San Francisco Artist Network Professional Development Seminars for Visual Artists, covers topics such as Presentation: Preparing Your Artist Statement and Packet, Promotion: Creative Venues to Show Your Artwork, and Networking Online and Offline.
Several seminars, reasonably priced from $15-30 for an evening with Dr. Stephen C. Wagner, professional artist and art educator.
Global Affairs – a Spanish online journal for international relations graduate students and professors covering highlights, features, and perspectives on world affairs – at http://www.globalaffairs.es – seeks a Spanish/English translator. If you are interested please email (si tenga interes por favor escriba a) Eva Diez at eva.diez@globalaffairs.es
From Robert Brewer, editor of the Writer’s Market online version:
I’m looking for “publishing experts” to interview for WritersMarket.com. If you’re a publishing expert who’s interested in being featured on the site, then please send me an e-mail with the subject line “I’m a publishing expert.”
What qualifies as a publishing expert?
* Published author of books (fiction, nonfiction, children’s, or poetry)
* Freelance writer who gets regular work with multiple magazines
* Staff writer (magazines, websites, or newspapers)
* Freelance or salaried editors
* Freelance copy writers, technical writers, etc.
* Playwrights (who’ve had their work performed)
* Screenwriters (who’ve sold or optioned scripts)
* Agents (literary or script)
* Book publicists
* Artistic directors at theaters
* Producers
* Conference or Contest directors
Bottom line: Make a case for being a publishing professional, and we’ll go from there as far as the interview. (Note: I don’t want writers who wish to someday be publishing experts; I’m not interested in that slant, though I’m sure I’ll still get a few who pitch that angle to me.)
Specs:
* Send an email to me at robert.brewer@fwmedia.com
* Have subject line read: I’m a publishing expert
* Include your name and a short paragraph or two qualifying you as a publishing expert
* If possible, include some areas that you would be especially skilled at discussing (For instance, publicists would be good at talking about things they do for authors to promote books. Remember: WritersMarket.com is slanted to the needs of writers trying to get published and/or paid for their writing efforts.)
Please feel free to forward this message as you see fit.
Best,
Robert Lee Brewer
Editor
Writer’s Market
WritersMarket.com
Reprinted – call for submissions for Monterey Peninsula College’s art gallery.
MPCMonterey Peninsula College
ART DEPARTMENT GALLERY
Dear Potential Exhibitor,
The Monterey Peninsula College Art Department is accepting proposals for exhibitions in the Art Gallery. Please read our mission statement and submit the required materials by mail to the address below.
Mission Statement
The Monterey Peninsula Art Gallery exists as a resource for Monterey Peninsula College and the surrounding community, and in this role will strive to fulfill the following mandate: The MPC Art Gallery shall educate and inspire students in the methods, materials and issues of contemporary art. It shall initiate art exhibits that foster critical discussion of contemporary issues and exhibit the best student, faculty, regional and national art. The gallery will be an art environment conducive to discussion and examination of art in the twenty-first century, as well as a venue for art-related activities.
MPC staff and volunteers operate the Gallery under the advisement of the MPC Art Department faculty. The gallery staff and the Art Department faculty make curatorial and logistic decisions and are represented by a Selection Committee. This Selection Committee will make curatorial decisions based on the quality of the artwork, artistic merit and relationship to the gallery mission.
Please submit the following is the information for the Selection Committee:
DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 15th!
A.Cover Letter
(Stating your proposal for an exhibition in our gallery)
Artist’s Resume
Typed on 81/2” by 11” paper. Abbreviated resumes of not more than 3 pages)
Artist’s Statement (your philosophy)
Published reviews or articles about your work. Please limit to 3 articles.
Labeled slides or CDs of examples of work to be included in the show. Limit 10.
F.An annotated slide or CD description sheet, with titles of each work, medium,
materials used, date completed, collaborators involved, location of piece,
and complete description of the work including size.
A self-addressed stamped envelope for the return of your slides.
H. A check made out to the MPC Art Gallery Trust Fund for handling fee of $15.00.
Thank you for your interest in an exhibition at Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery.
Everyone, heads-up that we’re looking forward to one of the largest, most comprehensive, most inspirational, and most interesting Synchronized Chaos issues yet for October! So stay tuned…
Encouraging the development of a vibrant art scene and mentoring community in an ’emerging culture’ location:
(reprinted from May 2009 – San Jose State’s internal academic papers. Issues raised are still relevant today, though.)
“Today’s Entrepreneurs: New Financial, Old Logistical Challenges, Yet Reasons for Optimism”
–CRISTINA DEPTULA
Many Americans celebrate entrepreneurship as an alternate pathway to success for the especially innovative and talented. With the current economic downturn, though, more people, immigrants and native-born, are turning to entrepreneurship because they have trouble finding regular employment. For some, working for oneself becomes a survival strategy rather than a long-range dream.
Organizing and managing a business may prove harder for these new business owners, with less managerial experience and know-how, and often less money and lower credit scores, than the entrepreneurs of the past.
However, many experts who work with local organizations assisting small businesses believe entrepreneurship can still represent a viable way to earn a living and help rejuvenate our economy, even for the changing demographic of entrepreneurs.
Cristina Deptula is a freelance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She may be reached at cedeptula@sbcglobal.net and encourages everyone to try Paula Tejeda’s Chile Lindo restaurant!
Our anniversary party/networking mixer/reception for our artists, authors, and dynamic world-changers is tonight, drop by between 5 and 10 pm at Castro Valley’s Knudsen’s Ice Creamery! Please feel free to bring business cards, flyers about your work, recommendations of favorite books, etc.
Susan Maciak, whose book Finding a Job That Doesn’t Suck was reviewed in February’s issue, will give a presentation September 13th in Chicago related to her children’s book, The Monster Show. She’ll be at the 57th St. Book Fair on the University of Chicago campus, email ask@cameocareers.com for more information.
And now for Editor’s Picks…what is your editor reading? First off, I’m in the middle of Sarah Dunant’s Sacred Hearts. Dunant’s tale of an unwilling young nun in a medieval convent populated by smart female physicians, witty heiresses, and a politically shrewd abbess reveals an incredible amount of historical research as well as a clever, quirky sense of humor. Recently spoke with Dunant at Towne Centre Books – over scones and choral chamber music – she has the educated, sassy, forgiving personality I expected, and a new book reflective of that.
Also in the middle of Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun – which ironically celebrates America while pointing out its flaws. Eggers is a master at taking themes which might be pedantic or boring in the hands of other authors and creating readable, suspenseful novels where you actually care about the distinctive characters and laugh at humor in the midst of tragedy without getting lost in the flashbacks as everything is seamlessly connected. He’s also dedicated to promoting literature and creative writing for teens in diverse environments and celebrating the art of language. Zeitoun relates the tale of a Syrian painting contractor and his Muslim convert wife and their children, and how he rescues people in an old wooden canoe after Hurricane Katrina, only to be wrongly imprisoned…and how he retains his hope and patriotism when finally released.
Also Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees…a lonely South Carolina girl and her black nanny/best friend find home and solace and encounter divinity in the home of country beekeepers and honeymakers. Clever turns of phrase, goes near enough to magic realism to infuse the piece with beauty but stays realistic enough to contain human, flawed, true-to-life, and simply fascinating characters.
Would definitely recommend any of these three books – please feel free to comment with any of your own! If you’ve finished a great book recently, please pass it on or donate to your local affiliate of the International Rescue Committee for people just learning your country’s language.
The South Bay Queer Arts Project (SBQAP) and Works/San Jose Gallery present “That’s So Gay!” A Juried exhibition that is a queer, comical response to the economic downturn in San Jose and the South Bay-
.
WHAT IS THIS SHOW:
“That’s So Gay” is both a funny and cutting response to the dire straits that individuals and organizations are experiencing in the current recession. The show is a humorous-light-hearted- comic look at survival in tough times. Laughter brings together community and community creates sustainability. Join Us for two great gay weeks of art, comedy and music.
“That’s So Gay” will benefit Works/San Jose and the Billy De Frank
Community Center.
OPEN TO ALL MEDIA:
Up to 5 submissions/images in jpeg format, **ENTRY FEE $25.**
Guarantee of at least one work accepted (provided the work addresses the theme of the show).
DEADLINE:
September 10th 2009 7 p.m. PST
HOW TO SUBMIT WORKS OF ART:
1) up to 5 jpeg images no larger than 1200 x1200 pixels, 72 dpi with written slide list description of media, size and year made.
2) brief statement describing how the work relates to the theme of the show.
3) contact information
4) Entry fee
(make checks or money orders payable to Works/San José)
5) mail or drop off submission at
WORKS/San Jose
451 South First St.
San Jose, CA
95113
email: sbqap@yahoo.com
or
gallery@workssanjose.org
WHEN WOULD I BE NOTIFIED:
Artists will be notified of accepted work by Sept. 12th, noon(PST).
All work selected needs to arrive at the gallery by Sept. 17th, 2009.
WHO ARE WE:
The SBQAP’s mission is to create opportunities for Queer artists in the South Bay. The SBQAP is made up of queer artists, educators, non-profit professionals and activists who live and work in the South Bay. Join Us for two great gay weeks of art, comedy and music.
Welcome to September’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine! This month’s theme changed and evolved as contributions arrived, as people created diverse works of writing and visual art exploring the broad questions of the universe and the details of people’s daily lives. Eventually we realized the common thread was the exploration and articulation itself: weaving whatever happens into a narrative or piece of art, making sense of different value systems and sources of meaning through our own interpretive creations.
South Bay artist Landkee creates collage art, a medium which lends itself literally to the juxtaposition and interchange of various styles and representative objects. Landkee’s style, as self-described, focuses on form and color and the principles of aesthetic composition, while specific ‘meanings’ are expressed rather abstractly. However, the process of creating a collage in itself involves beginning at the end of the path viewers’ eyes will naturally follow and arranging objects ‘backwards’ from that point…symbolically what humanity does when making sense of our world, looking at what is in front of our faces and then tracing back to to piece together how and why we arrived at that point.
Poets Thomas Park and Danielle Searby discuss the process of conscious mythmaking and highlight the need for artists and storytellers and people in general not to take the easy way out by reiterating others’ ideas without critically examining these values. Searby critiques modern Americans’ excessive dependence on culturally defined mass media and stereotypical cultural/gender roles through conveying the weary weight such unexamined values leave upon our bodies and minds. Park celebrates writers who look beyond the styles and fashions of their times to create or consciously adopt their own work and value systems as part of a poetic grouping concerning courage and heroism.
Canadian painter Larry Azoth brings together various time periods and worldviews in his composite surrealist work “Fate.” We see a magician/astronomer looking through a circular window at skyscrapers and Saturn, a junction of the modern, post-modern, and pre-modern, of faith and reason, philosophy and poetry, science and nature, Earth and the cosmos. Nothing seems faded or out of place here, everything exists as a part of a comprehensive homage and acknowedgement of the values and ideas which have brought us here. The title “Fate” suggests a destiny not completely under our conscious control…which has a ring of truth when we consider the multilayered influence of past narratives, values, and scientific discoveries. Park and Searby admonish us not to simply repeat our culture’s amalgamate of values without careful consideration, while Azoth reminds us of the rich history and multilayered context of ideas we may think are completely our own. Many people are to an extent products of their times – not necessarily a negative phenomenon in itself, but a reminder to acknowledge and consider the sources of our values and personal narratives.
Cynthia Lamanna praises the beauty of forgiveness in a short piece – linking the decision to move past another’s wrongdoing to a variety of natural processes and identifying the act as one of kindness and morality. Forgiveness can be taken as a way to overcome the cognitive dissonance brought about by our not living up to or perfectly understanding the values we so often advocate. The process allows us to re-integrate people into our communities and create an understandable internal narrative for our own actions without becoming paralyzed by contradictions. For example, we can still value integrity without forever shunning a respected person who once deceived us, and we can find language to make sense of our own vacillations among value systems and types of behavior.
Lamanna also applies this broad, humane approach to human nature and relations to the late Michael Jackson in another of her poems. Jackson is not viewed one-dimensionally as simply a talented singer and performer, a controversial figure, an unusual personality, or someone with medical problems – he becomes all of these at once and a more complete human being. That is one of the strengths of forgiveness (not speaking specifically of Jackson here but of humanity in general) – how the process allows for others to change, to rise above our limited concepts of them, to not have their entire personhood defined by some action of theirs of which we disapprove.
A refusal to forgive is one form of looking at people and events through a limited perspective, and ritualization of past events through celebrations and pageantry can also provide a stilted, inaccurate view of those events if we are not careful. Patsy Ledbetter describes Christmas through the eyes of a professional-level musical performer…with rehearsals beginning in September. She writes of all the work which goes into a theatrical presentation, and all the fear and stress that went into Mary and Joseph’s original journey, which we so often ironically attempt to recreate perfectly and spectacularly. Ledbetter wonders how much the audience will grasp of the cast and crew’s labor and of the significance of the original historical event – but ends her poem on a hopeful, rather than cynical note. The beauty of the narrative and the fact that the story remains told to this day provides a chance to touch audiences with the transcendent message of the tale. Even if they do not literally feel or understand everything which led up to that particular moment, they are still in attendance and still have a chance to learn and celebrate something beyond the everyday. Their experiences thus become part of the larger Christmas narrative, and the cast and crew have the honor of allowing them to transcend time and space to join in the celebration of humility and love.
Didacus Ramos relates a vignette from his family’s history, how he raised the funds to purchase a pet hen, christened Henriettta. The cultural references and details make this piece about much more than a boy and his pet chicken…we learn here about the Portuguese cultural influence on California suburban life, about the ethics of peaceful, quiet family life, hard work, and discipline. From the first paragraph where he references Saint Didacus, the author turns the story into a piece on culture, faith and family, on how brothers and sisters and parents and children learn to relate to each other and on the potential for a friendly, domestic relationship to the natural world.
Reuben Rutledge presents the cultural and religious practices of Indonesian islanders through his academic essays, illustrating the nearly universal human tendency towards myth-making and narrative generation. The indigenous peoples presented developed their own ways of understanding their world and making poetry and meaning from their experiences, as the Dutch colonists developed ways of understanding (and manipulating) the native people. Through his academic focus of study, Rutledge asserts that value systems and beliefs have real value and importance, and can and should be examined along with more tangible aspects of daily life.
These contributions all reflect high levels of thought and consideration, and we at Synchronized Chaos invite readers to approach them with a similar level of curiosity and analysis.
