Local Artists Paint the Town RED for World AIDS Day

For the 20th Anniversary of World AIDS Day, local artists including myself will paint Baltimore red on Saturday, December 1st as they showcase their artwork highlighting the AIDS epidemic impacting communities.

Organized by Authentic Art Consulting and the ThickArt Collaborative, the opening ceremony will be held at Peace and a Cup of Joe Cafe at 713 W. Pratt Street starting from 3-7pm.

"With a passion to bring awareness and action on public health issues, I founded a DC-based nonprofit, Creative Cause, to develop creative campaigns for change to engage the community to become a part of a movement," stated Tambra Stevenson, artist and founder of Creative Cause.

So for HIV/AIDS awareness, the campaign is called Plant HOPE, which stands for HIV Outreach is a Pathway to Empowerment.

At the event, Creative Cause will have materials for visitors to make their own artistic postcards of hope in memory of a loved one to become a part of Plant HOPE.

"Initially when I created Plant HOPE it began with the focus of planting hope in ourselves and then in the community," said Stevenson. "So to me, hope has many meanings such as helping other people everyday. I dedicated Plant HOPE to my dad who was a humanitarian and always helping people as a firefighter."

Stevenson, a self-proclaimed suppressed artist now emerging, has recognized for using art to highlight health and environmental issues since a teen in Oklahoma. She is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine/Emerson College joint program in Health Communication program and is the creator of Postcards from Katrina.

Support and learn more about Creative Cause at www.creativecause.org and Plant HOPE at www.planthope.org. Email questions and comments to info@creativecause.org.

THE EXHIBIT: RED
Artists Lifting One Voice in One Common Thread
December 1, 2007 - January 11, 2008

RED is a visual exhibition of original artwork expressing the hopes, fears, experiences dreams about the struggle with HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country and around the world. A portion of the sales of artwork for this event will be donated to CARE' s I AM POWERFUL Campaign's HIV/AIDS Program and the Art Therapy program at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

The exhibition will feature art from over 20 local artists who were invited to visually express through original artwork their hopes, fears, experiences and dreams about the struggle with HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States and around the world. All artwork is available for sale. Patients in the Art Therapy program at the Institute of Human Virology have been invited to display their art as well

The opening reception will also feature an opportunity for guests to make their own postcards to express their thoughts, hopes, dreams about HIV/AIDS or to honor a loved one who may have died from AIDS, courtesy of Creative Cause, a DC-based organization that creates campaigns for causes that change communities for good.

Participating Artists include:

Lola Akinmade
Prudence Bonds
Sharon J. Burton
Kiesha Carroll
Patsy Cline
Cynthia Johnson
Ebony Johnson
Jennifer Judelsohn
Tina Lassiter
Paul Longanbach
Michelle d. Parrish
Marina Reiter
Aurora Rosselli
Michael Stebbins
Luba Sterlikova
Nora Stinley
Schonda Sweeney
Tanekeya Word

goals - presentations and a statement

Thanks Deborah-well I am looking at what you said - I felt pretty good about the presentations in November and hope we can have 5-8 more people go in December - hoping that more peoples work will draw a bigger visual arc so we can step back and try to see how our work all can fit together objectively for this maiden voyage

- it is a personal bugaboo for me to always want the curatorial work drawing a bigger picture than just the the art on the wall, it's a personal stance, but in a lot of ways it is a big part of the contempory direction of art so I guess I'd like to know what people think about making the effort to include bigger ideas-then just the work hanging on the wall. Just throwing up art takes a big effort, but adding more layers to the exhibition part is even more effort - but I've found to be lightyears more rewarding

- I think I'd couch the direction we are going in when it comes to professional goals is to put together an exhibition proposal - A short written statement about what is drawing us all together should be worked out, then a strategy for an exhibition - does that make sense? If anyone thinks I'm blowing smoke out my earhole they should tell me. Cheers & happy turkey day! - Karen

Goals

It was good to see everyone that turned out yesterday. I think we accomplished what we set out to (becoming more familiar with what page each other is on with their individual work).

Before I leave town tomorrow, I wanted to put down in writing Karen's timely suggestion that we start making goals for the group. I was wondering if everyone would be okay making those goal suggestions here so that by the time we meet in person over the next 2 months we know what's on the table for discussion.

I mentioned last night that I will not be in town from tomorrow until Jan 3, so I will miss the December meeting, but i can participate in group discussion via the blog during that time provided that everyone agrees with using this format for the above topic.

More specific questions: What will be our primary professional initiative? Will it take the form of an exhibition? if not, what would we each like to see as our first professional step as a group?

Talk to everyone soon hopefully.
Deborah

MEETING REMINDER: MONDAY 11/12/07

The next Sparkplug meeting WILL be on Monday, November 12 at 7:30 PM (Yoinks-that’s about 5 days from now!!!!)

Agenda items for November meeting-

~Status of returned surveys
~10 – 12 people show slides-talk about work
~Schedule new group to show slides as necessary
~Ideas about ideas
~Do we want to start a list of possible goals for the next 6 months-year?
~Set Agenda for December meeting

The presentations are supposed to be no longer than 10 minutes a piece (which adds up to 1 hour and 20 minutes if we do all 12 people - add a half hour for other issues and realize this could be about a 2 hour meeting.)

We realize some of you may be bringing actual small works to talk about, but just in case you were thinking to have your jpgs projected Jenny has not received jpgs from anywhere near 12 people – so if you were at the October meeting and want you work projected make sure to send them to her ASAP!

Please submit your digital images (NO MORE THAN 5!) in jpeg format to me at jenny.walton@gmail.com before November 10th! Please make them a reasonable size and know that they will be projected.

The 12 presentation slots are already filled for the November Meeting. **However, to get your work in the line-up for December, please submit them here as well. Slots are filled on first come first serve basis.**

We will be projecting in the gallery-so if you are free and want to come 15 minutes early to help set up that's awesome. Snacks and beverages that people bought last time were also awesome.

Looking forward to continuing our discusions and hoping these first talks will assist us all in coming up with themes and working relationships with the groups work and give us an idea how and where to move from here.