Hop•art•unity, n. 1. An additional public art opportunity offered at the Carnegie Center in conjunction with the Downtown Gallery Hop, esp. literary and performing art. 2. The unification of multiple art forms, offered at the Carnegie Center in conjunction with the Downtown Gallery Hop.
In conjunction with the LexArts-sponsored dowtown Gallery Hop, the Carnegie Center will host FREE additional art events, with an emphasis on literary and performing arts, to complement the visual artworks featured in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery. Visit during Gallery Hop (5-8pm), and return (or stay!) for the HopARTunity event.
The HopARTunity program is made possible by a generous grant from the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Foundation.
2007-2008 HopARTunity events at the Carnegie Center
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
5-8 pm in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery:
Artist’s reception for The Letterpress Art of Alex Brooks
Reception sponsored by Preston-Osborne
Alex Brooks attended the University of Kentucky, where he was a Gaines Fellow and graduated in 2003 with a degree in Creative Writing. He then founded press eight seventeen, in downtown Lexington, just blocks from the Carnegie Center.
He prints broadsides, cards, posters, hand-bound books, and other ephemera using hand-set metal & wood type and hand-cut woodcut illustrations.
6:30 pm: Official kick-off of the Carnegie Center’s
2007-2008 New Books by Great Writers series:
A reading and book signing by poet and project coordinator Leatha Kendrick (Science in Your Own Back Yard, the forthcoming Second Opinion) and Kentucky Poet Laureate Jane Gentry Vance (Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16
5-8 pm in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery:
Artist’s reception for MIXED IMPRESSIONS/NEW EXPRESSIONS: A Bouquet of Paintings by The Twelve. This exhibit includes primitive landscapes, childhood landscapes, still lifes, and other figurative works. The Twelve is a recently formed group of women painters. Through January 5.
6-8 pm:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15
5-8 pm in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery:
Artist’s reception for painter Kelly Brewer
6:30 pm:
The music of the Cosmic Mamaws
Jessie Lynne Keltner, Kate Larken, George Ella Lyon, and Anne Shelby perform together as “The Cosmic Mamaws.”
Jessie Lynne Keltner is a respected songwriter and musician who has performed throughout Appalachia. Her voice and songs ring with the rich, ancient tones of her ancestors. Raised in Southeastern Kentucky, she currently lives in London.
Kate Larken is a songwriter, playwright, activist, educator, producer, and publisher (EvaMedia Inc and MotesBooks) whose career is a busy intersection of communication, education, and the arts. She has recorded five collections of original music, and has contributed to various other recording and performance projects. A native of west Kentucky’s rural farmlands and, later, a transplant into the great nation of Appalachia, she currently lives on the Ohio River in a big, old city with working-class roots that run deep.
George Ella Lyon is originally from Harlan County, Kentucky and has published thirty-five books for children and adults. Her most recent titles include Don’t You Remember? (a memoir due out in April), No Dessert Forever! and Trucks Roll! (picture books), Sonny’s House of Spies (a novel for young readers), and a reprint of the adult novel With a Hammer for My Heart. Married to musician/writer Steve Lyon, she is the mother of two sons, and makes her living as a freelance writer and teacher in Lexington.
Anne Shelby is the author of poems, essays, children's books and, most recently, a collection of Appalachian folktales. A storyteller and singer as well as a writer, she is also a member of Public Outcry, a group of Kentucky musicians fighting against mountaintop removal coal mining. Anne has taught creative writing at the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts and the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman Settlement School, has worked with the Kentucky Arts Council's artist-in-the-schools program, and has been a contributor to many other workshops and conferences. Anne lives near Oneida in Clay County, Kentucky, with her husband, journalist Edmund Shelby. They are the parents of writer Graham Shelby and grandparents of triplets Leo, Luke and Ace.
FRIDAY, APRIL 18
5-8 pm in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery:
The Art of Lexington Catholic High School Students
6:30 pm:
Dancer Sarah Comstock
Sarah Comstock received her professional ballet training with the University of Louisville Dance Academy and with schools of National ballet companies in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York City. After six years of performing in children’s and corps de ballet roles, she joined the Louisville Ballet in 1995. Known for her versatile, dynamic and engaging performances, Sarah enjoyed many Soloist and Principal roles by Taylor, Parsons, Petipa and Balanchine, among others. Upon her departure from Louisville Ballet in 2003, she danced Principal roles with Northwest Florida Ballet, Chattanooga Ballet and Duchy Ballet in Cornwall, England. Sarah reaches thousands of students every year with New Performing Arts and dance education programs in Kentucky schools. Most recently, she is an independent artist, in demand for contemporary work in Chicago, Ft.Wayne, Lexington, and returning to Louisville with the innovations of The Moving Collective and Empujon.
FRIDAY, JUNE 20
5-8 pm in the Laurie S. Bottoms Gallery:
The work of Kentucky Women Photographers
6:30 pm:
A reading by winners and finalists of the Next Great Writers Competition