Art and Sound

Shift Space Showing

About two Final Friday's ago, myself and Matt Dykes attended ShiftSpace to check out some artwork by the students of WSu, many of whom were also in our Art and Sound Design class. There some interesting pieces there, that really struck me.

One of those pieces was Cory Medina's Plank/Split Pine work. He had taken ceramics and created what realistically looked like a plank of wood and a block of pine. The coloring and texture made them appear to be the real thing but upon closer examination and if you actually felt the block you realized that it was made entirely of clay. A very nice attempt at re-creating real world materials using some completely different.

One piece that was fairly confusing was the "Captive Alien" piece by Christi Wahler. It didn't appear that too much work was actually put into creating the piece short of draping a piece of cloth over a manikin torso and sticking a green head on top of it all. I can only assume that the lighting was supposed to be of some impact in the piece but this is not very clearly defined and leaves a viewer still puzzled.

A final piece which left an impression was "Overload" by Scott Murray. This piece is very clear and concise in what it is trying to convey. You see teh wheelborrow holding up all the briefcases, which leads to the thinking that the blue-collar worker is overloaded supporting the white-collar workers. It was a very well organized piece.

Overall the show was a very nice showing of some of WSU's art work and makes me sad that I did not know about ShiftSpace sooner so that I could have seen more of some of these students' pieces.
Messiah Concert In Lindsborg, KS at Bethany College

This Easter I was attending a concert that has been going strong now for 125 years and has become a mainstay of Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. It is called "The Messiah" by George Frederic Handel in 1741.  This piece is Handel's musical interpetation of the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ.  

 It is a very moving piece that utilizes a choir consisting of people who have participated in this event for anywhere from 1 to 56 years.  This piece is lead by an soprano, alto, tenor, and bass singer who alternate singing different parts of the story.  A small concert choir and an organ are used to add the musical background to the singing.  

All this is a very moving performance as the community in which this is carried out each year sees it as a very important part of their Easters.  Overall it is hard not to get emotionally moved when you see the entire community singing along with the choir at different intervals and they themselves being touched as well.