Emvergeoning

I’ll try to put up some of the openings coming up next month but check out the official CAM site for a comprehensive calendar.

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Justin Quinn: Moby Dick Chapter 54 or 13, 879 times E (detail)

A little over a week ago I posted on Glasstire about a show of paper works up at Texas State University. It’s really worth checking out if you are in San Marcos (or driving through). The show closes this coming Thursday (the 22nd). Read the review and drop by.

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We recently switched web hosts, and the transition was a little hairier than expected, due to some Wordpress database quirks. I think everything’s more or less ironed out at this point, but we did lose some comments that were posted over the last couple of weeks. If you posted anything that has disappeared, please know that this was due to a database snafu and nothing more.

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Chad Dawkins attempts to review every visual art exhibit on the Contemporary Art Month calendar on a blog created for the project: Publicity Stunted. So far he’s off to a good start, though more images could help. We’ll see if he can keep up the momentum through this weekend, which looks pretty packed.

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Contemporary Art Month just posted their calendar on the website. Lots to sift through.

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*update (june 08, 09) I ran into Daniel again and he is now claiming that the bikes will be temporarily displayed throughout the city, and locked in place.  He will be showing them soon as an entire group.

Be on the lookout, local artist Daniel Saldana, known most prominently in our community for his unfathomably plated metal objects, has taken to turning his excess metal into art bicycles, and leaving them about town.  I’ve seen them left up at SAMA, and Blue Star now, both times without a camera on my person.  I caught him at Red Dot with his newest creation, this time, chained to the pole outside.  Previous bikes were left to be picked up by lucky takers, and ostensibly this new one, I was told was “not finished,” and would be given a similar fate after completion.  If you have other images of these art bikes in their native habitat, give em up, via our contact form.

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Last Friday night I was assigned a real doozy of an assignment for the San Antonio Current, Wrestling 4 Christ (..errr warriors 4 christ?)  an event that sits in a church parking lot and claims to both spread the word of Jesus Christ, and offer free live wrestling to the community.  Since that story and those images have yet to go to print, I’ll refrain from posting them here.  While waiting for the event to begin, I noticed a tall skinny blond guy, looking a little bit out of place with the crowd, walking with a pad and pencil in hand.  Not sure yet who was writing the wrestling story, I quickly scanned my internal archive of SACurrent writers who I’ve met or seen in person, and came up blank.  After sitting a little to far away from all of the gathering crowd, I decided to make my way closer and maybe see what kind of christian wrestling gossip I could catch up on.  I found a rock wall to lean on a hundred feet from the ring, turning my head, I noticed the writer who I had previously thought to be out of place.  I asked him who he was writing for and he said something to the effect of, nobody, himself, a comedy book, etc..  He was from Britain(the Isle of Wight), and had just gotten to San Antonio the day previous.  He mentioned that he had come to town just for the wrestling event, and I thought for a second he must be a real religious wrestling zealot.  After continung our discussion, I decided there was no way he could really be that much of a kook, he seemed pretty level-headed really… what was the deal?  Johnston walked up (the SACurrent writer for the story) and I soon lost track of my discussion with Adam.  We all turned our attention to getting inside of the backstage trailer full of Christian wrestlers.  Once inside, coated in the dank smell of sunday school portable turned middle school locker room, Johnston asked Adam specifically what the book he was writing was all about and if he had a publisher?  In a quiet way Adam tells us he is the maker of “The Girl of My Dreams.com,” and had embarked on a worldwide hunt for a girl he woke up one morning and drew a picture of after seeing her in a zombie killing dream.  He had received some sort of lead that his girl might be here, in San Antonio, at the Wrestling 4 Christ event.  What a journey!  Me and Johnston felt ridiculous elation at meeting such a one-off traveler.  He was leaving in the morning, on a train to Washington.  He was even wearing a neon green wrestling jumpsuit under his clothing, perhaps to flag her down? Finally, He mentioned to us the connection between his website, and “the NY Girl of my Dreams guy, who broke up with his dream girl after only 2 months..” and what he thought of that, “..Lame, wheres the story in that?”

I left Adam after watching most of the wrestling, my girlfriend wanted to get dinner, and I had the shots I needed.  Wrestling, even the pseudo-safe Christian type makes me squirm to watch.  I’m such a pacifist, I stand there watching, cringing in pain and thinking to myself, “isn’t somebody going to stop that guy?”  Adam seemed to think I was going to miss out, and Johnston got some fabulous quotes out of the backroom sweaty guys for the upcoming story..  I don’t think I’ll ever understand what the draw is..but I hope it gets Adam one step closer to his Dream Girl.

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(Henry Rayburn shown at the Daniel Joseph Martinez event/opening at the Linda Pace Foundation last year.  Photo by Justin Parr)

I will dearly miss seeing Henry out in San Antonio.  More info here.

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San Antonio Artists, Musicians Collaborate for 3rd Annual “Christmoustache”

San Antonio, TX (December 20, 2008) – Looking for the right reason to celebrate the season?  Look no further than San Antonio’s annual facial hair themed holiday event, the “Christmoustache.”

Each year, local artists, musicians and friends encourage each other to grow the wiliest, woolliest, and wackiest moustaches to celebrate the Holiday season.

This year’s Christmoustache party will be held at the Fl!ght gallery, 1906 S. Flores, from 7 until 11 pm on December 20th.  KRTU DJ JJ Lopez will be spinning tunes and Demitasse (with members of Buttercup) will play holiday themed music.

Guests are encouraged to grow moustaches, but stick-on and fake moustaches will be available at the door for ladies and the facial-hair-challenged.

A suggested donation of $3 will benefit the San Antonio Community Garden Organization.

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I’ve gotten this press release in several forms over the last few days.  Enough that I put in an email asking for further information.  If any of you are interested I’d suggest you do it as well.  It could be a decent opportunity to have some work exhibited permanently in a public space.

CALL TO ARTISTS PRESS RELEASE

The Benham Companies and Arden and Associates are currently accepting proposals to provide visual art for the San Antonio Military Medical Center. Medical facilities that are part of this project are located at Fort Sam Houston and Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. These world class health facilities will house inpatient and outpatient ambulatory care as well as trauma and emergency medical care.

Artwork [proposed for these facilities] must reflect the principles of evidence based design and should capture the historical and artistic influences of the local community while promoting wellness and healing in the healthcare environment.

All artwork mediums will be considered for this project. Selected artwork will be displayed throughout the medical center buildings and at key locations on the sites.

Professional artists from San Antonio and surrounding areas are invited to become part of this exciting opportunity.

For more information, please email:

Cindy Bench

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UPDATE: Check out Ben’s description of the night over at Scattered Work.

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Found out via Mark Jones at the Halloween Bike Ride that Herb Hornung, the owner of the Wooden Nickle Museum, and creator/inventor of both full and single color double sided wooden nickle presses, passed away on Oct 20, 2008.  I had the opportunity to meet and photograph him a few months back for a story done by the San Antonio Current.  I really enjoyed my short visit with him that day, and came away with a wonder and newfound respect for a man who would build mechanized wooden nickles printing presses from scratch.  I was only allowed to photograph one of the working presses, as he said that design was widely known, his full color machines were, and still remain to be, top secret.

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I’m sure many of you have noticed that my blogging at Emvergeoning has dropped off rather dramatically over the last couple of months. There are numerous reasons for this, but one of the big ones is a sense of limitation in what I feel Emvergeoning is about. Frankly, I’m losing my energy for writing about issues directly related to art and design, and some of the energy that remains is being soaked up by other publications. What’s a blogger to do?

The obvious answer, of course, is to start another blog. If you’ve enjoyed my writing in this space, I hope you will check in with my new, personal blog, Scattered Work. I will continue writing about art (cross-posting when appropriate), but Scattered Work will offer broader thoughts on culture in general — more about politics, spirituality, technology, or whatever happens to be capturing my imagination; and more of my personal creative work, which I have avoided posting on Emvergeoning.
We’re also working on some plans to reenergize Emvergeoning, so stay tuned for that.

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Just a reminder, you can go see the oldest experimental film festival in America for FREE tonight. And given the days economic doom report, seems like a good idea to sit in a dark theater and contemplate contemporary art through new media/rose colored glasses. It’s at the Downtown UTSA Campus. Highly recommend carpooling or bicycling to this event.

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