworks.
For those looking to dance their nights away, Friday night concerts will happen at the Fountain Stage on Macomb Place on the nights of June 9 and June 16 as well as throughout July and August.
For more information about the Mount Clemens DDA and events in the city, visit mountclemens.gov/dda. For more information about the Mount Clemens Juneteenth Celebration, email mcjuneteenth@gmail.com.
Little Eagle Art Foundation hosts Native Art Marketplace in Mt. Horeb
Hundreds of people visited Indigenous artists, dancers and musicians at the fifth annual Native Arts Marketplace at the Driftless Historium in Mount Horeb over the weekend.
Hosted by the Little Eagle Arts Foundation and the Mt. Horeb Historical Society, the marketplace featured seven Indigenous artists, including painters, leather workers, bead artists and jewelers, as well as traditional dance performances and contemporary music.
“We’ve had just a great crowd. People have been amazing,” said painter Terri O’Connor of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.
O’Connor, who grew up on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation and now lives in Poynette, works in a variety of media, including pencil drawings, watercolors and oils.
Ho-Chunk painter Christopher Sweet, whose recent work focuses on large mural pieces like the memorial mural for the ancestors buried under the UW-Stevens Point campus, said he appreciates the chance to sell things like prints and notecards.
“It’s really nice to do these setups to share my smaller works,” he said. “The fun part of it is you meet new people from all over the place.”
Master beadwork artist Sayo’:kla Kindness-Williams of the Oneida Nation was also on hand, with her award-winning work “Uplifting Peace in 2022, the Year of Genocide.” The panel, depicting the traditional Tree of Peace with weapons of war buried under it and an eagle atop, took her nine months to create — “the time it takes to birth a baby,” she said.
The event was co-hosted by Little Eagle Arts Foundation, a 10-year-old organization based near Baraboo that helps Indigenous artists promote their work and become arts entrepreneurs.
Founded by retired educator, artist and 1980 Miss Indian America Melanie Tallmadge Sainz, LEAF works with artists of all 11 of Wisconsin’s federally recognized Indigenous nations as well as Wisconsin artists who are members of other nations. It does not receive funding from the nations, however; most funding comes from private donations and contracts.
Tallmadge Sainz said LEAF has about 50 aritsts on its roster currently, and several of those showing at the event this weekend also serve as mentors for emerging artists.
“It’s a very supportive group,” O’Connor said. “We encourage each other. (Art is) a part of our lives. It’s our culture, it’s part of our heritage. We love sharing it with others … It’s a great thing for us to always learn from each other.”
“LEAF has always been a real big supporter of my work and pushing me into different projects. They’ve helped me get established, pretty much,” Sweet said.
“You don’t always have the time to do marketing or events. LEAF took care of all of that so I’m really really thankful,” Kindness-Williams added.
Tallmadge Sainz said the first hurdle to success for many young Indigenous artists is their own self-doubt. She said she often approaches young artists and encourages them to take their work to larger regional and national shows.
“The first thing they’ll say is when I see their art, they’ll say, ‘I’m not good enough for those type of shows,’” she said. “So it’s really boosting their confidence, and encouraging them as much as possible.”
Linocut Printmaking: Block Carving and Printing Art Night at Art House 7
Come enjoy an adult evening at Art House 7 making simple linocut prints. Linocut is like woodcut but easier! You will look at examples and learn the steps in this printmaking process. You will carve into a soft block, ink it up and make multiple prints. You can use our designs or come up with
Galerie Julian Sander : Peter Keetman : Vintage Photographs from the Gerd Sander Collection – The Eye of Photography Magazine
With the exhibition “Peter Keetman. Vintage Photographs from the Gerd Sander Collection”, Galerie Julian Sander is presenting one of the central figures of post-war German photography. In 1949, Keetman was one of the founders of the fotoform group, whose experimental, graphically incisive works echoed the photographic avant-garde of the 1920s. Keetman knew how to combine the influence that the “New Photographers” of the Weimar period had on him with his own individual perception of the reality that surrounded him and to translate it into a new, contemporary aesthetic. During his photographic activity, which spanned several decades, he focused his gaze on recurring subjects. He was interested in visually appealing phenomena that nature and the world of things have to offer: the transparency of a drop of water, the diffuse smoke of a cigarette, condensation in which the light refracts, crystalline ice formations, reflections, steam and fog. Through the lens of his camera, he isolated these optical phenomena and translated them into images of austere, graphic beauty. “We are surrounded – whether we take note of it or not – by a world full of lawful wonders” Peter Keetman recorded in later years. To make these wonders visible was what he saw as his task as a photographer.
The nearly fifty photographs, all of which are vintage prints produced close to the time the negative was taken, come from the estate of Gerd Sander, who died two years ago, and have recently been rediscovered. Sander, who was just establishing himself as a photo gallerist in New York at the time, had acquired most of them from the photographer himself around 1980. Among them are some of Keetman’s most famous, widely published photographs, but also works that are less well known today, but nevertheless of the highest aesthetic quality. Thus, the exhibition should be able to reveal one or another discovery for the interested collector.
Peter Keetman : Vintage Photographs from the Gerd Sander Collection
April, 22 – June, 30, 2023
Galerie Julian Sander
Bonner Str. 82
50677 Köln, Germany
www.galeriejuliansander.de
Sculpture, arts mark Evergreen’s annual Day of the Arts
June 3 truly was an arts day — from sculpture installations around Evergreen to Center for the Arts Evergreen’s fourth annual Day of the Arts.
Current Tri-County Arts exhibit features Seneca-Iroquois art
OLEAN — The current Tri-County Arts Council exhibit, “Haudenosaunee, Art of the Now: Survive, Alive, Thrive,” features works from the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum’s artist in residency program funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Area Development fund.
Artists in the residency program include Samantha Jacobs, Lorinda John, Penelope S. Minner, Alicia Sanford, Antoinette Scott, Bernadette Scott, Kristina Tome and Leeora White
In late summer of 2021, ARC’s Area Development with Southern Tier West grant funding came through for the Pathways to Success: Artist in Residency (AiR) Program at the Seneca-Iroquois museum. A call for indigenous artists to apply went out in October 2021. Eight artists from both the Cattaraugus and Allegany territories took part. Their talents ranged from making corn husk dolls and weaving to painting and sewing.
Each AiRs received a stipend to participate in a variety of activities that would inspire them to create a piece of art that they would donate to the museum. This show at Tri-County Arts is an acknowledgement of the challenges met during this time, but more importantly a celebration of the successes of overcoming obstacles and the creativity that arose as a result.
This show at TriCounty Arts is an acknowledgement of the challenges met during this time, but more importantly a celebration of the successes of overcoming obstacles and the creativity that arose as a result.
John Sheehan from the Seneca-Salamanca Chamber of Commerce presented the first workshop on how to be the best salesperson. He also gave the artists his equation for building successful sales relationships.
Fred Frigthner, director of marketing and communications at W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery, did two separate workshops on telling stories about products along with a writing workshop.
Tom Cullen led the AiRs in a discussion on “recognizing and identifying your audience in order to attract your dream customer.”
Tri-County Arts Council director emeritus Mikel Wintermantel and artist educator Allison Braun did a hands-on workshop focused on displaying and photographing art. Artists got to play with light boxes and learn all about the power of their cellphones to highlight their work.
Hayden Hanes brought the previous topics together and presented on photographing one’s work and how to tell your story, while Brian Kelly hosted a creating and editing websites workshop at The Hub in Olean.
Sharon Louden, the former director for Chautauqua Visual Arts presented a virtual talk on making a living as a working artist, which covered grants, fellowships, arts markets and commissions. The artists also participated in several arts markets arranged at the museum and they took a trip to K-Art in Buffalo and participated in discussion with gallery managers.
In addition to forming new relationships between the Seneca-Iroquois museum and organizations in Olean and Allegany and supporting creative economies, the final piece to the Pathways to Success program is the mini-gallery boxes. This was an idea inspired by the mini-libraries that have been popping up in communities and neighborhoods across the United States. The idea behind the mini-galleries was to place art and the institution within the communities to make the exhibits accessible and give people a taste of what they will find in the museum.
Seneca Nation Arts and Cultural Placed Based Tourism Initiative is an example of a cost-effective foundation for a continued partnership and project to create permanent resources that will benefit all partners.
An opening reception was catered by chef Lorinda John from LoMade Meals and beverages were provided by an anonymous donor.
For more information on this and any other exhibits at the Tri-County Arts Council, visit the website www.tricountyartscouncil.org or call (716) 372-7455.
Bolivian artist creating sculptures from used tires to raise environmental awareness – La Prensa Latina Media
By Gina Baldivieso Cochabamba, Bolivia, Jun 4 (EFE).- He uses tires from bicycles or motorized vehicles, transforming them into dinosaurs, armadillos and even the fearsome xenomorph from the film “Alien.” Sandro Arellano is creating the rubber sculptures to raise the public’s environmental awareness, especially among the younger generations. Based in the central Bolivian city of …
Collinsville show honors Native American legacy
COLLINSVILLE — The area’s Native American heritage was celebrated at the Gateway Center in Collinsville over the weekend as the annual Cahokia Mounds Indian Market Days showcased the diverse creations of Native artisans from across the country.
A part of the convention center was filled with Native American artists and vendors who displayed and sold original creations ranging from jewelry to clothing, paintings and sculptures. Many different tribal affiliations were represented.
William Harjo from Oklahoma, of Creek ancestry, creates Native American flutes from cedar.
“One of my ancestors used to make them,” Harjo said. “You don’t have to play it loud; the sound travels a lot farther than you think.”
Harjo said the flutes can play beautiful tunes, and he demonstrated some for visitors.
“Hunters used to have charm songs to lure the animals to them,” Harjo said. “These flutes fall in that category, where you can make sounds that flow out and get people’s attention.”
Monty Curley Hair is of Navajo ancestry and is originally from Oklahoma. He was surrounded by his seed bead jewelry creations.
“It takes me a long time to create my seed beads,” Curley Hair said. “The colors I use in my beads lift me up. They give me healing and comfort.”
Native American blowguns by the dozens were displayed at Lucas Wildcat’s booth. He has been crafting the devices from river cane for 25 years.
“I learned how to make these from my father,” said Wildcat, a Cherokee from Oklahoma. “It makes me proud of my heritage and helps me to teach it to others.”
Dave Farnham is from Ontario and is a member of the Onondaga Nation. He wasn’t shy about naming the inspiration for his soapstone, moose and deer antler, and buffalo bone sculptures.
“I am inspired by Benjamin Franklin; he’s on the hundred-dollar bill,” Farnham said. “I make what I like and if they like it they buy it.”
Indian Market Days is affiliated with the nearby Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site due to its significance as a major cultural center in prehistoric North America.
Cahokia Mounds flourished for centuries but had long been abandoned by the time Europeans set foot on the continent.
The Beauty of Bad Light in Landscape Photography
When you think of memorable landscape images, you probably think of golden hour shots with dramatic rays cascading across the frame, but there is a lot more to life than that. Any light, even “bad light,” can produce worthwhile images, and if you spend your time waiting for those magic golden hour moments, you are missing out on a lot of photo opportunities. This great video discusses the issue and the sort of personal philosophy that can make bad light days more enjoyable.
Coming to you from James Popsys, this insightful video discusses the issue of bad light in landscape photography and what one can do about it. No doubt, considering the often significant time and effort it can take simply to get to a location, it can be tremendously frustrating when the conditions don’t cooperate. However, I firmly believe worthwhile photos can be made in any light, but where we often go wrong is trying to force a certain image into existence rather than reading and embracing the light we’re given and making images it is conducive to. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Popsys.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out “Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi.”
