Month: August 2008

The Amazing Art of Keegan

I finally ran back into an artist that I used to love. He doesn’t do many gallery shows, so he was hard to keep track of for a long time. But, he has a MySpace page now. So, I am really excited that I ran back into some fantastic Keegan Art, and I thought I’d share the link.

 

Click here.

 

Keegan did a show at Alice’s Restaurant, which was a gallery at 7th Street and Pierce that I used to curate. I met a lot of artists while at the gallery, and I saw a lot of stuff that pushed the limits of what can be called art. I can respect that. I know that GI Joes posed in sexual ways and plaster casts of asses are “art” to some people. But, I was getting a little jaded with art when I met Keegan. I mean, you can call anything art, and people DO. But, I just didn’t like any of it.

 

In my opinion, the month Keegan did his show at Alice’s was the best month we ever had. It was October, which is fitting since his stuff is a little creepy. Still, it’s is beautiful detailed artwork. It’s not experimental or bizarre; it’s just pretty paintings, woodturnings, and drawings. It’s the traditional definition of art, (if there is such a thing.) Even my grandmother said that she could appreciate the artistic quality of Keegan’s art, though she wasn’t thrilled with the images depicted.

 

I proudly hang a Keegan woodturning on my wall. I hope I make a little money someday so I can buy more. There are a lot of artists in the valley, but the Rob Myers and Keegan’s are rare.

 

My very own Keegan art.
My very own Keegan art.

Ear Candy

This is just a quick mention of a charity called Ear Candy.

The charity exsists to pay for music programs in schools, and to buy musical instruments and music lessons for kids. The founders of Ear Candy believe that budget cuts are wipping out all the music programs in Arizona schools, and they are worried that this will wipe out a whole generation of little Arizona musicians. Since it would be tragic to imagine a future without music, Ear Candy has ben created a a way to help make up the diffrence.

Here is a link to their Web site if you want to learn more, volunteer, or donate.

I am mentionning Ear Candy because I think wonderful charities like this are an important part of Arizona culture. I found out about them when Leslie announced that profits from The Bigger Picture would go to this charity this year.

The Bigger Pictre

If you remember nothing else; remember this:

Be at Tempe Town Lake on Sunday November 16th at 3:30pm.

Okay, now I am going to tell you why. Let me start by saying that Phoenix has a wide variety of awesome local bands. I could never list them all, but to name a few: I love Selfless, Ikonoklast, Isle of Essence, and Hardwire. There are a zillion more but this is not about listing them; I want people to see them, and that is what The Bigger Picture is all about.

The event has a MySpace page managed by Leslie Crieger, who is one of the most influential people in Phoenix culture, and who is one of the founders of the original Big Picture. You can see her page here.

The short version is: The Bigger Picture is all about taking a picture of Phoenix’s soul. It has often been said that there is no local scene here and no culture, but that’s not true at all. The Big Picture has been a way to prove it. The idea has been to get together as many local musicians as possible, and take a picture of them holding up their instruments. That way, when someone says Phoenix has no culture, we have a picture to prove them wrong.

I helped with the first two Big Picture events, and they were fantastic. Venue owners came and talked to local bands. Fans came and bought local music CD’s. There was networking going on between promoters from all over the valley, and The Blaze 1260 AM was even there (that’s ASU’s radio station, in case you didn’t know.)

This year will be the third Big Picture event. We are hoping that this year’s picture will be even bigger than the picture in 2004 and the picture in 2006. Every single Phoenician can help with this, so tell anyone and everyone you know! Does your brother play harmonic in the basement? Send him out! Does your friend play guitar at an open mic night? Bring them along. Do you know a band? Cool, we want them too!

The more people we get out, the better the picture.

Once the picture is taken, we will try to get it everywhere. We hope to put it on post cards, which will be available at local hotels. That way when people come to town, they can look at the venue list and the picture, and tell their friends back home about the great culture they experienced in Phoenix. There is always a show to go to and there is always an art gallery open, so no matter when someone visits, they can find something to do that they can write abut on the post card.

But it’s not just visitors we want to get the word out to. We need to tell the people living here about our culture. Every Phoenician should be helping to shape our arts and culture, and they can’t help if they don’t know it exists. So of course, we will be promoting the picture all over the valley, in hopes of attracting more locals to our shows and art walks and other great experiences.