Posts filed under 'arts'
September 14th, 2009
Go for the art but stay for the food, or vice versa, at this weekend’s Greenwich Village Art Fair on the grounds of the Rockford Art Museum.
Along with 125 artists displaying and selling their works, the fundraiser on Saturday and Sunday features:
* A crepery from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Attorneys Marcia Mueller and Chuck Prorok will make individually prepared sweet and savory crepes.
* An omelet station the same time on Sunday.
In each three-hour period, the duo cranks out about 150 servings of each item.
Vendors also give samples and sell gourmet foods, wine and beer. Plus there’s a bar.
The event raises money for the museum.
August 13th, 2009
ROCKFORD — A 12-foot-by-12-foot mural created by three recent Rockford high school graduates will be presented to the public at 11:30 a.m. today at 508 E. State St.
The work is a painting of words with a message that revolves around “be,” as in “be compassionate, be involved, be unique.” The 508 E. State Mural hangs on the west-facing outer wall of the 5 Spa building. The artists who made the mural are Paley Nordlof, Naomi Flores and Christine Rogers.
The ELEMENT, a city initiative to enhance the arts downtown while marketing and developing housing for artists, headed up the project with the help of Rock Valley College and financing from the Rockford Park District.
August 12th, 2009
Donald Luppen Reed — who was born in Rockford, grew up in Oregon and has a studio in Beloit — will unveil a life-size statute of President Ronald Regan in Reagan’s hometown of Dixon on Friday.
Dixon officials commissioned him to create the 9-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Reagan on horseback. It is entitled “Begins the Trail” and features a youthful Reagan. Reagan lived in Dixon from 1920 to 1933. The sculpture will be the centerpiece of Dixon’s newly built Heritage Crossing riverfront plaza on the banks of the Rock River.
Reed operates his studio in Rivers Edge Foundry in Beloit, Wis.
July 29th, 2009
The Rockford Rage roller derby league is donating $1,000 to the Rockford Area Arts Council as a result of its Starving Artist art sale where members and artists sold their works for $600. The other $400 came from proceeds from the group’s bout the same day on July 25 at the Indoor Sports Center in Loves Park.
Derby member Jan Fosse builds a sculpture of roller skate wheels, which was sold to benefit the Rockford Area Arts Council. (Katy Mull photo)
June 9th, 2009
The Mayor’s Arts Awards, a 21-year-old celebration of Rockford area arts people, places and activities that traditionally was held in June, is morphing into an October event targeting a broader audience.
The Mayor’s Arts Awards will be a smaller-but-still-significant portion of the affair that the presenter, the Rockford Area Arts Council, is calling the State of the Arts. The Mayor’s Arts Awards recognizes an artist, advocate, event, business, student and teacher.
Another main focus of The State of the Arts event will be a trade fair of sorts, in that organizations will man display tables to sell season subscriptions and provide information. Such groups will include the Rockford Art Museum, Rockford Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center, Rockford Wind Ensemble, Rockford Dance Company and Kantorei, The Singing Boys of Rockford. The event also will include highlights of the arts community for the past year.
Anne O’Keefe, executive director of the Arts Council, said the event needs to appeal to more people who aren’t so intimately involved in the arts as a means to keep the arts scene vital. “As we are faced with economic constraints, we need to brand the Arts Council,” O’Keefe told me Monday. “We are the ones who can convene all the arts organizations. We want people outside the arts to know what is going on.”
In May, the city cut funding to the arts group by $25,000, giving it $50,000. The funding cut represents 5 percent of its $462,865 budget, but could mean grant reductions to the organizations the Arts Council funds.
The State of the Arts will be a luncheon from 11:30 to 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, at Cliffbreakers Riverside Resort, 700 W. Riverside Blvd., Rockford.
Cost will be about $40, and the Arts Councils hopes to sell a table of seats to businesses. O’Keefe said moving the celebration to Cliffbreakers during the day is intended to draw more business people. The Mayor’s Arts Awards had been held evenings at the Coronado Performing Arts Center in downtown Rockford since the theater was renovated in 2001. Last year, about 200 people attended, down from 300 the previous year. O’Keefe hopes to attract 400 this year.
The State of the Arts will be a kick-off of sorts for the Fall ArtScene Oct. 2 and 3, a tour of dozens of Rockford galleries and venues featuring local artists’ works for sale. The State of the Arts also celebrates the start of Illinois’ Arts and Humanities Month. “This will be a very upbeat, positive event,” O’Keefe said.
MIKE DONZE | RRSTAR.COM
Artist Alan Mauries hangs out Saturday, April 18, 2009, at ArtScene at The Brewhouse/Rockford Marina Building, 201 Hill St., in Rockford.
April 24th, 2009
Two seniors who’ll graduate from local high schools this spring will be recognized as 2009 Gary S. Wilmer Memorial Scholarship recipients Thursday, April 30, at the 18th Annual Rockford Area Music Industry Awards Ceremony at the Tebala Shrine Temple in Rockford:
Colleen Bartimoccia of Boylan Catholic High School will attend Augustana College in Rock Island, majoring in music education. She wants to teach at the college level. She’s a member of the Jazz Choir and Jazz Band at school and has performed at Starlight Theatre in Rockford. She received $2,000. 
Katie Colletta of Hononegah High School in Rockton will attend Millikin University in Decatur, pursing a degree in musical theater. She has performed in several local theater group productions, including those at New American Theater, and with Mendelssohn’s Broadway Bound. She received $1,000. The scholarships are administered by the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois. 
Along with the scholarship awards, musicians in various genres will be named winners at the RAMI ceremony, which starts at 7 p.m. at 7910 Newburg Road, Rockford. Tickets cost $7, $5 in advance. Performers include the 2009 RAMI Youth Charity Jam winner Britches and Hose, Miles Nielsen, Juelane and Gid-E-Yup, Jodi Beach, Jinger Christal and Holland Zander, New Royal Travelers, Revolucion De Amor, X51 and The Merkins.
April 7th, 2009
You just gotta see this to appreciate it.
March 16th, 2009
Golan Liberman Art Gallery in Rockford will remain open for now, owner and abstract artist Roni Golan said today.
“Can I tell you I am out of the woods?” he said. “No, not yet.”
Golan held a maybe-going-out-of-business sale late last month with discounted prices on his works at the studio at 2209 E. State St. Going forward, he said he’ll keep his prices lower. And there’s more traffic now that the DiTullio’s has opened a deli next door.
Golan will continue to host his free Laughing Club meetings at the studio for the time being anyway. He said he vows to “turn Rockford into a city that never stops laughing.”
March 10th, 2009
There are plenty of unsung heroes behind-the-high-school-play curtain, and my Ask Geo column highlights four.
(Sari Gessner, who designed this costume out of Coke cans, for ‘The Hobbit’ at Lutheran High School in Rockford)
What do you think makes good theater, whether in high school or elsewhere? Tell in the comments section here.
February 25th, 2009
Hard telling when/if Rockford College will bring back the weeklong series “Uncommon Lives: Extraordinary Women in the Arts.” The culprit: money.
The series started in 1991 and virtually every other year brought in half a dozen nationally recognized women writers, musicians, dancers and singers for performances, workshops and lectures that were open to the public. It cost the college, once a college for women only, $80,000 to $100,000 for each series, said Chuck Brown, communications and new media director for the college.
The last time Uncommon Lives was offered was in 2006 when Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves and Twyla Tharp, choreographer and author, were among the featured women. The series attracted about 2,000 people that year, Brown said.
In an e-mail Tuesday, Brown said the college’s financial picture has stabilized since 2008, when Robert Head took over as president. But in 2006 and 2007, the college “had to focus its resources on activities that generated revenue to maintain academic programs and services,” Brown said. In short, the college was focused on attending to the “nitty-gritty” of running the college, he said.
However, the college will consider putting on Uncommon Lives again in the future, he said.
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