Crosstown Arts

I Am Who I Say, and I Say Who I Am
2015-11-08 08:00 - 09:00 (America/Chicago) | Rhodes McCoy Theater, 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN, 38112, United States
Taught by professional playwright, actress, and University of Memphis MFA candidate in theatre Jazmin Miller, the Rhodes course entitled “Children’s Theatre” accomplished many specific goals in addition to what its title suggests, which was serving the 6th-8th grade of Humes Preparatory Academy in an after-school workshop hosted by story booth at Crosstown Arts.
For this workshop, Humes students were first encouraged to write statements of intent on why they wanted to participate. the selected seventeen middle school participants were then led by seven Rhodes student mentors in interviewing for the program, theatre games, script writing, staging vocabulary, acting skills, and more. By the end of the workshop, the young participants created material for a final script that addresses identity, how the world perceives the individual, and how the individual perceives his or her own identity.
The final script, entitled “I Am Who I Say, and I Say Who I Am,” will be staged and performed on November 8 at 2 pm at the McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College. the young students will work in tableaus and scenes that communicate who they are, while narrating and performing personal narratives that connect with every human experience: moments of happiness, anger, sadness and self-consciousness. This premiere performance will showcase the ensemble’s work with the script, as well as various talents of the ensemble, from singing to drumming. the performance is free and open to the public, with a wrap party for the young playwrights and actors and their families immediately following.

Open Crit
2015-11-10 12:00 - 14:00, 2015-12-08 12:00 - 14:00 | TN
430 N. Cleveland
Second Tuesday of Each Month
Artist Setup: 5 – 6 pm / Critique & Discussion: 6 – 8 pm
Crosstown Arts’ Open Crit series, organized in partnership with ArtsMemphis, is a monthly critique event where visual artists are invited to bring new and/or in-progress studio work for critical feedback and group discussion particular to each artist’s practice. The series will take place at Crosstown Arts exhibition space at 430 N. Cleveland.
A dedicated facilitator with experience in a group critique setting will guide discussion for each critique event, which will include up to 4 artists’ work, with 15-25 minutes devoted to the work of each.
All visual artists and anyone interested in joining the discussion are welcome to participate regardless of their level of expertise, prior professional art experience or background/education in fine art. Participation is free and open to the public. Input during the critiques from everyone in attendance is welcomed and encouraged.
No formal preparation is necessary for participating artists, who will have an opportunity to introduce and contextualize their work on view at the beginning of each critique. Participating artists are only asked to be open to (and interested in) considering reactions to their work by the group, which will always be done in a supportive, constructive and casual environment, but could at the same time be challenging.

To participate, artists can send the following info via email to Brittney Bullock (brittney@ crosstownarts.org) with the subject line “Open Crit.” Submissions will be accepted and scheduled based on availability. There is no submission fee.

Name
Phone number
Email address
General description of the work to be discussed (i.e. “abstract paintings” or “video art”) & sizes of works and/or media types

Artists are asked to bring no more than 8 individual pieces (in any medium). Maximum run time for time-based work(s) is 10 minutes.
Participating artists are encouraged to invite friends, peers and colleagues to the open crits, both to see their work in progress and to give constructive feedback.
Organized by Crosstown Arts in partnership with ArtsMemphis ArtsAccelerator.

Spark
2015-11-10 12:30 - 14:00 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Artists will explore the nature, power and positive impact of imagination on their work as they lead guests on a journey through their ah-ha moments and discuss their process for thinking big. This is a FREE COMMUNITY EVENT held in conjunction with our partners at Crosstown Arts.
Drinks and food will be provided at this casual Spark session.
Our Imagineers: Willy Bearden (film), LaShonte Anderson (Dance, music), Johanna Ewards (literature).

Words Matter
2015-11-12 12:00 - 16:00 | TN
Presented by Words Matter
The Words Matter art show is bringing local writers, artists and performers together. Six groups of Mid-South creatives have been putting together multimedia works that will be presented on Thursday, November 12th at Crosstown Arts.
This is an event where process and product will be on display. Each of the six projects began with words – a literary contribution from a writer. From there, a combination of artists and performers extended that creation in their own media – visual artists, musicians, dancers, actors and filmmakers found collective expression and inspiration from the language.
Memphis has been making some bold and exciting collaborations across artistic disciplines and we want to be a leader to encourage that. Other than the project starting with the written word, there were no rules. The artists were free to do their art.
This event benefits Literacy Mid-South.

Mexicanísimo
2015-11-13 12:00 - 14:00 | TN
Friday, November 13: Reception 6-8 pm, with live performance at 7 pm
Saturday, November 14: Paintings on view 11 am-5 pm, with artists talk at 2 pm
Organized by Yancy Villa Calvo and the artists
Mexico and Memphis will come together for a multimedia fusion exhibit where Aztec rhythm and classical arts will intersect through expressionism abstract paint and video.
“Mexicanísimo” is a new exhibit by four Mexican-born, Memphis resident artists that sets the stage for the intersection of pre-colombian Aztec rhythm and the classical arts. Memphis is the home of opera singer Bethania Baray, Aztec dancer Agustín Díaz, ballet dancer Alberto Gaspar and visual artist Yancy Villa-Calvo.
“We come together to portray the beauty of our roots and what we bring to the Memphis community as Mexican immigrants,” says Villa-Calvo who has lived in Memphis for 20 years. Gaspar, a company member of Ballet Memphis adds, “Our work is not restricted or limited to folklore. We like to be identified first and foremost as artists.” However, in this show they are focusing on their heritage, hence the title of the exhibition. “We are showcasing the contributions that Mexican artists bring to the Mid-South, which is seldom talked about,” says Baray.
The exhibit features artwork by Villa-Calvo, which includes canvases that have been painted by Gaspar’s and Díaz’s feet while dancing classical ballet and moving to Aztec rhythms. Villa-Calvo then interjected painting strokes to capture the musical variations of Baray’s opera singing, which helped bring all four art forms (opera, ballet, painting, and Aztec dance) together. In addition, an installation by Brazilian videomaker André Silveira will feature the creative inspiration provided by the interaction of the artists.
According to Díaz, this is a modern representation of the Ollin, an Aztec glyph that represents “the search of unity and balance – the movement of a universal understanding among the opposites.” At a time when Mexican immigrants are perceived by some as “liabilities” and fitted often into stereotypes, the artists invite the Memphis community to be amazed and discover the unexpected.
Families are welcome
Free Admission

Crafts & Drafts
2015-11-14 04:00 - 10:00 | Cleveland Street Flea Market, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Free & Open to the Public.
Local artists and makers showcase their wares during a fun afternoon of outdoor holiday shopping. Guests will browse a curated selection of handmade goods, as well as a great selection of beers and food available for purchase to stoke shopping spirits. There will even be a special play area for kids!

Craft Vendors

Holly & Ivy // Aunt Key’s Apothecary // Erica Bodine Pottery // East Street Designs // Dirty Cotton T-Shirt Company // McCarter Coasters // gurleygurl design // Marokel Industrial Designs // Boardwalk Beauty // Michelle Duckworth Art // Gnomeore Crafts // Kind Crawford // Judy Pound Cakes // Much Ado About Knitting // babycreep // Phillip Van Zandt Photography // Saphir Productions // Pepper Lou and Dirty Mouth Dishes // ARCHd // Basha Shine // BEERING // Cosgrove & Lewis Luxury Handmade Soaps // Tukabear Treats // Gino Pambianchi Illustration and Design // Mbabazi House of Style // Monas Musings // Copper Baskets // BMB Designs // Flo’s Homemade Goodness // J. Brooks Coffee Roasters // Sadie Cat Fabrics // Let’s Go Memphis // Moon Mama Pottery // Designs by Aisha Crivens // Letter Me Loved

Beer Selection

Coming Soon!

Food Vendors

Coming Soon!

Microcinema Club: ELLIS
2015-11-16 12:30 - 15:00 | TN
ELLIS starring Robert De Niro, written by Eric Roth & directed by JR.
presented by Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts
co-hosted by Mark Adams & Alan Spearman
Doors open @ 6:30 pm; film Starts @ 7:00 pm, with discussion to immediately follow
MicroCinema Club presents a special screening of the short film ELLIS, followed by an open discussion with artists Mark Adams, Penny Karwacz, Yasmine Omari, Alan Spearman & Yancy Villa-Calvo on the themes of immigration, migration and using art to generate sustainable social, political and cultural change.
ELLIS awakens our collective memory, taking you back to the early years of Ellis Island through the experience of one immigrant. Set in the abandoned Ellis Island Hospital complex and using JR’s UNFRAMED art installations, ELLIS tells the forgotten story of the immigrants who built America. It is the story of the ghosts of our countries past, the individuals who fled poverty, discrimination, and dictatorships, for a chance at a new life and eerily foreshadows the plight of those who currently seek the same opportunities and safety in this country and other parts of the world. The short narrative film stars Academy Award® Winner Robert De Niro, is written by Academy Award® Winner Eric Roth, and is directed by the artist JR.
For more information, please visit the film’s website: http://www.ellis-themovie.com/.
#ELLISstory

Artist Survey Share-Out
2015-11-18 12:30 - 14:00 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Join ArtsMemphis, UrbanArt Commission and Crosstown Arts to explore the responses to the visual artists’ survey, give your feedback, and learn more about a new monthly professional development series (created especially for artists) planned for 2016.
Drinks and food will be served.

Visting Writer Leonard Pitts, Jr.
2015-11-19 12:00 - 14:00 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Booksellers at Laurelwood and Crosstown Arts present Visiting Writer Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Please join us for a reading and signing of his most recent book, Grant Park, and a conversation with the author and Dr. Terrence Tucker (Assistant Professor and Coordinator of African Literature, University of Memphis) and Dr. Charles McKinney (Associate Professor and Director of the Africana Studies Program, Rhodes College).
“A novel as significant as it is engrossing.” —Booklist, starred review
Grant Park is a page-turning and provocative look at black and white relations in contemporary America, blending the absurd and the poignant in a powerfully well-crafted narrative that showcases Pitts’s gift for telling emotionally wrenching stories.
Grant Park begins in 1968, with Martin Luther King’s final days in Memphis. The story then moves to the eve of the 2008 election, and cuts between the two eras. Disillusioned columnist Malcolm Toussaint, fueled by yet another report of unarmed black men killed by police, hacks into his newspaper’s server to post an incendiary column that had been rejected by his editors. Toussaint then disappears, and his longtime editor, Bob Carson, is summarily fired within hours of the column’s publication.
While a furious Carson tries to find Toussaint—while simultaneously dealing with the reappearance of a lost love from his days as a 60s activist—Toussaint is abducted by two white supremacists plotting to explode a bomb at Barack Obama’s planned rally in Chicago’s Grant Park. Toussaint and Carson are forced to remember the choices they made as young men, when both their lives were changed profoundly by their work in the civil rights movement.
In a career spanning more than 35 years, Leonard Pitts, Jr. has been a columnist, a college professor, a radio producer and a lecturer. But if you ask him to define himself, he will invariably choose one word. He is a writer, period, author of one of the most popular newspaper columns in the country and of a series of critically-acclaimed books, including his latest, a novel called Freeman. And his lifelong devotion to the art and craft of words has yielded stellar results, chief among them the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
Learn more
Advance Praise for Leonard Pitts, Jr.’s novel GRANT PARK:
“The state of US race relations in 1968 and 2008 is seen through the eyes of two veteran Chicago newsmen, one black and one white, in this opportune novel. . . . Pitts adroitly blends history with fiction and actual figures (King, Obama) with characters in a plot that builds suspense around the supremacists’ plans as anger between the races gives way to understanding.A novel as significant as it is engrossing.” —Booklist, starred review
“In the aftermath of this summer’s racially motivated mass murder in Charleston, South Carolina, by an avowed white supremacist, there’s near-eerie prescience in Pitts’ historical novel. . .[Grant Park], with urgency and passion, makes readers aware that the mistakes of the past are neglected at the future’s peril.” —Kirkus Reviews
“[A] high-stakes, hard-charging political thriller. . . . The sharply etched characters, careful attention to detail, and rich newspaper lore propel Pitts’s socially relevant novel.” —Publishers Weekly

Afternoon Delight
2015-11-29 09:00 - 11:00 | TN
Hosted by Katrina Coleman
Join us for an afternoon of burlesque! Arrive early for some outdoor pre-show entertainment! Raffle with proceeds to benefit the Mid South Food Bank.
Shimmy contest at intermission! Come show us what you got!
Featuring performances by:
Cherie Cheezcake
Kissame Suga
Requi Emma
Bre Von Buxom
Mai Oui
Riveting Rosie
Vivica Noir
Somerset O’Neil
Rie Wine
$10 at the door or online @ http://rosie-burlesque.ticketleap.com/afternoon-delight/

Shoot & Splice: Holiday Cinema Trivia Blowout!
2015-12-01 12:30 - 15:30 | TN
Throughout the year, Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts brings cinematographers, directors, editors, writers and technicians to Shoot & Splice, our monthly film making forum.
Come help us celebrate the end of another year with the Second Annual Cinema Trivia blowout.
Test your filmmaker mettle! Prizes! Holiday cocktails! Peppermint cake!

The Winds that Scatter
2015-12-03 12:30 - 15:30 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Screening presented by Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts
6:30 pm Doors ; 7 pm Screening; Skype Q&A with director Christopher Jason Bell to follow screening
Written, directed, produced, and edited by Christopher Jason Bell
Ahmad is a refugee from Syria, holding wishes of starting his own taxi service. When he loses his menial employment at a gas station, he attempts to navigate through the current American economy with optimism. Soon, reality settles in as consistent work is scarce. An impression of hopelessness slowly begins to take a toll on his relationships, faith, and sense of self, with his dream slipping quickly from his grasp.
WINNER: KOREA INDIE AND EXPAT FILM FESTIVAL
BEST INTERNATIONAL NO BUDGET FEATURE FILM
“Baring more in common with the films of the great Abbas Kiarostami than say your average Brooklyn-based filmmaker…” – Filmmaker Magazine
“A skillfully maneuvered, minimalist meditation…” – Hammer To Nail
“Rich and complex” – Screen Slate
“”The cinematic equivalent of walking a mile in another man’s shoes, The Winds That Scatter is, unfortunately in this day and age, a necessity.” – Film Pulse
EDITOR/PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: Christopher Jason Bell
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paul Taylor
CO-PRODUCERS: Mohammad Dagman, Ernie Hiyane
facebook.com/TheWindsThatScatter
facebook.com/FuzzyHeritage
contact: christopherjasonbell@gmail.com

Lance Turner Studio Residency Exhibition
2015-12-04 13:00 - 16:00 | TN
Two-gallery installation by Crosstown Arts’ inaugural resident artist, Lance Turner.

The World in Black & White
2015-12-05 10:00 - 15:00 | TN
“A world without color forces us to see objects in their purest form.”-Keysha Warr
Exhibition of artwork by Keysha Warr, organized by the artist.

Extra Celestial
2015-12-11 04:00 - 2016-01-16 12:00 | Crosstown Arts Galleries, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Organized in partnership with Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland, CA)
Curated by Tom di Maria, Director of CGAC
Opening Reception: Friday, December 11, 6-9 pm
Curator Talk: Saturday, December 12, 2 pm
Crosstown Arts is pleased to partner with Creative Growth Art Center to present the upcoming exhibition Extra Celestial. Founded in Oakland, California in 1973, Creative Growth serves adult artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities, providing a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition and representation, and more.
In Extra Celestial, Creative Growth artists Luis Aguilera, David Albertsen, Terri Bowden, Susan Janow, Allan Lofberg, Dan Miller, Donald Mitchell, William Scott, Ruth Stafford, William Tyler, Merritt Wallace and Ed Walter explore concepts of inner and outer space.
This ethereal grouping of works on paper presents an otherworldly and highly personal view of inner explorations and celestial journeys. Often abstract, always visionary, these colorful and dynamic paintings and drawings serve as maps to a galaxy of dreams and to compelling utopian realities.
An important component of Extra Celestial is the gallery premiere of Starquarius, the new space exploration video from the Creative Growth Video Production Workshop that reflects and re-considers the iconic sci-fi films of our lives.

Starquarius (poster)

David Albertsen

Still from Starquarius

Curator Talk: Saturday, December 12, 2 pm
In conjunction with the exhibition, please join Creative Growth Director Tom di Maria for his gallery talk, From the Margins to the Mainstream: Artists with Disabilities Today. The talk will review the history and leadership of Creative Growth Art Center’s work as the world’s oldest and largest art center for people with disabilities. He will review the Center’s studio art practice, the evolution of several key artists, and its relationship to so-called Outsider Art and to the contemporary art world.

About Creative Growth
Creative Growth Art Center is the nation’s oldest and largest artist-run space for artists with disabilities, offering a professional art studio, exhibition opportunities, and a supportive artistic community for 154 adult artists with developmental, physical, emotional, and mental disabilities. Founded in 1974 on the idea that all people can gain strength, enjoyment and fulfillment from experiences in the arts and are capable of producing works of high artistic merit, CGAC’s studio program offers, at no cost, 74 ongoing workshops led by artists in a range of media. Our year-round Saturday Youth Art program provides 16 young adults with access to our award-winning studio. As a role model organization, CGAC has fostered the development of over 20 similar centers worldwide.
Critical to CGAC’s success is its landmark/adjoining gallery. Started in 1978 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as the world’s first gallery for artists with disabilities, this museum-quality space, with its six extraordinary annual exhibitions, serves as a portal to the larger community of viewers and collectors. Over 12,000 people visit our gallery each year.
CGAC’s artists are thriving in the mainstream art world, making significant contributions to the field of contemporary art, and becoming recognized among the outstanding contemporary artists of our era. Recent accomplishments include:
– CGAC artist Judith Scott became our third artist (Dan Miller and William Scott are the others) to have work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. These are the only three artists with developmental disabilities with work in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.
– Participation in over 20 outside exhibitions and art fairs, including our artists’ first presence at: Art Fair Tokyo, Japan; D’Dessin Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair, France; and the Codex Book Fair, Richmond, CA.
– CGAC artists Kerry Damianakes and William Scott received 2015 Wynn Newhouse Awards, given to artists of excellence who also happen to have disabilities.
– “Bound and Unbound,” a major 5-month retrospective exhibition of CGAC artist Judith Scott’s eighteen years of sculpture making, was presented at the Brooklyn Museum.

Nick Canterucci: Bellatrix Redux
2015-12-11 12:00 - 15:00 | TN
“The road to redemption is full of potholes.” – Nick Canterucci
A re-release of Memphis artist Nick Canterucci’s legendary exhibition at Odessa in 2010. Limited run of Bellatrix exhibition catalogues available, compliments of the artist.

Terry Gower Exhibition
2015-12-12 06:00 - 2015-12-13 12:00 | TN
Exhibition of artwork by Memphis artist Terry Gower.

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Artists with Disabilities Today
2015-12-12 08:00 - 09:00 | Crosstown Arts Galleries, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Curator Talk in conjunction with Extra Celestial
In conjunction with the exhibition, please join Creative Growth Director Tom di Maria for his gallery talk, From the Margins to the Mainstream: Artists with Disabilities Today. The talk will review the history and leadership of Creative Growth Art Center’s work as the world’s oldest and largest art center for people with disabilities. He will review the Center’s studio art practice, the evolution of several key artists, and its relationship to so-called Outsider Art and to the contemporary art world.
________________________________
About Creative Growth
Creative Growth Art Center is the nation’s oldest and largest artist-run space for artists with disabilities, offering a professional art studio, exhibition opportunities, and a supportive artistic community for 154 adult artists with developmental, physical, emotional, and mental disabilities. Founded in 1974 on the idea that all people can gain strength, enjoyment and fulfillment from experiences in the arts and are capable of producing works of high artistic merit, CGAC’s studio program offers, at no cost, 74 ongoing workshops led by artists in a range of media. Our year-round Saturday Youth Art program provides 16 young adults with access to our award-winning studio. As a role model organization, CGAC has fostered the development of over 20 similar centers worldwide.
Critical to CGAC’s success is its landmark/adjoining gallery. Started in 1978 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as the world’s first gallery for artists with disabilities, this museum-quality space, with its six extraordinary annual exhibitions, serves as a portal to the larger community of viewers and collectors. Over 12,000 people visit our gallery each year.
CGAC’s artists are thriving in the mainstream art world, making significant contributions to the field of contemporary art, and becoming recognized among the outstanding contemporary artists of our era. Recent accomplishments include:
– CGAC artist Judith Scott became our third artist (Dan Miller and William Scott are the others) to have work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. These are the only three artists with developmental disabilities with work in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.
– Participation in over 20 outside exhibitions and art fairs, including our artists’ first presence at: Art Fair Tokyo, Japan; D’Dessin Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair, France; and the Codex Book Fair, Richmond, CA.
– CGAC artists Kerry Damianakes and William Scott received 2015 Wynn Newhouse Awards, given to artists of excellence who also happen to have disabilities.
– “Bound and Unbound,” a major 5-month retrospective exhibition of CGAC artist Judith Scott’s eighteen years of sculpture making, was presented at the Brooklyn Museum.

Memphis Ephemera
2015-12-17 12:30 - 15:00 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Doors Open 6:30 pm, Films Start 7:00 pm
A short film showcase featuring unusual, rarely seen, strange and undiscovered film & video made in and about Memphis, Tennessee.
Programmed by Edward Valibus, Ben Rednour and Crosstown Arts

Shoot & Splice: Video Journalism
2016-01-05 12:30 | TN
VIDEO JOURNALISM: HOW DOCUMENTARIES RAISE AWARENESS AND CREATE CHANGE
For the first Shoot & Splice of 2016, join our panelists Noah Glenn, Mark Hackett and Andrea Morales to discuss, debate and analyze the use of documentary film to convey organizational messages, video journalism, the difference between the two and how to effectively and ethically craft both.
Noah Glenn is the Creative Director and Video Artist for City Leadership. In his role at City Leadership, Noah is responsible for producing, shooting & editing the very popular Choose901 videos. The Choose901 documentaries highlight interesting people, organizations and events and are used to further City Leadership’s larger goal of attracting and retaining talent in Memphis. Mark Hackett is the Executive Director of Operation Broken Silence, a non-profit that focuses on the human rights catastrophe in Sudan. As part of its mission, Operation Broken Silence uses short documentaries and videos to highlight the serious issues that people in Sudan are facing. Andrea Morales is a Memphis based documentary and editorial photojournalist. Andrea’s work has been seen in The New York Times, Time Magazine and The Guardian.
Shoot & Splice is a monthly filmmaking forum presented by Crosstown Arts & IndieMemphis

Hereabouts
2016-01-07 04:00 - 2016-01-10 12:00 | TN
A selection of self-taught Memphis artists
Opening Reception: Friday, January 8, 6-9 pm
Performance & Panel Discussion: Saturday, January 9, 2 pm
On view January 7-10, noon-6 pm
Organized by Mary Jo Karimnia & Linda Pelts in partnership with Crosstown Arts & the Church Health Center
Self-taught artists are a hot commodity in today’s art world. In a 2013 article in the Atlantic, Sarah Boxer writes,”[Artwork by self-taught artists] is being enthusiastically embraced—one might say swallowed whole—by the contemporary-art world.”
This fresh and provocative work comes from everywhere: from small towns in Italy to pulpits in Georgia, and our our own Memphis backyard. Hereabouts showcases four artists–Franco Camarillo, Winnie Shields AKA Miisreal, Theolia, and Michael Watson–who make artwork that is genuine to their experiences but without the (sometimes) burden of an arts education. Their work is raw, passionate, and insightful, and brings together experiences near and far. These local visionaries see things and re-present them to us through their own unique lenses.
Ted Norwood aka Theolia was born in Benton County, Mississippi and raised in Memphis. He left for the bright lights of Chicago as a young, 17 year old, high school drop-out and made a name for himself in the world of high-end menswear. He spent 60 fulfilling years working his way up the ladder at Saks Fifth Ave and Bloomingdale’s on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. After returning to Memphis in the early 1990’s, Theolia was the unfortunate victim of a house fire in 2005 which left him scared and stiff. Through his many adventures Theolia managed to make artwork. He uses mostly oil or soft pastels and his own fingers to create landscapes and scenes from his life, from photos and from his imagination. He works mostly on cardboard pizza boxes and other scrap boards in vivid, life-affirming colors. Currently, Theolia works mostly out of the art room at the local Lewis Senior Center.
Winnie Shields aka Miisreal began creating collages in 2011 from materials that fall across her path including scrap fabrics, tissue boxes and ribbons. She looks for patterns and symbols to inform her work making figures and interior scenes. A common theme is a female or bride image that comes from a spiritual insight and represents her experience as a bride of God. The figures often float in a celestial way and often contain light and heart shapes. She sometimes makes figures of a little girl to represent innocence and her feeling of still being a small child in many ways although she is in her sixties. Shields was born in Senetobia, MS and moved to Memphis as a ten year old. She also writes poetry and books and keeps a close relationship with her family.
Michael Watson has been making artwork for over 20 years out of whatever he can find. He sculpts heads from junk mail, uses old chop sticks for paint brushes and loves to layer collage bits and images under and between layers of acrylic medium. Michael was born in England when his father was in the service, was raised in Jackson, MS and now makes Memphis his home. He is influenced by Italian Zombie movies and his favorite B-movie actresses often appear in his work. He is an expert in hallucinogenic mushrooms and works sporadically doing odd jobs to buy beer and sometimes groceries. His friend Chris Garner from Garner Picture Framing helps Michael store and sell his work.
Franco Camarillo (Franco Florencio Camarillo Villavicencio) was born in 1933 in Oaxaca, Mexico. He grew up on a farm and worked hard from a very early age. He studied Civil Engineering in Mexico City, married and had three children. The family moved to the United States for the children to continue their education. Franco began drawing while earning his bachelors degree and it has been an integral part of his life since. The first drawings he made were “Mascaras” (masks) for the the dancers who make parties very cheerful in his hometown. This early influence can be seen in the faces he continues to draw today. Franco draws on whatever materials he can find including panels cut from cereal boxes. He draws every day with the hope of continual growth.
Image: Michael Watson

Visiting Writer Stewart O'Nan
2016-01-12 12:00 - 14:00 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Crosstown Arts and the Booksellers at Laurelwood present visiting writer Stewart O’Nan, reading and signing from “West of Sunset.”
Amazon’s Best Books of the Month for January 2015
An Indie Next Pick for January 2015
A “rich, sometimes heartbreaking” (Dennis Lehane) novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years in Hollywood
In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruins, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. By December 1940, he would be dead of a heart attack.
Those last three years of Fitzgerald’s life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeously and gracefully written novel. With flashbacks to key moments from Fitzgerald’s past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, begins work on The Last Tycoon, and tries to maintain a semblance of family life with the absent Zelda and daughter, Scottie.
Fitzgerald’s orbit of literary fame and the Golden Age of Hollywood is brought vividly to life through the novel’s romantic cast of characters, from Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway to Humphrey Bogart. A sympathetic and deeply personal portrait of a flawed man who never gave up in the end, even as his every wish and hope seemed thwarted, West of Sunset confirms O’Nan as “possibly our best working novelist” (Salon).
Praise for West of Sunset
“The Fitzgerald O’Nan gives us feels like the Fitzgerald of my dreams; in this way the book rises up to enfold the reader, it enfolded this reader naturally and exquisitely.”
—Elizabeth Strout
“West of Sunset is a rich, sometimes heartbreaking journey through the disintegration of an American legend. O’Nan captures the fire and frailty of F. Scott Fitzgerald with an understated grace that would have made Fitzgerald himself stand up and applaud.”
—Dennis Lehane
“An achingly nuanced love story and one of the best biographical novels to come along in years. O’Nan’s great achievement here is in so convincingly inhabiting the character of Scott Fitzgerald and of the people surrounding him during his descent into the clarifying depths of 1930s Hollywood.”
—T.C. Boyle
“O’Nan is an incredibly versatile and charming writer. This novel, which imagines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s troubled time in Hollywood (with cameos by Dorothy Parker, Bogie, and Hemingway), takes up (like much of O’Nan’s work) that essential conundrum of grace struggling with paucity. One brilliant American writer meditating on another–what’s not to love?”
—George Saunders
“I’ll direct my enthusiasm for West of Sunset to writers who revere Fitzgerald’s short story ‘Babylon Revisited.’ Stewart O’Nan captures Fitzgerald’s mood of spiritual reflection, without trying to imitate Fitzgerald’s voice. This book is an inoculation against self-pity. It’s not a mock Fitzgerald novel, but an original portrait of a writer struggling to keep his dignity while trying to make a living. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in years and it deserves a cheering crowd.”
—Michael Tolkin
Reviews
Paste Magazine
The Buffalo News
Entertainment Weekly
Amazon.com
Newsday
The Washington Post
Tweed’s
HuffPo Books
Chicago Tribune
The Boston Globe
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
USA Today
LA Weekly
The Seattle Times
The Stranger
Washington Times
OregonLive
Cincinnati CityBeat
Tuscaloosa News
The Christian Science Monitor
The New Yorker

Pin-Up
2016-01-15 00:00 - 15:00 | TN
A retrospective of pin-up art from the 1890’s through the 1980’s.
Reception: Friday, January 15, 6 – 9pm
Gallery Hours: Saturday, January 16, 10 am – 5 pm
Exhibition and sale organized by Chuck Parr

Peace
2016-01-20 14:00 - 17:00 | TN
Art exhibition

Snowden Middle & Humes Prep Book Release Party
2016-01-28 09:45 - 11:30 | story booth, 438 N. Cleveland St., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
From story booth‘s fall in-school writing workshops, we have published anthologies featuring original work of 62 young writers at Snowden and 18 young writers from Humes Prep. This will be the first time the writers have the books revealed to them, and they’ll be able to participate in binding their own copies of the book to take home. Food and drinks available; free and open to the public.

Film Fatales
2016-02-01 12:30 - 15:30 | TN
Join Film Fatales and Indie Memphis at Crosstown Arts Monday, February 1st for the inaugural FF Speaker Series featuring Deputy Film Commissioner Sharon Fox O’Guin. Learn about the resources the commission makes available to indie filmmakers. Still trying to make sense of the film incentives? Sharon can help!
Networking, eating, and drinking start at 6:30pm and the workshop begins at 7:00 pm.
This is a FREE community event thanks to support by Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis.

Shoot & Splice: Corey Parker - Acting on Camera & Working with Actors
2016-02-02 12:30 - 15:30 | TN
COREY PARKER: ACTING ON CAMERA & WORKING WITH ACTORS
Presented by Crosstown Arts & Indie Memphis
Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis are pleased to welcome actor and acting coach Corey Parker to February’s Shoot & Splice. Corey will discuss acting for the camera along with a panel of local actors who have worked with him and have appeared in local indie film productions.
Corey Parker’s actors have appeared in The Bourne Supremacy, Chavez, Don’t Come Knockin’, The Final Cut, Masters of Sex, Chicago Med, Quantico, House M.D., Mad Men, Revenge, The Closer, as well as on Broadway: Raisin in the Sun, You Can’t Take it With You, Sylvia, Catch Me if You Can, Lysistrata Jones. He has starred or costarred as an actor in films at Universal, 20th Century Fox, Lorimar, Vestron, as well starring or costarring on Showtime, BBC, PBS, ABC, NBC, and CBS and FOX. He has coached writers on tour and at TEDglobal. Locally, he has worked with Brian Pera, Mike McCarthy, Ryan Parker, Willy Bearden, Bryan Artiles. He was a guest artist at Rhodes College from 2008-2014, and has taught acting at many studios in New York and L.A. He is a member of the Actors Studio and the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York. Corey interviews actors. directors, producers, teachers and casting directors on his blog: memphisactor.blogspot.com
Connect, converse, listen and learn at Shoot & Splice, our monthly filmmaking forum. Arrive early to hang out with fellow attendees, then grab a drink and kick back for the evening’s presentation. A wide variety of technical, educational, and fun topics of interest to the Memphis filmmaking community will be featured. Don’t miss this monthly opportunity to be a part of the Memphis filmmaking community and learn things you probably didn’t know you wanted to know. Have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered? Email justin@crosstownarts.org.

Aesthetics
2016-02-03 13:30 - 16:00 | TN
Screening of Aesthetics, documenting the skateboarding community of Memphis, featuring Adrian Akin, Matt Maddox, Glenn Fiscus, Mitch Loughridge, Zac Roberts, Josh Stewart, Kirkwood Vangeli, and many more. Plus live music. Organized by Fluxus Skateboards.

Blind Navigator
2016-02-05 04:00 - 2016-02-27 12:00 | Crosstown Arts Galleries, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
Crosstown Arts is pleased to present “Blind Navigator,” an exhibition of new individual and collaborative works by New York-based artist Clare Torina and Memphis-based artist Alex Paulus.
Clare Torina’s recent paintings and objects refer to one another in sequence, symbolism, and mimicry. She pulls from a personal set of fascinations – her dog (Lolita), the Illuminati, basketball, patriarchal painting history, ancient art – and subjugates their representations to a multitude of transitions using color models and plays on style.
Alex Paulus’s pieces address broken things that must be repeatedly fixed or altered to allow them to continue to function. The subject matter ranges from common objects to human emotions to animals nearing extinction. He presents these damaged subjects, which can be overlooked and ignored, that ultimately need to be recognized and reconciled.
At the heart of this exhibition is an acknowledgement of the bewilderment and reformation during creative process. Together, the artists volley to find a metaphor for the act of seeing and being seen while in the throes of malfunction. The blind navigator is the artist, the viewer, and the work itself feeling its way through shadows.
Clare Torina is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York. After undergraduate study at the University of Memphis, she received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Memphis, and abroad. Additional information and images of her work can be found at claretorina.com.
Alex Paulus is originally from southeast Missouri, but has been a resident of Memphis, TN since 2007. He received his MFA in 2009 from the Memphis College of Art and has been teaching ever since. Paulus’s work has been shown in numerous galleries in Memphis, Nashville, Dallas, St. Louis, and many others. His work has also been published in Studio Visit magazine and Beautiful/Decay. Additional information and images of his work can be seen at alexanderpaulus.blogspot.com.
Exhibition Press: Memphis Flyer | Commercial Appeal
