Author: Alex V. Cipolle

Wet Hot Art-merican Summer

EW's top summer picks for the visual arts

Arts

Many head for the hills, beaches, mountains and rivers to bask in what is the Great Oregon Summer. Others run for their paints, chalks, clays, sewing machines and cameras to capture the spirit of summer. Or dive into exhibits in museums and galleries (mmm, air conditioning). Summer in Oregon is  prime time to explore the arts, from Springfield to Coos Bay to Portland. Here are EW’s top summer picks for the arts:   The BIG INK Express Continue reading →

Hide And Seek

News

This story begins with a simple request for information. Before long, it veers into murky waters about freedom of information and the public trust, and potential violations of both in Eugene and statewide.  The story ends in a snarl of unfortunate answers with, perhaps, a shard of hope. Continue reading →

ArtsHound

Visual Arts

The Maude Kerns Art Center opens Photography at Oregon Commitment to Vision: 50th Anniversary Retrospective Exhibit 6 to 8 pm Friday, May 20. The late Bernard Freemesser, a longtime photography professor at the University of Oregon, started Photography at Oregon, a fine arts photography exhibit at the UO in 1966. The 50th anniversary show features the work of more than 80 artists including Ansel Adams, Brian Lanker, Barbara Morgan, Mary Ellen and Brett Weston. Continue reading →

The Broad Outdoors

Local writer Ruby McConnell pens a handy outdoor guide for women, but men should take a look, too

Outdoors

If Cheryl Strayed had access to A Woman’s Guide to The Wild: Your Complete Outdoor Handbook, she probably wouldn’t have had so many hardships on the Pacific Coast Trail to write about in her bestseller Wild.  Instead of teetering under its weight, Strayed would have learned how to pack a backpack efficiently, specifically for a women’s body, which has a lower center of gravity than a man’s. She could have read up on the proper footwear for long-distance hiking, instead of wearing crappy boots that left her tootsies a bloody pulp. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

The New Zone Gallery announced that it will be leaving its downtown digs at 164 W. Broadway in August after a 10-year run. Steve LaRiccia, New Zone’s treasurer and gallery coordinator, tells EW that the gallery is grateful to Oregon Contemporary Theatre, which has been subsidizing rent. “The owners of the building, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, who have leased us that space, they found a tenant to rent that space for like $3,000 a month,” LaRiccia says, “and we were paying $250.” Continue reading →

The regional old-time scene is going to have one big hearth to gather round

Music
WOW Hall

The regional old-time scene is going to have one big hearth to gather round May 5-8: the inaugural Willamette Valley Old-Time Social put on by Eugene’s Mud City Old-Time Society. For the uninitiated, old-time music is an acoustic tradition of American music. Fiddle and banjo are the stars, making the sound a perfect catalyst for square dancing.  And old-time is not bluegrass; it gave birth to bluegrass. Old-time focuses on community and participation, regardless of skill level, more than performance. Continue reading →

Bernie and The Bard

News

While Bernie Sanders may have a thing or two to say about the income inequality and power grabs of 17th-century Denmark, he very much enjoyed his Hamlet-themed introduction at Springfield’s Island Park. “To Bern or not to Bern,” local Democrat Matt Keating poeticized to the crowd of 8,000. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the huff and bluster of the far right wing. Or to take on the status quo and organize against it.” Keating’s soliloquy went on for several more stanzas before a smiling Sanders took the stage. Continue reading →

Walk the Walk

Two public art projects are coming to the Whiteaker

Visual Arts

On a stretch of wall overlooking a gravel lot in the Whiteaker, grimy layers of graffiti and tags have built up, offering non-sequitors like “You glad football is almost over?” and “RIP Crisco.”  By July, that wall will be a community mural. The Whit neighborhood, long known for its offbeat artistic chops, is about to get a whole lot artsier. Two projects are taking shape: The 2016 CarPark Mural Project and the Whiteaker Art Walk.  Continue reading →

Prince’s Orbit

Celebrating the late artist from Eugene to Minneapolis’ First Ave, home of Purple Rain

News

On April 21, the day of Prince’s death, his music could be heard spilling out of bars all over downtown Eugene. A source tells us that dancers at the Silver Dollar Club were dancing to the Purple One, and Voodoo Doughnut made a “Raspberry Beret” memorial doughnut for 99 cents. At (sub)Urban Projections, the multimedia art festival put on by the city at the Hult Center, a Prince shrine was one of the most popular attractions.  Continue reading →

Prince Remembered, from Eugene to Minneapolis’ First Ave, home to Purple Rain

News

On April 21, the day of Prince’s death, his music could be heard spilling out of bars all over downtown Eugene. A source tells us that dancers at the Silver Dollar Club were dancing to the Purple One, and Voodoo Doughnut made a “Raspberry Beret” memorial doughnut for 99 cents. At (sub)Urban Projections, the multimedia art festival put on by the city at the Hult Center, a Prince shrine was one of the post popular attractions.  Continue reading →