Plus: fig leaf ice cream, a hotel in the hills of Majorca and more from T’s cultural compendium.

T Introduces: A Chilean Painter’s Alluring Depictions of Debauchery

There are several paintings scattered around Pablo Barba’s studio, at the end of a far-flung industrial block in Long Island City, Queens. One is of a young woman in a short floral dress gazing wistfully, even tragically, at the plumber fixing her kitchen sink. In another, a different woman, in a pink nightgown, stands at her front door accepting a pizza box from a delivery guy as if it were the newborn Christ. Yet another woman in a third painting is topless and asleep in a lounge chair by a pool, white doves flying above her. In the background, a pool boy averts his eyes as he drags a net across the water’s surface to skim off the debris.

Barba, 38, was born in Santiago, Chile, and grew up in the waning days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, when there weren’t many opportunities for artists. His grandparents and parents were architects but, he says, “everyone wanted to be a painter. The next-best discipline in a place where being a painter wasn’t really an option was architecture. When I said, ‘Mom and Dad, I’m going to be a painter,’ they were excited.”

The country had neither a notable museum collection nor an art market, which was both limiting and liberating. Barba had difficulty finding certain art supplies, but he was free to paint whatever he wanted. He moved to New York in 2014 to enroll in the M.F.A. program at Columbia and spent a lot of time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was drawn to 17th-century Dutch paintings, particularly those in a Baroque style known as geselschapje, which means “merry company.” Comedic works, they depict grotesque, often ominous acts of consumption in various forms, possibly, Barba says, as “a Protestant reaction to ‘The Last Supper.’”

Of considerable influence to him is Jan Steen — seen in a self-portrait at the center of the masterpiece “The Dissolute Household” (circa 1663-64) bearing an alcoholic’s blush and affectionately tickling the hand of his maid, who with her other hand is pouring Steen’s suitably bosomed and incapacitated wife an overflowing glass of wine. Barba likewise tends to concentrate on moments where decadence tips over into chaos: The paintings are funny, embarrassing, empathetic, ugly and appealing, all at once. His main focus is, to borrow the artist’s own phrase in describing Steen, “a group of people gathered around a table in, basically, debauchery.”

“There’s something about Pablo’s work that makes you want to vomit into your mouth,” says Adam Cohen, a director at Gagosian Gallery and the proprietor of New York’s A Hug From the Art World, where Barba had a solo show in 2022 and will have another in the fall. “Even though I feel I am part of the thing Pablo’s painting, I also don’t want to be part of the thing that Pablo’s painting.” — M.H. Miller

Photo assistant: Rafael Rios

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The Thing: Bulgari Gives a Diamond-and-Emerald Necklace Its Signature Motif

From ruby butterfly brooches to bracelets in the shape of leaping panthers with sapphire eyes, fine jewelry has been inspired by the animal kingdom for centuries. But perhaps no other creature is so perfectly suited to adorn the body as the snake, its sinuous form at once alluring and dangerous. A recurrent motif in jewelry since ancient times, the serpent symbolized health to the Greeks and eternal love to the Victorians. Bulgari, founded in Rome in 1884 by the silversmith Sotirio Bulgari, has long explored the power of the reptile’s undulating curves: The house debuted its first gold watch made to resemble an abstract snake 75 years ago. Since then, its designers have come to interpret the Serpenti motif more literally and with daring aplomb. Case in point: this new high jewelry necklace, in white gold with onyx embellishments and a combination of more than 90 buff-top emeralds and pavé-set diamonds that tumble and twist. Chasing its tail, green eyes aglow, it is intended to encircle the neck, boldly, forever. Bulgari Serpenti High Jewelry necklace, price on request, (800) 285-4274. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Alice Beltrami

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On Majorca, a New Inn With a Working Farm

About nine years ago, the British photographer Kate Bellm, 36, and her partner, the Mexican artist and horticulturist Edgar Lopez, 40, were living in Berlin when they decided to escape city life for a while on the Spanish island of Majorca. After three months in the coastal village of Deia, they knew they wanted to stay. “I was blown away by the Tramuntana mountains — the fields of wildflowers, the old olive groves and wild goats,” says Bellm. “People think you should come to Majorca for the beach but, for me, it’s all about the mountain villages.” The couple bought a house not far from the historic town of Soller and in 2021 purchased a nearby 16th-century country estate, which they’ve now turned into a small inn. Opening next month, Hotel Corazón sits on 12 acres planted with ancient palm, jacaranda, olive and citrus trees; the property is also home to a working farm. Inside, the rooms are an eclectic mix of fur rugs; large, egg-shaped ceramic bathtubs from Studio Loho; fish-eye mirrors; and four-poster beds. None of the 12 guest rooms — three more are in the works — are the same, but almost all have sweeping views of the terraced mountains and the gardens, where visitors can dine under the stars. Rooms from about $490 a night, hotelcorazon.com. — Gisela Williams

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Loro Piana’s Moment in the Sun

Loro Piana is not a name generally associated with the beach. Founded 99 years ago in the Northern Italian town of Trivero in Piedmont, the brand is a mainstay of wintertime luxury, known for its multi-ply cashmere knitwear, featherweight vicuña scarves and tailored wool overcoats. The house’s latest offering, however, has a sunnier outlook. Inspired by the Mediterranean seaside, the Blossom bag — a roomy, leather-handled tote — is meant to be carried both on and off the sand. It’s not, however, a complete departure from the Loro Piana tradition. Woven from jute cord, ribbons and strips of two different printed fabrics, the Blossom has the softness and variegated texture of a hand-knit sweater, complete with intricately crocheted trim. — Jenny Comita

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The Chefs Uncovering the Fig Leaf

The word “fig” appears dozens of times in the Old Testament; its leaf, in comparison, is associated with prudery. But recently, chefs and bartenders have been teasing flavor from the greens alone. At Osip in Somerset, England, chefs dehydrate and blitz them, then use the powder to flavor ice cream. Fig leaf oil — made by blanching and blending the foliage in neutral oil, then straining out the solids — is spooned over each scoop, adding a “deep green, aromatic quality,” says the chef Dan Byrne, 25, who forages the ingredient from the surrounding neighborhood. Fig leaves “are not something you often see in the market,” says Sylvan Mishima Brackett, 47, the chef and owner of Izakaya Rintaro in San Francisco. He relies on his garden in Oakland for his supply, which he uses to wrap sake-spritzed local trout before grilling it. In London, the chef Claire Ptak, the owner of Violet Cakes and author of “Love Is a Pink Cake,” out this month, makes what she calls “figgy peaches,” swaddling the halved fruits — their center dimples filled with frangipane — in fig leaves and then searing them on the grill. The leaves “impart this coconut flavor,” she says. For her part, Margot Lecarpentier, 36, the owner of the cocktail bar Combat in Paris, makes low-carbon-footprint tropical drinks, substituting homemade fig leaf-infused liquor — which she describes as “bright, with a silkiness” — for imported coconut. Her extremely exclusive, hyperlocal source: her parents’ yard. — Lauren Joseph

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Watch Report: Timepieces That Make a Splashy Summer Statement

Retouching: Anonymous Retouch. Photo assistant: Karl Leitz. Set designer’s assistant: Erin Kelly Meuchner

Award trophies were lined up for recipients at this year’s Richmond Show, held Friday at Altria Theater. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

After a Martin Agency sweep at last year’s awards, it was a night of unexpected best-in-show winners at the Advertising Club of Richmond’s annual Richmond Show, held Friday at Altria Theater.

Breaking through this year with two of the evening’s top awards was The King Agency, which took home best-in-shows in the advertising and design categories for work done not for a client, but for its own 25th anniversary party.

The nine-person firm led by industry veteran Dave King received the recognitions for its Netflix-themed party invitations, which were disguised as the iconic red envelopes – complete with a (blank) DVD – that the then-movie rental company started mailing in 1997, the same year King founded the agency.

The King Agency’s Netflix-style invitations.

In the interactive category, best-in-show went to Bridget Guckin, an art director with local agency Think, whose freelance web design work for On Three Photography beat out the competition.

Film studio Mondial won the production best-in-show for its work on The Martin Agency’s “Cross Country” ad for phone brand Straight Talk Wireless.



Straight Talk “Cross Country” from MONDIAL on Vimeo.

And in the student competition, Noelle Jessup of Old Dominion University took top honors for an illustrated map of Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood.

Also presented were more than 50 gold, silver and bronze Bridge awards, the pewter trophies depicting Richmond’s arched CSX bridge that replaced the show’s longtime cannonball trophy last year.

Gold awards in the four agency categories went to Alice Blue, Arts & Letters Creative Co. (2), Campfire & Co., Martin Agency (2) and Wildfire. Silver awards went to Campfire & Co., King Agency, Martin Agency (4), Owen Design Co., Spang, Rian/Hunter Production and Wildfire (2).

Charles Hodges

The show’s three judges were Adam Cote, a freelance creative director in Boston; Lap Le, lead designer at MediaMonks and part-time faculty at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles; and NiRey Reynolds, director of creative impact North America at McCann in New York.

Non-competitive recognitions also were presented, including the honorary title of Ad Person of the Year, this year awarded to Charles Hodges, founder and executive creative director of Arts & Letters. The 6-year-old agency’s accolades this year included being named a “standout” on trade publication Ad Age’s Agency A-list rankings for its “Work Together, Anywhere” hybrid work model.

Rachel Spiller

This year’s $2,500 Women in Advertising Scholarship was awarded to Rachel Spiller, a creative advertising major with a marketing insights minor at VCU’s Robertson School of Media and Culture. Emery Schindler was awarded the $1,500 Excellence in Creative Education Scholarship, awarded to VCU Brandcenter students.

Emery Schindler

Ad club board members Yasir Afzal and Rebecca Frankel emceed the ceremony, the theme of which was “Adage” – a reference not to the trade publication (which also named Martin its 2023 Agency of the Year), but to its definition as “a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth.”

Afzal, a recruiting manager with Atlantic Vision Partners, was announced as the club’s next president, replacing Brandon Shields.

Shields said this year’s show saw engagement from several first-time entrants and an uptick in submissions from beyond Central Virginia, specifically in the Hampton Roads area, noting ODU’s best-in-show and increasingly higher rankings.

Brandon Shields

Noting as well the showings of smaller shops like King Agency and Mondial, Shields said, “I believe we will continue to see our large agencies such as Arts & Letters Creative Co. and Martin Agency take home a large amount of awards. However, the rest of the community is gaining traction across the board, including new names, familiar faces and independent creatives claiming higher ranked awards.”

Shields said the ad club tripled its membership over the past year and gained seven new corporate members. He said new programming has also contributed to consistent attendance at club events throughout the year, adding that it’s aiming to keep up that momentum.

“We hope to continue trying new ideas that will build connections with more organizations in the community, and build a thriving atmosphere for creative talent and agencies in Richmond,” Shields said.

Behind every piece of art there’s a story. Sometimes that’s a story of dreams realized, or the beginning of a dream.

Those stories and dreams were recently on display at the first “Follow Your HeART” fine arts show exclusively for amateur artists. The one-day show was held Saturday, April 22, at the McCaughen & Burr Fine Arts Gallery in the Old Webster Business District.

Open to all 2-D mediums, ages and levels of artistic talent, 40 artists ranging in age from 5 to 76 years old exhibited work in 67 separate submissions and the show drew roughly 200 visitors.

Afghanistan native and St. Louis transplant Arezo Sahel, a 23-year-old mother of two, was overjoyed to share her work at the show. Husband Amin Sahel shared that his wife always loved to paint and draw. 

While in Afghanistan, her parents took her to art courses, where she started learning the basics. She couldn’t continue her lessons because of safety concerns, but always hoped that one day she could start painting again and find an opportunity to display her art in public. 

When the couple arrived in the United States in 2021, Arezo Sahel asked her husband to buy her some painting accessories so she could “continue her incomplete dream.” When a friend suggested she participate in the “Follow your HeART” show, Amin Sahel saw his wife’s eyes fill with tears of excitement.  

With limited tools, Arezo Sahel created two acrylic paint pieces, “Mountains of Afghanistan” and “Creve Coeur Lake.” 

“United States is the land of opportunities. My wife’s dreams and desires were buried until we came here and she felt secure to go ahead and do what she really wants to do,” said Amin Sahel, who lives with his family in Fenton. “Arezo was so happy and counted every day to get to event day. For some people this could be just an event, but for artists, this meant the world.”

That was also true for Webster Groves resident Kim Pepple, who seized the opportunity to show off a reproduction of his late father’s Ernie Pyle cartoon-strip artwork, along with two of his original artboards from 75 years ago. Ernie Pyle was a renowned frontline combat war correspondent from 1940-1945.  

Kim Pepple’s father, R. Ted Pepple, returned to St. Louis after completing his World War II military duty. His real ambition was to be a sports cartoonist for the local newspaper, but life took a difference course. He got an English degree, married the love of his life, Doloris Specht, had six children, and worked in marketing and public relations. 

In 1945, he researched, wrote and drew a serious comic strip of the inspiring life and tragic death of American journalist Ernie Pyle, but the comic strip was never published. No one even knew it existed until Pepple’s children were cleaning out his storage locker after his death in 2014. 

Brothers Kim and Rob Pepple, lifelong residents of Webster Groves, were headed to the dumpster when sisters Kathy Bailey of Brentwood and Dianne Wichenheiser of Glendale insisted on unpeeling the newspaper wrapping to see what was inside. 

Much to their surprise, the siblings found several 24-by-7-inch storyboards with the cartoon illustrations, drawn in Ted Pepple’s hand, with the signature “Pep,” Pepple’s childhood nickname. There were 10 of them.Apparently, a penchant for art runs in the family.

“Adding substantially to my enthusiasm and pride is that my 17-year-old grandson, Keegan, also has a drawing displayed next to his great-grandfather’s handiwork,” Kim Pepple boasted.

Aspiring artist Keegan Pepple watched lots of cartoons and read comics. It was only natural for him to sketch some of his favorite characters. He explored many different art mediums in art class and even designed a skateboard deck. His favorite — pencil drawings. 

Keegan Pepple was inspired to explore his creative side by Laura Lebeda, his art teacher at St. John Vianney High School.

“She motivated me to draw, saying, ‘Force yourself. Sit down and once you get started, you’ll gain momentum and follow through.’” 

Eight-year-old budding artist Lucy Corelli who is in third grade at Avery Elementary in Webster Groves was excited to show her watercolor piece entitled “Song Birds of Spring.” 

“It was really cool to know that a piece of art that I made was being seen by lots of other people, and that they might like it. It felt special,” she said. “I used a lot of different colors for the birds, and I liked the way the colors of the tree blended and how the leaves looked on the small branches.”

St. Louis Community College art professor Annie Smith Piffel had several students exhibiting work in the show. 

“I’ve witnessed growth in all my students who had the opportunity to exhibit here,” she said.

The first-time event was coordinated by Webster Groves resident Dave Buck. A 70-year-old amateur artist himself, he set out to bring this brainchild to fruition.

“I did the event for two reasons — to bring the community together and to have fun,” he said.

Buck contacted Scott Kerr, who co-owns McCaughen & Burr with his daughter Sara.  Buck presented his idea to provide an opportunity to create community through arts, which would be open to any amateur, unjuried, with no awards. Kerr, being community-minded and a consummate supporter of the arts, opened his doors to the event, a generous act Buck credits for the show’s success. 

“I’m grateful for the Webster Groves community for supporting this independent art source,” Buck said. “There’s no other forum in the world that can lift people up and bring them together like the arts can.”

In artist Juan Velázquez’s heart, “Art belongs to no one and everyone.”

The sentiment was on display last week as he took to social media to rally community support, when his mural painted on the upcoming second location of Gilberto’s Taco Shop along the 600 block of West Park Row Drive, faced the threat of removal.

The mural, which has become a favorite among the Arlington community, depicts the infamous “Don’t mess with Texas” moment when Rougned Odor, Texas Rangers second baseman, punched Blue Jays’ player José Bautista. The piece has been complete since January.

After Gilberto’s owner José Ruiz filed permits for additional signage on his new restaurant, the city notified him last week that the mural violated development code and must be removed before the permits could be granted.

Upset and stressed, Ruiz called Velázquez after receiving the notice. He was worried about losing the artwork, especially with the time, effort and money that went into it, he said. Ruiz has also spent months preparing the restaurant to open and the mural’s code violation became another obstacle. Velázquez assured him that he would take care of the situation, turning to social media.

“I made the decision to go public with it because I wanted him to see the support,” Velázquez said.

Within 24 hours, hundreds of people flooded social media with comments or direct messages to Velázquez defending the mural, he said. Some wanted to call city employees and others to protest outside city hall. But Bowie Hogg, District 7 city council member who represents the entire city, poured oil on troubled waters, clarifying that there were no immediate plans to remove the mural.

After seeing Velázquez’s post, Hogg conferred with the city manager, who then postponed the mural’s removal until city council reviews the current policy at a meeting May 9. Ruiz will also be able to move forward with getting his sign permits and opening the restaurant, Hogg said.

Although the mural was allowed to stay, the taco shop’s logo painted on the left side of the mural will need to be removed for the sign permits to be approved, Ruiz said. The situation has become a catalyst for a larger conversation about where public art should be allowed in the city.

Currently, murals are allowed in the Downtown Business zoning districts and the Entertainment District Overlay with certain conditions, according to Arlington’s Unified Development Code.

Some of those conditions are one mural per building, and it must be painted with weather-resistant paint. If the mural degrades severely, the owner shall repair or remove it within 60 days. No portion of the mural can be used to advertise, but it may display the tenant’s name or logo on no more than 20% of the mural area, with the proper sign permit.

Confining artwork to one area doesn’t sit right with Velázquez and some members of the community.

Not everyone can afford to live downtown, but they still deserve to have art in their neighborhood that they can appreciate everyday, Velázquez said.

He said he understands that some parameters need to be in place such as prohibiting murals from being painted in residential areas, but thinks they should be allowed in commercial areas. Hopefully, changing the code creates a path for other artists, allowing them to find work in places where they previously weren’t allowed, he said.

Allowing murals to be painted outside of downtown would add value to the rougher areas that can’t afford to make everything look nice, said Julie Elizondo, who showed support for the Rangers mural on Velázquez’s social media post. It can also be inspiring to see beautiful things around the city.

“There’s enough negativity in the world. I just feel like his artwork helps cast a little shadow on that negativity,” she said.

Public artwork can also help the city’s economy. When people go to take pictures at the Rangers mural, they might buy food from the taco shop or the Walgreens next door or get gas nearby, Velázquez said.

There is some data pointing to art’s economic impact in the city. A 2019 study by the Downtown Arlington Management Corporation found that the total annual economic output of the arts and cultural institutions in downtown exceeds $118 million. Impacts were calculated for jobs and salaries, money that the organizations and their activities pumped into Arlington’s economy, taxable sales and hotel room sales generated by out-of-town visitors.

Downtown Arlington has a history of supporting the arts, said Maggie Campbell, president and CEO of Downtown Arlington Management Corp. The corporation represents collective stakeholders and engages in work that benefits downtown like marketing, promotion, beautification and economic development, Campbell said.

Over the last ten years, downtown has been involved in promoting the movement for public art. To date, there have been 20 murals commissioned that the corporation has been involved with, either by paying the artist directly or providing grants to property owners, she said. Murals have been painted on businesses ranging from Theatre Arlington to Sugar Bee Sweets Bakery.

The emergence of performance art in downtown over the years, from live music at Arlington Music Hall or Levitt Pavilion to small shows at bars and restaurants, provided a rich environment for murals which can be enjoyed by everyone for free, Campbell said.

The Downtown Arlington Management Corporation has since established a program where it provides matching grants to business owners to fund major storefront improvements, including murals. This can help pay the artist, pay for the materials or both, Campbell said. The corporation also helps connect artists with downtown businesses looking to commission artwork.

“We believe that public arts enriches people’s lives and provides opportunities for all kinds of people to enjoy art,” she said.

While downtown may have become a bastion for the arts, it would look forward to participating in and following the discussion as city council reviews the existing ordinance, Campbell said. The mural program has become a great attraction for downtown and similar programs may work in other areas if someone can figure out how to do it, but there are things to consider.

It will probably take a couple meetings for the city council to officially determine how the policy is changed, Hogg said. One concerning factor is the mural’s longevity, which could detract from the look of a neighborhood if degradations aren’t abated through routine maintenance.

But one possible solution could be asking the artist to coat the mural with a weather protective seal, he said. It is likely that murals would be prohibited in residential areas as well. Either way, Hogg said he hopes to find a working process to increase the amount of art throughout the city.

“You have to figure what’s a good balance of encouraging art, but also looking out for the entire community,” he said.

The Rangers mural will be allowed to stay until the city council reaches a final decision, with initial discussions beginning May 9. But if the policy were to be reviewed and no change implemented, then the mural might be subject to potential removal again, Hogg said.

And that’s something Velázquez said he might not stand for, intent on talking about the issue until the code is changed.

But overall the situation has been one of positivity and Velázquez said it felt good to have the community’s support, as he is someone who wants to give back to the community. And without this incident, reviewing the mural policy wouldn’t have been on the city council’s radar.

Ruiz said it would make him happy and proud to potentially be part of such an impactful change for the arts in the city he loves alongside Velázquez and hopes it inspires others to do the same.

“At first I was just trying to argue with them because they need to let the mural stay, but now I see this as something bigger,” Velázquez said. “I see this as fighting for the rights of other artists.”

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features-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu

“It’s also just a good sense of pride for the city and people who are here year-round,” said Kerri Danowski of Spokane Arts.

ENID, Okla. — Christy Northcutt always has been drawn to arts and education.

That’s why whenever she sees needs in those two important sectors in the Enid community, she steps up — sometimes intersecting the two.

Whether she’s chairing the Public Arts Commission of Enid, serving on various boards of directors for different organizations or coordinating a partnership between between Enid Public Schools and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Northcutt said she wants to improve the lives of those around her through her passions.

“Arts and education … enrich your life — the quality of your life and of the community,” she said. “They made a difference in my life, so I want to share that with other people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to have arts in education.”

‘Important at any age’

Northcutt, born and raised in Enid, learned the importance of volunteerism from her parents while growing up, as they helped people and organizations in the community through donating, running a Mobile Meals route and more.

“Watching them do things for the community made a difference in my life,” she said. “I saw that doing things for other people is important, and you do things without expecting recognition or rewards. You do those things because it’s a need, and you see and can fill the need.”

Northcutt attended William Woods University in Fulton, Mo., and after two years she took one year off to travel with Up with People, which provides experiences “where young adults can take their passion of travel, volunteering, performance, education and leadership and put it into action through the power of their own voice.”

“In every town I went to (with Up with People), I did some type of community service,” she said. “That was a neat thing to remember in my early 20s — that community service is important at any age you can do it. …

“It’s important to give back to your community when you can and in any capacity that you can. Some give monetary donations. Others give their time and talents, and there’s true value in that.”

Returning to serve Enid

After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and marketing and business from WWU, Northcutt worked there for two years. She later worked for Phillips University, but after its 1998 closure she moved to Tulsa and worked for Bank of Oklahoma as the vice president of marketing.

She married her husband Scott and moved back to Enid, where she worked with Bank of Oklahoma for another year before resigning in 2004 to care for her oldest child Nate, later having her second child Len.

Northcutt also formed Stroller Fit, a fitness program for mothers and their children; Be Fit Kids, later taken over by Community Development Support Association, and the Be Fit Kids Buzz Run, which is still held every year for children to participate in a fun event that promotes health and fitness in a low-risk, high-reward environment; and Fit Chicks, which is the umbrella under which she operates, still teaching bar classes twice per week.

Almost immediately after returning to Enid, Northcutt became active on different boards of directors for Enid Symphony Orchestra and Enid Arts Council, both per request, and Leonardo’s Children’s Museum.

While Northcutt was on the arts council, a partnership between Enid Public Schools and the JFK Center for the Performing Arts, through the Partners in Education program, was started in 2005.

Northcutt served as the coordinator for Partners in Education for about 15 years. She went to Washington, D.C., annually to select professional development programs for EPS’ teachers to receive training for and then implement arts integration curriculum into their classrooms, like Marcia Daft’s “Moving Through Math,” which allows students to use art forms such as storytelling, music and movement to represent and solve problems such as skip counting, place values and spatial shapes.

Northcutt has been recognized through awards and other honors, but that’s not why she has dedicated her time to volunteerism.

“It’s an honor to be recognized, but it’s humbling because you don’t do it for the recognition — you do it for others,” she said.

And she hopes her efforts will leave an impact on her children and inspire them to volunteer and serve their communities in their own ways — “to match their passions and talents.”

Art in public places

Art adds to the quality of life in Enid, Northcutt said, and enriches people’s lives.

She also said art can draw people to communities and is important for the people who are growing up and living in Enid.

“‘What are they seeing? What are they learning?” Northcutt said. “You have to have those things for all ages, and that’s why I love art.”

For a few years now, Northcutt has been on the Public Arts Commission of Enid, currently serving as the chair.

Northcutt said having a say in Enid’s public artwork means a lot, adding that it’s been nice to see the various art projects from beginning to end and then to see community members enjoy them.

“I think that’s the thing that means the most to me — seeing our community’s positive reaction and enjoyment of the artistic additions that we do for the community,” she said.

Some of the art projects PACE has helped fund include “Under Her Wing Was the Universe,” “Lazy Circles in the Sky” and Woodring Wall of Honor’s “Heroes from the Heartland” exhibit.

PACE is also bringing touchable art to the Enid Trail System. So far, two different art projects have been chosen to be installed along a portion of the trail.

Northcutt said her biggest role with PACE, to date, has been commissioning an artist to paint a mural at Enid Skate Park.

Out of 21 submissions, Los Angeles artist Matt Dean — known as Kiptoe — was chosen, with Northcutt having other members of PACE and stakeholders in the community around the Enid Skate Park included in the selection.

Throughout the painting of “Shred City,” Northcutt said children were watching Kiptoe and asking him questions, and on the day Kiptoe signed his name to the finished mural, children were there asking him to spray paint his name on their skateboards, scooters and even T-shirts.

“(The children) were talking to an artist from California. They were seeing, ‘OK, an artist doesn’t have to be someone who is sitting in a studio painting a watercolor flower,’” Northcutt said. “It was showing somebody something different. … It motivates people to think about what they could do themselves.”

The seemingly sudden emergence of artificial intelligence into our everyday reality has unsettled many – but not Illma Gore.

“We are entering a new era,” she says. “What an exciting time to be an artist. What a cool time to be making shit.”

The Brisbane and LA-based artist is known for her provocations and is no stranger to controversy, from tattooing the names of thousands of strangers on to her body, to being sued by Marilyn Manson for her role in documenting claims of his sexual abuse, to painting Donald Trump having a very small penis.

But the work she will create for the Brisbane street art festival is, on its surface at least, far more bucolic than all that.

In Artistic Visions of a Brighter Future a small boy sits among grass and wildflowers, his bare feet dangling above a stream as he pencils his homework into a bound paper book. Dappled in warm yellow sunlight beside the boy is a dog – of a sort.

This is no flesh and blood canine but Boston Dynamics’ Spot, described in one Washington Post headline as “the $74,500 robot dog of our dystopian dreams”.

But Gore is bored of a dystopia dreamed up by artists like Mike Winkelmann, or Beeple, whose work features dismembered human body parts branded with serial numbers and attached to electronic machinery and giant robotic avatars of tech billionaires being worshipped like deities.

Gore gets that people are scared.

“We have so many issues with climate and capitalism, the American government and the two-party system is absolutely fucked, everyone’s angry,” she says.

Though born and raised in Brisbane – her developer father, Mike Gore, was one of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s infamous “white-shoe brigade” – Gore’s mother was from the US and the artist moved to California at the age of 20.

She has more first-hand experience of the anger and dysfunction circulating in the US than most Australians.

After her infamous nude Trump portrait she was suspended from Facebook, hounded with death threats – even physically attacked.

Gore recently returned to her home city – a place she says has “grown so much creatively the last 10 years” – for a break from the US, describing the moment her plane touched down as a “huge relief”.

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“America is like a third-world country driving a Porsche,” Gore says. “It’s quite intense at the moment.”

It’s not just legislatively that we, as a society, are lagging the rapid advance of technology, Gore believes, but emotionally.

Which explains why, as an artist, Gore is excited.

“Imagine looking back at the 21st century in history and being like: ‘this is right before we had AI and robots fully integrated into society, what art were they making?’,” she says.

For a decidedly contemporary artist, Gore is acutely aware of their place in history. And she believes we’ve been here before.

What were the fireside discussions when the wheel was invented, Gore asks – “kids these days and their wheels, they got it so easy”.

And just as Andy Warhol’s soup cans came to visually define the era of US mass production, Gore can’t help but wonder what the great thinkers, writers and creators of the past would have made of the rapidly emerging future in which we find ourselves.

What would Diogenes the Cynic, who so scorned the superficiality of his fellow Athenians that he dressed in rags and lived in a barrel in the agora, what would Diogenes have thought of the selfie generation and how would he have performed his ripostes?

What would Mary Cassatt and Frida Kahlo have made of the evolution of femininity?

What timeless phrases could Shakespeare have conjured with lol, rizz and our endless stream of slang and buzzwords?

Gore’s far from alone in grappling with the emotional significance of this moment in history – she’s not even the first artist to play with a Boston Dynamics’ robotic dog.

Art and marketing collective MSCHF bought themselves a Spot and mounted a paintball gun on it, in what Gore describes as a valid conversation around the militarisation of robotics.

But far fewer are those committed to imagining a future with robotics and artificial intelligence that “all just works”.

Because Gore, a techno-optimist like Agnieszka Pilat – who trained Boston Dynamics’ dogs in the art of portraiture – believes things can be bad and still be getting better at the same time.

“There will be new jobs, there will be new stuff to do,” she says.

Is Gore being naive? That is a question that, for now, not even artificial intelligence can answer.

“I am an AI language model and do not have the ability to interpret the behaviour or state of mind of individuals,” was ChatGPT’s response.

But then, if the program was intent upon world domination, it would say that, wouldn’t it?

Gore’s is one of nine temporary artworks being installed in the Queen Street Mall for the street art festival which also includes permanent works being put up on walls around the city.