Spark: The Child Romantic

Ballet Memphis is hosting a free community conversation about arts education. Spark: The Child Romantic will focus on utilizing the arts to encourage healthy relationships among Memphis youth. Hear about arts programs that are impacting the lives of Memphis’s young people, from dance and music to literature and visual art. Then join in an open dialogue on improving and growing arts education, learn creative-thinking and problem-solving techniques for your student at home, and hear from education and government policymakers on how to advocate for arts-centered learning.

Don’t have a babysitter? Ballet Memphis will have an arts specialist directing an art-making activity of epic proportion for kids ages 4-14. Refreshments provided.

This event is part of Ballet Memphis’ ongoing spark! programming.

working writer’s cocktail hour

in the interests of further cultivating and connecting the literary community of Memphis, story booth is hosting the second edition of Crosstown Arts’ Working Writers’ Cocktail Hour to help usher in the second-annual Mid-South Book Festival.

presenting authors in town for the festival are welcome, college and MFA students to early/mid-career/accomplished (meaning published and not-yet-published) writers who live and work in Memphis are welcome too. whether writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, playwriting, journalism, art writing, music writing—all are invited to visit story booth for an hour or so to do what it normally takes an expensive retreat to make happen: bring a group of writers together to stand around, have a drink, and make connections with other working writers they may or may not have known before.

whether or not your day-job is writing makes no difference — if you’re a working writer, you’re invited.

Mid South Book Fest

 

Walking Eyes: Roundtable Discussion

Crosstown Arts is hosting a small group discussion with Walking Eyes collaborators, Kong Wee Pang and Jay Crum. This free event is open to the public.

If you are interested in attending, please email emily@crosstownarts.org to RSVP.

LOCATE Arts: Q&A Forum

LOCATE Arts is a brand new organization with plans to strengthen the connections between artists and patrons across Tennessee, while sharing the dynamic contemporary arts of our state with the rest of the country.

Co-founders, Carri Jobe and Brian R. Jobe, will be leading a discussion about the mission, vision and goals of LOCATE Arts. Please join us!

No Brag Pure Fact: The Art of Graceland Too

 

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 23, 6 – 9 pm

In partnership with Gonerfest 12, Goner Records and Crosstown Arts present No Brag Pure Fact, an exhibition of artifacts and exclusive footage from Graceland Too. Included are some of Paul MacLeod’s own Elvis-inspired outsider artworks, notebooks he kept, and mounted photographs of visitors to his house, all courtesy of Friends of Graceland Too. Filmmakers Jeffrey Jensen and Geoffrey Shrewsbury have also contributed video footage of MacLeod and clips from their upcoming documentary, The Rise and Fall of Graceland Too.

At the reception, meet special guests and have the opportunity to purchase Graceland Too Memorabilia, a commemorative 45 RPM record and “Friends Of Graceland Too” t-shirts.


Special Thanks
The Friends of Graceland Too, Filmmakers Jeffrey Jensen and Geoffrey Shrewsbury (The Rise and Fall of Graceland Too), Marie Claire Underwood


Who was Paul MacLeod?

Elvis Presley fans tend to be an especially devoted lot, but Paul MacLeod possessed a zeal few could rival. Driven by his perverse affinity for The King, he turned his own Holly Springs, MS home into Graceland Too, an obsessive, candy-colored shrine dedicated to all things Elvis, where his ongoing mission was amassing all of the Presley ephemera he could get his hands on and documenting every mention of the star he could find via radio, television and film. In addition to being a dogged curator of kingly dreck, MacLeod was known as a bombastic personality with the eccentric habit of giving lengthy, frenetic tours of his home to anyone who stopped by, 24 hours a day.

Spectacle to some, sanctuary to others, Graceland Too was a wayward beacon that attracted Elvis fans from all over the world.

Paul MacLeod passed away in July of 2014, and over the past year, many have offered their time and resources in service of preserving what became his life’s work: sheltering strange treasures and welcoming fellow pilgrims on the road to Graceland (Too).

Art For A Smart Start

Art For A Smart Start is a collaborative art exhibition featuring the works of 27 different Memphis artists. These artists will show and sell their works during this one-night-only event and generously donate proceeds of their sales to benefit Shelby County Books From Birth. Organized by Darlene Newman.

Contributing Artists:
Angela D. Myers, RaRa Strong, Joseph Boyd, Derrick Weaver, Mary Vaux Hansen, James Carter, Drea L. Powell, Jamond Bullock, Jaime Phillips Winton, Darlene Newman, Larry Don Nosti Itson, Brandon Eso Tolson, Dawn Kimble, Dani Harris, Tammy Groves Thornton, Barbara Vann, Andrea Pigue’ Manard, Carl E. Moore, Amy Beth Rice, Demarcus Bowser, Frank Robinson, Tobacco Brown, Brittney Bullock, Thomas Murray, Siphne Sylve, Ben Madden and Jamin Carter