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LIFE
Art, music in abundance to kick off Create West Virginia Conference
Gallery 842 in downtown Huntington will showcase community art during the Create West Virginia Conference.
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HUNTINGTON -- It starts Sunday, Oct. 18, with Mountain Stage and an art reception at the Huntington Museum of Art.
Then, the Create West Virginia Conference attendees can feast on entertainment that features live jazz at the Frederick, spoken word and dance at the Jesyln Performing Arts Center, music at Marshall University, animation projections at the Morris Building, an art-, food-, and music-filled reception at the Gallery 842, and more than 50 pieces of fresh art all over downtown thanks to the Art Gawk.
If you're starting to feel art overwhelmed, good.
That's the intent of the wealth of art and entertainment offerings open to the conference attendees from around the state, as well as the general public, as downtown Huntington hosts the Create West Virginia Conference, which runs Sunday through Thursday, Oct. 18-20.
Create Huntington volunteers Thomas McChesney and Byron Clercx, who is also chair of the department of art and design at Marshall, said they wanted to give conference attendees and local residents a chance to mingle and experience a blend of art and entertainment in downtown.
Both said last year's Create West Virginia Conference at Snowshoe Mountain Resort was awesome but didn't have much to offer after the sessions ended for art and entertainment.
"Coming to Huntington, we have a wide range of restaurants and artists and music embedded here already," McChesney said. "I think people will be overwhelmed."
Clercx, who has been involved with such downtown projects as the 4th Avenue streetscapes, said hosting the array of art activities along 4th Avenue from the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center to the new Gallery 842 is a great chance for Huntington to rebrand itself as a city with a bright future.
"A lot of people are coming, and to that end, this is a chance for them to see Huntington as a viable venue to hold their conferences," said Clercx, who designed the sidewalk art under the Keith-Albee marquee. "On that level, it's also a way for Huntington to reintroduce itself to a broader audience. There will be people from as close as Charleston who haven't been here in downtown in a while."
The Sunday art offerings begin with an opening reception from 2 to 4 p.m. of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History's Biennial West Virginia Juried Exhibition that features 97 juried art works from around the Mountain State.
Although this show has been happening since 1979, this is the first time it has been at the Huntington Museum of Art, the 52-acre-campus that features more than 14,000 permanent works of art, a tropical conservatory with a 14-foot-tale Dale Chihuly glass sculpture, nature trails and permanent exhibitions of everything from guns to glass.
Sunday afternoon also features the opening reception (featuring Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia) at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena Conference Center at 4 p.m., and at 5 p.m. live jazz with Bluetrane in the Frederick Building Lobby, 940 4th Ave., a pre-reception for Mountain Stage. Mountain Stage, the NPR show, will be doing a live taping at 7 p.m. at the historic Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center with host Larry Groce and special guests Kathy Mattea, the Songcatchers, the Ahs, Shannon Whitworth and Or, the Whale.
Larry Groce, the host of Mountain Stage and the director of FestivALL Charleston, said they're honored to be a part of the Create West Virginia movement.
The Charleston-based, internationally-heard radio show, which has put out more than 700 programs since 1983, could be a poster child for the movement that economy follows arts-fueled creative people who create jobs.
"Jeff James, the Glenville native who started Create West Virginia was the only person in West Virginia that worked for Microsoft, and he moved back to West Virginia on purpose," Groce said. "He and his wife decided where to go to raise a family, and one of the reasons was that they saw things like Mountain Stage, which told them there was that element here and that sensibility here, of people who like that sort of music and that sort of art and cuisine and all that goes with it."
After the conference sessions on Monday, there will be a whole slate of art walks and talks under the title of Night Out on 4th Avenue.
There are two 5 p.m. events with Create Huntington's Chat 'n' Chew (normally held on Thursdays) running in its usual spot of the Frederick Building lobby. That will be followed at 6 p.m. by the MU Department of Theater presenting songs and scenes from its latest show, "Waiting for Lefty."
A block away, the Jesyln Performing Arts Center, 1030 4th Ave., will be presenting a free show called "The Movement of Poetry: Spoken Word and Dance" that starts at 5 p.m. and features an open-stage improvisational poetry and dance from 6 to 6:30 p.m.
Crystal Good, a well-known Charleston poet and member of the writing collective the Affrilachian Poets, will be co-hosting the event with Huntington poet and writer Doug Brooks, as well as Peter Sternloff, host of the open mic sessions at Gary Bowling's House of Art in Bluefield, W.Va.
At 5 p.m., there will be readings from a number of known West Virginia poets including Jacob McGill, Eva Motley, Christa Nezhini, Lori McKinney, Bill Robinson and Doug Imbrogno.
Good will be doing a performance piece of "Dem Boyz, Dem Girlz," a piece about strip mining and a stripper in a hip-hop context that will be performed with 10 dancers from Jesyln on stage.
"It's fun, and it's a different hybrid thing we're working on," Good said. "This is a way of showing the diversity and the talent and expressing how we feel about Create West Virginia."
The show will wrap up with an open mic-style session during which folks are invited to take the stage to perform poetry or dance.
"We want people to come out and contribute to the poetry and modern dance fusion," Good said. "We're asking people to show up and get up. Don't just sit there when we could turn it into a jam session, which is what I'm hoping we'll do."
Closing out Monday evening will be simultaneous art openings from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Gallery 842, 842 4th Ave., a community gallery exhibiting local artists' work, as well as the Morris Building, 845 4th Ave., where there will be music by the MU Guitar Ensemble, eclectic string band music by the 1937 Flood and from the MU graphic design students some new media animated projections that Clercx refers to as "liquid scenery."
As if that's not enough cool art to fuel the soul, there's ArtGawk. More than two dozen artists contributed 50 works of art that are now hanging in the windows of downtown buildings.
In windows along 9th and 10th streets from 3rd to 4th avenues and in the 900 block of 3rd Avenue, ArtGawk was put together by Naomi Bays and Carter Seaton.
Clercx said art shows are a great way to celebrate Create and the arts, especially since the idea for Gallery 842 emerged from the weekly Create Huntington Chat 'n' Chew sessions. That idea was stewarded by Lynn Clercx, a Create Huntington Board of Connectors member who worked with the building's owner Liza Caldwell, and regional artists, faculty, staff and students from the MU Department of Art & Design to bring it to life.
The current juried exhibition was curated/adjudicated by two part-time faculty in the College of Fine Arts in the Department of Art and Design: Natalie Gibbs and Kristin Zamiello.
"The conference is generous to invite the public to these events," McChesney said. "Hopefully we'll see people who have heard about Chat 'n' Chew but have not had a chance to get involved or that didn't get to go to the art openings at Gallery 842. I think having the conference here at this time gives Tri-State residents a chance to see a lot that is going on and that we have lot to be proud of."
Creating entertainment
Here's a schedule of entertainment that will be provided in conjunction with the Create West Virginia Conference. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted:
SUNDAY, OCT. 18
2 to 4 p.m.: Opening reception at Huntington Museum of Art, 2033 McCoy Road. Reception includes Biennial West Virginia Juried Exhibition. Visit www.hmoa.org for more information.
4 to 6:30 p.m.: Create West Virginia Conference reception at Big Sandy Superstore Arena. Reception will include displays from Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia. Open to conference registrants only.
5 to 7 p.m.: Pre-Mountain Stage reception in lobby of the Frederick Building, 940 4th Ave. Entertainment provided by Bluetrane, Marshall University's faculty jazz ensemble.
7 to 9 p.m.: Mountain Stage at Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center, 925 4th Ave. Kathy Mattea, the Songcatchers, Shannon Whitworth and the Ahs of Summers County. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets $20. For more info, go to www.mountainstage.org.
MONDAY, OCT. 19
5 to 6 p.m.: Chat 'n' Chew reception, Frederick Building lobby, 940 4th Ave.
5 to 6:30 p.m.: Movement of Poetry: Spoken Word and Dance, Jeslyn Performing Arts Center, 1030 4th Ave.
6 to 6:45 p.m.: "Waiting for Lefty," songs and scenes from the 2009 Theatre Alliance production, presented by the Marshall Department of Theatre, Frederick Building, 940 4th Ave.
7 to 9:30 p.m.: Community gallery exhibiting local artists' works, Gallery 842, 842 4th Ave.
7 to 9:30 p.m.: Reception featuring classic and original music by the Marshall Guitar Ensemble, new media animated projections by Marshall graphic design students and music by the 1937 Flood, Morris Building, 845 4th Ave.
8 p.m.: Marshall faculty recital, Room 133 in Smith Hall, located at corner of 3rd Avenue and Hal Greer Boulevard.
WVSO presents "A Night on Broadway" 
Arenacross 
WVSO presents "Rumpelstiltzkin: Straw into Gold" 
Huntington Symphony Orchestra: "Dreams of America" 
Mountain Stage with Larry Groce 
MEN'S BASKETBALL: Marshall vs. Tulsa 
Harry Connick Jr. "Your Songs" Tour 
Disney on Ice: 100 Years of Magic 
"Le Grand Cirque" 
