Mix Tape

Mix Tape October 1 - 27, 2016. FREE opening reception Saturday, October 1, 6-8 p.m. 

Please join Art Saint Louis for our Mix Tape exhibition featuring new artworks by 36 St. Louis regional artists from Missouri and Illinois as juried by Cat Pick & Eddie Silva.

Graphic design by Kathy DuffinMix Tape features 46 artworks by 36 St. Louis regional artists from Missouri and Illinois. Artworks featured are in a variety of styles, techniques and media including ceramics, drawing, mixed media, paintings, pastel, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and more.

The exhibit is presented October 1-27, 2016 and is free and open to the public. A free opening reception will be held on Saturday evening, October 1, 6-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 7 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sundays & holidays.

Our Exhibition JURORS are Cat Pick and Eddie Silva. Cat Pick is a fixture of the St. Louis music community with her on-air program, Emotional Rescue, on KDHX 88.1 FM. She has been with with station since 1989. Cat is a music writer and co-creator of the Married With Music podcast. She is also an artist and owner of TinyMontgomery and has been creating original designs and selling at area festivals and shows since 2005. Eddie Silva is Communications Specialist at CAMSTL. He previously served as External Affairs and Publications Manager for the St. Louis Symphony (2003-2016) where he interviewed musicians for broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio, wrote the STL Symphony Blog and Playbill, and collaborated with arts and media organizations including Carnegie Hall, amongst other projects. Prior to SLSO, Eddie was Arts & Culture writer for Riverfront Times, where his writing included fine art, architecture, & music, and investigative reporting and criticism. We are honored to have this opportunity to work with Cat and Eddie and thank them for their expertise and efforts in jurying our exhibition.

Mix Tape is a juried exhibition featuring artworks that are about, or influenced by, all genres of music or that are about/or influenced by musicians. Artworks are about music of any genre—from classical to classic rock, country to jazz, hip hop to folk. Artworks are also about, or influenced by, musicians—from Clara Schumann to Beyoncé, Johannes Brahms to The Clash—anyone who has written a score, recorded a song, made music. The resulting exhibition is a visual mix tape. Take a sneak peek at our exhibition in our Facebook album here.

Congratulations to the following artists whose artworks were selected by our exhibition Jurors to receive the following awards: Best of Show goes to Dennis Smith, Chesterfield, MO. Awards of Excellence go to Bill Perry, Maplewood, MO, Samuel Preston, Wood River, IL, Kerry Smith, Edwardsville, IL, and Shawn Wedel, St. Louis, MO. Congratulations to the following artists whose works have been purchased through the exhibit: Rafi Katz and Samuel Preston.

PARKING RECOMMENDATIONS
There are parking METERS on Pine Street and Olive Street & other nearby streets. Parking meters run 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Fines are steep ($15-20), so don't let your meter expire. If you park at a meter for the reception, remember that meters operate in downtown until 7 p.m. on Saturday. For additional parking suggestions, download a free Downtown Parking Guide here. You can also download the handy Parkmobile app, whereby you can monitor & pay your parking meter via your mobile phone.

Hourly parking is available in the PARK PACIFIC GARAGE on Olive just West of Tucker (entrance is on the South side of Olive). Parking is at your own expense. For garage parking, pay by cash via a machine in elevator bay no more than 15 minutes prior to departure OR the easier way is to pay by credit card upon exiting the garage. Be sure to take your parking receipt/ticket with you when you exit your car to visit the Gallery or you won't be able to get back in to the garage to get to your garage. Your parking ticket is your key to get back in to the garage. Art Saint Louis cannot validate parking.

The Gallery is easily accessible by PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION with MetroLink and MetroBus with MetroBus stops on Olive Street and Tucker right near the building.

SPECIAL EVENT
COFFEE WITH THE ARTISTS: SATURDAY GALLERY TALK
Saturday, October 15, 11 a.m.    FREE

Please join us at Art Saint Louis on Saturday, October 15, at 11 a.m. and meet some of the featured artists in Mix Tape as they discuss their featured works on view in our exhibit, talk about the media that they use to create their artworks, and the various techniques that they employ to make their unique form of work.

Guests can enjoy complimentary coffee tastings courtesy of the Art Saint Louis cafe while guests & artists walk through the gallery talking about their works & viewing the exhibition. Featured artists may also bring in samples of their other works or even present a brief demo of their media & techniques. This event is FREE & open to the public.

Scheduled artists for October 15 are Bob Boston (digital media), John Dobson (painting), and Rafi Katz (mixed media), and Adam Schicker (photography).

The 36 featured artists in Mix Tape are:

Mix Tape
Jurors’ Statements

I was initially thrilled when I was asked to be a juror for this show. Then the panic set in when I thought about how I don't know the language of discussing and processing visual art. I sat on those feelings for a while, my heart occasionally in my throat, worried about saying the wrong thing, picking the wrong pieces. I am confident in my ability to think about and talk about popular music; I have focused on that subject for many years. As for visual art, I would consider myself a slightly more than casual fan. Could I do this?

I carried the panic with me up until I saw the pieces submitted for this show and realized the appreciation of art and music is essentially the same; it's just the language that is different. My touchstone for the music I've loved the most in my life is that it exacts very specific emotional responses; if it doesn't, then I'm not that interested in it. When I viewed these pieces, I felt the same kind of reactions. I might not be able to name the technique used in creating a piece, but I knew how it made me feel. To me, the emotional response to art of any kind is the most important response, whether it is wonder, laughter or tears.

Thank you to Art Saint Louis and particularly to Robin Hirsch-Steinhoff for asking me to be a part of this show. It was an honor and a great privilege to view these pieces and choose the ones just right, with my fellow juror, for “Mix Tape.”

— Cat Pick
On-air host, Emotional Rescue,
KDHX  88.1 FM

Portray music without sound. Ask yourself, what does music feel like? What are music’s colors? What are the shapes of music? What are music’s optics? Music’s textures?

I doubt this is a difficult exercise for most people because of how seductively music invites metaphor. Color. Line. These are words as common to music as they are to visual art. Shape. Beat. Rhythm. Lyricism. Tone. Texture. You can find these elements in the caves of Lascaux as readily as in the music of Bach or Miles Davis.

Collage. Mashup. Mix tape. Art does what it does because life does what it does. Or life feels like this so art has to give that feeling dimensions. Or art makes us realize that event layered upon event upon image upon image, one perverse juxtaposition that smacks up alongside another—that’s pretty much what the 20th century was and is a thousand times more so in the 21st: collage without frame; mashups, limitless jam sessions; mix tapes made from a common, shared eclecticism without boundaries.

And that’s some of what I think this exhibition is and how it came together. Saint-Saëns diacritically aligns with Jonelle Monáe. Jazz is mostly a creepy blue that is the ghost of cigarette smoke. Rock & roll can be a jizz on the canvas or superrealist as your first rave after the E hit your brain. Music seems to inspire nostalgia, and nostalgia is an incurable disease.

A curatorial criticism: don’t be so earnest. Or as Miles said, “So what?”

— Eddie Silva
Communications Specialist,
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Some of the 46 artworks featured in Mix Tape:

Bill Perry, Maplewood, MO. "The Allure of the Water Violin." 2013. Pen & Ink on Paper, 26”x20”. $450.	Neil Fitzpatrick, St. Louis, MO. "MTV." 2016. Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x18”. $275.	Terry Vermillion, Kirkwood, MO. "First Solo." 2016. Acrylic on Canvas, 25”x21”. $450.
Ann Tygett Jones, St. Louis, MO. "Throwback Tunes Series: 45 Vinyl." 2015. Acrylic on Canvas, 12”x12”. $300.	Samuel Preston, Wood River, IL. "Lip Sync." 2016. Oil on Copper, 8”x10.5”. SOLD. This artwork has been selected by the exhibit Jurors for an Award of Excellence.	John Salozzo, Olivette, MO. "French Horn." 2014. Acrylic on Canvas, 32.5”x32.5”. $800.
Dana Richard Smith, St. Louis, MO. "Adam with Anne’s Bass." 2016. Spray Paint, Acrylic on Canvas, 30”x40”. $300.	Brent Becker, Wentzville, MO. "Horns-O-Plenty." 2016. Mixed Media Ceramics, 15”x10”x7”. $150.	Blake Carroll, Imperial, MO. "Trio at the Bistro." 2016. Acrylic on Canvas, 36”x29”. $1,500.
Sean Hoisington, Chesterfield, MO. "Love Conquers All." 2015. Photograph on Paper, 28”x22”. $350.	Kathy Duffin, Bridgeton, MO. "Hide in Your Shell." 2016. Watercolor on Cotton Paper, 36”x28”. $300.	Den Smith, Green Park, MO. "Blind Faith." 2015. Mixed Media, Paint, Wood, 20”x14”x3”. $350.