By Gary Spencer

photo: Preparing for Sideshow 6; Photo credit: Emmanuel Cavallaro

For better or worse, Dayton institutions tend to come and go. Every once in a while, though, a new institution emerges and manages to defy the odds and become a yearly fixture in the cultural fabric of the Gem City. Such seems to be the case for the yearly event known as Sideshow, presented by the Dayton Circus Creative Collective, that takes place at the once-abandoned Yellow Cab Building on East Fourth Street in downtown Dayton. Despite the financial turmoil that arts-related endeavors find themselves in within this city, Sideshow will be ushering in its eighth edition this coming weekend and the event just keeps getting bigger every year.

Like many happenings that stick around this city like a well-taped flyer to a pole in the Oregon District, Sideshow started modestly and has slowly evolved into the big deal it has become today.

“It started simple enough with a vision and desire to throw an art show that was free for the organizers, the participants and the guests,” explained Jeff Opt, current Chairman of the Dayton Circus Creative Collective. “[It is] an event that would bring people together as a community to celebrate local art and artists.”

For the first Sideshow in 2006, the then-burgeoning collective of artists and like-hearted volunteers found a raw space they turned into a venue for the event on East Third Street, near what is now The Cannery. Despite the sweltering, heated weather that surrounded that first Sideshow, both visual artists, musical artists and guests had a genuinely good time that planted the seed for the event to repeat itself from there on out. That first Sideshow also led to the official formation of the Dayton Circus Creative Collective.

“Many of the participants had so much fun they wanted to figure out how to capture that energy year around,” Opt said. “Following many meetings in the fall and winter of 2006, The Dayton Circus Creative Collective came into being in early 2007. The goal of the organization was simple and broad: The Circus is dedicated to building a nourishing environment that will encourage community interaction, artistic collaboration and the empowerment of the individual. We offer a place to create, perform and share freely in the experience of living.”

With Sideshow 8 in the immediate future, Vice-Chairperson for Dayton Circus Creative Collective Erin Vasconcelos is leading the charge for Sideshow’s biggest year to date, featuring nearly 60 local visual artists and more than 20 Dayton-based musical artists as well. According to Opt, this year’s Sideshow will be a celebration of artists showcased from both the past and present.

“It will be a mix of people who have shown in past Sideshow, along with several new artists, many showing their work for the first time,” said Opt. “There will be plenty to explore and something for everyone.”

Up front, it’s pretty obvious that Sideshow 8 is making its backbone upon its dozens of local visual artists involved. Roughly 60 visual artists will have their work on display over the course of its two-day stint at the Yellow Cab Building on East Fourth Street in downtown Dayton. At this year’s Sideshow, just as in the past, one can expect to be presented with a variety of visual artistic styles, mediums and approaches.

“We encourage all artists to create with their vision; it is not about a specific genre, ability or preference,” Vasconcelos explained. “That said, I never cease to be amazed at the quality from each artist contributing.”

And with that said, Sideshow is never without an abundant display of artistic variety and wizardry from a surprising amount of visual artists who call Dayton home. The fact that Dayton has such a thriving, creative collective of artists isn’t lost on Opt or his partners in crime at the Dayton Circus Creative Collective.

“I believe that Dayton has a long history rooted in creativity – we are not constrained by the belief that we cannot create or expose ourselves to the arts,” observed Vasconcelos. “We are truly fortunate in our little city that each generation is given more and more availability to the arts, on every level. I believe that our community values and respects what the arts do for our community and therefore encourages the arts to thrive.”

Even in its eighth year of existence, Sideshow continues to display the talents of local visual artists and intrigue and inspire the creative intuitions of the audiences it captures every year and continues to grow and expand to keep its patrons interested in all that Dayton has to offer creatively.

“The Sideshow has really evolved over the years. It is – and always will remain – a unique experience for those involved, every year is a new experience,” said Vasconcelos. “I have met several people who tell me that their Sideshow experience is life changing. An event like the Sideshow has the power to inspire community involvement within a person on a grand scale. For example, we met a person at the Sideshow last year who followed the trailing music over from the Oregon District. He had never heard of the Sideshow before, but seemed excited about the idea – he was the first applicant to this year’s show. The aura of the event creates an atmosphere among those involved, such that people want to put the effort into making the Sideshow happen, year after year.”

Sideshow 8 takes place on Friday. May 10 and Saturday, May 11 from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. each night at the Yellow Cab Building, 700 E. Fourth St.  Admission is free. For more information, please visit daytoncircus.org.

 

By Stacey Ritz

photo: Iranian boy in the Faces of Iranexhibit at the Dayton Peace Museum; photo credit: Steve Fryburg

Reach DCP visual art critic Jud Yalkut at JudYalkut@DaytonCityPaper.com.

 By Tim Anderl

 Photos: three designs for Galactic Files sketch cards for Topps showing Star Wars characters Darth Vader, Boba Fett and R2-D2 from 2012

When local artist and illustrator Jason Goad found himself let go from his first commercial art job, he realized that the most challenging part of being an artist was taking and recovering from hits during the mental game. Lucky for us, Goad is as tough and as resilient as he is talented.  This persistence paid off and today Goad’s work is sought out by customers as varied as Mattel, Sony, The Offspring, local rockers robthebank and Juxtapoz to name a few.

Dayton City Paper talked to Goad about his pursuit of this career, his inspiration, and his customers.  This is what he said …

You knew from a relatively early age that you’d be pursuing art as a career field and pursued your education at the Columbus College of Art and Design. How did that prepare you to launch your career as a freelance artist?

I graduated from CCAD in 1996, before the Internet and using a website to promote your work was as prevalent as it is now. I learned a lot about the creation of art and how to best bring my ideas to reality, but when I emerged from college I kind of hit a wall, mainly because I didn’t possess the funds to do what the teachers there were telling us – create about 500 portfolios for people you wanted to work for and start sending them out, via snail mail no less.

During this time, I moved back and forth between Dayton and Columbus and in 2001, while working for an art manufacturing company in Columbus, was fired for being “incompatible” with the type of work they did – sign making and commercial art fabrication. I dusted myself off and decided it was now or never if I was ever going to have a shot at being a freelance artist. I would spend hours a day emailing companies I wanted to do work for. A lot of rejection ensued.

My “break” was sending a packet of materials to Tattoo magazine, which led to an article that not only dealt with tattoos but also showcased artists whose work was in that same vein. That, in turn, led to working on rock posters with Drowning Creek, out of Georgia, which led to doing work for Mattel creating graphics for Hot Wheels, Sony creating illustrations for an Offspring album (2008’s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace), Icon Motorsports working on helmet graphics, etc.  –Jason Goad

Where does your inspiration typically come from? How do your ideas take root?

It depends. In regards to doing rock posters, a lot of times I’ll research a band if I’m not familiar with them, listen to their most recent album or read lyrics to some of their songs to see if any imagery pops into my head. Sometimes, ideas come to me like a lightning bolt and other times I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall. For instance, there’s a Chris Isaak poster I worked on that for days I aimlessly drew in my sketchbook trying to figure out an idea. I also do a lot of word association in my head and I just kept thinking how my favorite album of his was Forever Blue (from 1995, I believe). Then I started focusing on the word “blue” and my art school history training kicked in.  I remembered that Picasso’s Blue Period was ushered in with the painting “The Old Guitarist” and given how Chris Isaak has such an iconic guitar with his name emblazoned on it, it just seemed like a perfect fit. -JG

Over the years you’ve done work for Topps, Mattel, Sony and more. Which of your jobs have been most personally satisfying? 

I would say the most satisfying job is when you are approached to do work and you can tell the person or company isn’t coming to you just because you can draw, but because they like what you can specifically bring to the project. Or they give you free rein and have faith in your abilities.

One of the most enjoyable things I worked on recently was the album art for robthebank, a local band. I was approached by their drummer and given some ideas for imagery and song lyrics for their upcoming album. So I had fun, not feeling the usual pressure I put on myself to make every little line perfect and could get really outlandish with the colors. I also would print the art out and do different things to rough it up including driving over it with my truck and letting my cat jump around on it. It is things like that that remind me of being a kid and the simple joy of creating stuff.  -JG

Where can Daytonians see your art locally?

I’m currently working on pieces for a solo show at Clash Consignments this June. My plan for the show is to create a lot of smaller, more affordable work to sell as well as some art prints and other merchandise. People don’t always have $400-$1,000 to plunk down on a large painting, but something ranging between $20 for art prints or $100 for a small piece of art is reasonable. But the name of the show is Illustrate or Die, with the opening during the First Friday Art Hop on June 7. -JG

To find out more about the work of Jason Goad, visit ingoadwetrust.com.

 

Reach DCP freelance writer Tim Anderl at TimAnderl@daytoncitypaper.com

 

By Shayna V. McConville

The setting is ironic. Titled Disaster: A Juried Members’ Show, the exhibit sits peacefully on the second floor of the Dayton Convention Center. Softly lit and simply hung around the atrium atop the escalator, Disaster seems to be anything but. Yet, upon approach and under scrutiny, the pieces – so delicately framed and placed – depict very real mayhem and an eclectic interpretation of the title term.

By Emily Kaiser

Photo: “Urban Griot” by Willis “Bing” Davis; Photo collage of Daniel Beaty   

When my Editor asked me to cover the Dayton Skyscraper 5 African American Artist Exhibition, it was a no-brainer for me. I love art and I especially love and appreciate art in my hometown. What I didn’t know, however, was the story of the person I was about to interview.

Willis “Bing” Davis is truly an original. Born in Greer, S. C., Davis grew up in Dayton. He has devoted his life to not only art, but the art of helping people as well. He studied art at DePauw University and graduated in 1959. He also attended the School of the Dayton Art Institute and received his Master of Education from Miami University. Davis then went on to graduate studies at Indiana State University.

After all the studying, it was then his time to teach. Davis taught at Dayton Public Schools and DePauw, Miami and Central State Universities. He now holds summer camps for children. It is clear that Davis is incredibly passionate about both art and education.

“Someone had to help me, it’s about passing it on,” said Davis.

I met him at the Willis “Bing” Art Studio and EboNnia Gallery, which he and his wife own. One side is clearly a working studio. There is art everywhere you look, from jewelry, to paintings and photographs. It was a lot to take in, but my eyes gleamed with pleasure.

The other side is the actual Gallery where I got to see Dayton Skyscraper 5. I kind of expected to see pictures of buildings, perhaps famous ones throughout Dayton’s history, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Bing uses the term “skyscraper” as a metaphor for people, particularly African Americans in this case, who stand tall in the Dayton Community.

Davis asked artists he has grown to know to contribute to this project, which is its fifth one. Each artist picked someone they thought was a “skyscraper” in the Dayton Community and did a work of art of that person. They then wrote a biography of their subject, which is next to each piece.

I asked Davis why he does this project and its importance.

“To enhance and revitalize the community–that’s how I’ve always viewed art,” he said. “I’ve always viewed art as more than just paintings and things you put on pedestals.”

Walking through the exhibit, it was impossible to pick a favorite. I loved the way each artist’s style showed through each piece. It felt natural and organic.

Artist Dwayne Daniel created an oil-on-canvas piece of Marshall “Rock” Jones titled, “Ground to the Sound.” In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s Marshall provided the bottom to the Ohio Players’ classics.  Jones’ unique sound was because he decided to make his bass fretless. This led the musician to slide from note to note, creating a clean, smooth sound, which is what Jones became known for.

Gregg DeGroat provides a watercolor and pencil piece of Ronald Harper. Harper is one of the best basketball players to come from Dayton. His career lasted 15 seasons, from 1986-2011. He retired from the Los Angeles Lakers after earning his fifth NBA title ring. He started his basketball career at Belmont, but transferred to Kiser High School after, shockingly getting cut from the team. After graduating high school, he went to Miami University in Oxford and became a two-time MAN Player of the Year. He was then chosen as the eighth overall pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the 1986 NBA draft. Many Daytonians may not know this, but within his career he won three rings with the Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen-led Bulls. He then played for the Lakers and won two more rings with Kobe Brant and Shaquille O’Neal.

Artist James Pate created an acrylic piece on Shirley Murdock called “Eye on the Savior.” Murdock was born in Toledo but moved to Dayton in the mid-1980s after being recognized by musical genius Roger Troutman. Troutman hired her as a backup singer for his family’s group, Zapp. This relationship led Murdock to land a recording contract as a solo artist with Elektra Records. She then became a well-known R&B artist with tracks like “As We Lay,” “Husband,” “In Your Eyes” and “Go on Without You.”

These are just three examples of what to expect at the exhibit and each one is just as interesting and inspiring as the next.

“I have always viewed art as an initial part in any healthy community and I’ve viewed art as a vehicle or tool for human development,” said Davis. “My training is humanity oriented so the relationship of the art reflects spiritual and cultural values. It’s always been more than just paintings.”

After visiting the exhibit, you will better understand the relationship between community and art, and how each person in the works of art needs to be remembered and celebrated.

The Dayton Skyscraper 5 exhibit will be at EbonNia gallery through Jan. 26, the Schuster Center from Feb. 1 through March 29 and then at the DP&L Headquarters on Feb. 3.  For more information, contact Rosalyn Green at 937.223.2290.

Reach DCP freelance writer Emily Kaiser at EmilyKaiser@daytoncitypaper.com

 By Kevin J. Gray

In early spring of 2012, the city of Dayton began an upgrade project of Patterson Boulevard for the stretch that runs from Sixth Street to Second Street, a segment of a project that will eventually link the University of Dayton to Riverscape. Part of the plans call for a work of public sculpture at the northwest corner of the Oregon District, in the small triangle diagonally across from the Neon Movies.

When determining what piece should go in this parcel, Cindy Remm, who cares for the small green space adjacent, knew exactly who to contact. She reached out to Bill Pflaum, a Dayton native with deep roots in the city. Pflaum is President and Trustee of the seedling Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting the arts and academic programs at Stivers School for the Arts, the Dayton Public Schools arts magnet.

Remm had initially asked Pflaum if students from Stivers would be interested in creating a piece for this location. The school was interested, but was already committed to another project – the “Thresholds” sculpture featured by the Dayton City Paper in the October 2, 2012 issue. But the question sparked a personal interest for Pflaum. He mulled the idea over that weekend, talking with his wife and others, and then reached out to Remm with an offer. He and his wife would underwrite the sculpture as a gift to the city and as a memorial to his family. Pflaum’s family ran a downtown publishing business, George A. Pflaum, Publisher, Inc., which created nationally distributed teaching materials including books, weekly publications for young people and magazines for teachers. The sculpture would serve as a memorial to several of Pflaum’s family members – George A. Pflaum (1858-1907), George A. Pflaum, Sr. (1903-1963) and George A. Pflaum, Jr. (1932-1981), as well as the legacy of the family business. The city agreed, so Pflaum began looking for an artist.

Pflaum reached out to eight local and regional artists, covering a diverse span of sculptors. Six proposals were submitted, and of them, four were highly considered. The winning proposal came from artist Jon Barlow Hudson, who proposed a piece called “Fluid Dynamics.”

Hudson is a Yellow Springs-based sculptor who studied at the Dayton Art Institute, the California Institute of the Arts, the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Urbana College. Hudson has created large-scale public sculptures for locations around the world, including several in southwestern Ohio. Hudson’s mediums include granite, marble, stainless steel, bronze and aluminum, and his works are typically abstract, geometric and mathematical in nature.

Hudson surveyed the site, which once formed the bed of the Miami-Erie Canal and is now a busy thoroughfare. He noted the colors, the shapes and the movement of the area. Those observations are incorporated into Hudson’s design. The following excerpt from Hudson’s artist statement, which will be attached to a pylon supporting the sculpture, explains the sculptor’s vision:

“‘Fluid Dynamics’ embodies in sculptural form my interpretation of flow in nature. … ‘Fluid Dynamics’ is designed for this site …  a place where flowing water brought development to the young city of Dayton and where today aerodynamically-designed vehicles drive by and fly overhead, creating vortexes in the air.  For me the sculpture speaks of Dayton’s past at the junction of the Miami, Mad and Stillwater Rivers, of its engineers who mastered the aerodynamics of flight, hydraulics, aeronautics, propulsion and of its present, atop rich, flowing aquifers. Through the sculpture, I look to a future of continuously flowing creative energy from the citizens of greater Dayton.”

The piece is large scale, created from powder-coated aluminum. Abstract in form, the work incorporates complex curves that mirror the flow of water and of air. The sculpture’s rhythmic repetition undulates as waves through water or space, and the bright yellow color is designed to energize the site – to bring a vibrant hue to a landscape saturated in urban grays and browns and muted colors. Pflaum and Hudson hope the piece serves as a focus of energy for the Patterson Boulevard project, as well as for downtown Dayton at large.

The fabrication of a large-scale sculpture is a story in and of itself. Hudson often starts small-scale, working using sketches and poster board models. For some pieces, he shepherds the hand-wrought model through to the final fabrication himself. However, the complex curves of “Fluid Dynamics” require precision equipment that Hudson does not possess. To compensate, Pflaum and Hudson turned to the Dayton architectural firm LWC, Inc., who translated the poster board model into construction documents that precisely dictate the specifications of Hudson’s design. Those documents were then given to Commercial Metal Fabricators, a Dayton metalworking firm. That team, with whom Hudson has partnered before, uses the construction documents to replicate the curvature of Hudson’s model, using both CAD programs and artisan know-how. The structure, which is comprised of ten separate components, is dry-fit together at Commercial Metal Fabricator’s warehouse to ensure that all pieces are to spec, then shipped to Legacy Powder Coating in Franklin, where the team adheres the yellow hue. Finally, the pieces are shipped back to Dayton for assembly. If all goes according to schedule, look for final installation at the site by the end of the year.

Pflaum hopes this piece sparks more public sculpture in the area. To that end, he is working with the city and private investors to find other locations throughout the area for public art. With any luck, “Fluid Dynamics” will be the start of a movement in the city that transforms barren spaces into energizing works of art.

 By Jud Yalkut

The third in an ongoing record-breaking series of surveys of forms of printmaking around the world is on display in “Global Matrix III” at the Wright State University Galleries through Dec. 9. Initiated in 2002, the “Global Matrix” concept has materialized every five years through 2007 to the present one in 2012.

Its early genesis started with “The Democratic Print” curated by then-WSU Gallery Coordinator Craig Martin, now Director of Purdue University Galleries, and WSU printmaker professor Kim Vito, who realized that they could metamorphose their printmaking extravaganzas into an international scope modeled after digital surveys curated by colleague Ron Geibert. Martin recalled at the opening of “Global Matrix III” that “with the advent of digital means you could send something to an artist in Australia in seconds and communicate without a written brochure to contact artists around the world and see if they would contribute to the exhibition.”

The second time around, in 2007, Martin and Vito added Sean Caulfield, Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, and Purdue Professor Kathryn Reeves, like Martin and Vito an alumnus of Miami University, to the curatorial team. “In the beginning” related Martin, “we sat in a room for two days with 17 carousel slide trays, and now it was juried completely digitally and we weren’t in the same room, so the show is based on an amalgam of individual responses, ending up with a total of 60 works.”

“Global Matrix III” is now a touring exhibition with five venues through 2013, initially premiering at Purdue in January 2012, and being representative of many geographical origins representing, over the years, 31 countries around the world. Throughout its evolution, the selection has always been predicated on the principle that the “matrix” in which an image is cut or carved away creates a negative for final positive images, a concept now extended to comprehensively include the “digital matrix” which exists within the design capability of the computer.

An artist like Laurie Sloan (USA), also a Miami University product and an accomplished draughtsman, uses individual elements created in the computer, which are moved around and manipulated until they come to some aspect of talking to each other. Her untitled pieces are joyous celebrations of color and textural forms related somehow to her graduate career as a biology major. Jessica Condek (USA) in her “Cross Current” (2011) creates a triptych configuration in which two monochrome digital sidebars surround a colorful inky reduction woodcut, mysteriously also computer designed.

Fred Hagstrom (USA) has fashioned an artist’s book in silkscreen called “Forces and Fossils” (2011), open to a perforated conical organic form on a green textured ground, inspired by the Dylan Thomas poem “the force that through the greenfuse drives the flower  …” Yuji Hiratsuka (USA) suffuses the intaglio and chine collé “Soft Landing” (2011) with echoes of Japanese woodblock printing where a windblown figure with a flowering sash floats by pink blossoms above burgeoning heart-shaped green leaves.

Elisabetta Diamanti (Italy) uses calcography, or the art of drawing with chalk, to form black bursts like botanical bulbs exploding on a gray wash ground in her “Stami” (2009), while Janne Laine (Finland) employs the misty grays of aquatint to heighten the photogravure of a craggy landscape. Verapong Sritakulkitiakarn (Thailand) produces a pair of multilevel vertical woodcuts called “Chronicles of dreams” (2011) using modular elements like tree and rock forms manipulated in layers of colors, featuring in one a tree appearing to sprout horizontally like breath from a head by the tide of a blue lake.

Rosalyn Richards’ (USA) etchings in both color and black and white delineate delicate traceries over meshed textures and a floating abstract schematic over a sea of enclosed complexities in her “Descent” (2011). Three “Compositions” (2009) by Marilee Salvator (USA) use multiple shaped etching plates, relief and lithography to create cellular overlays like blue phagocytes floating over red hovering cells, and introducing digital effects in a penetrating hazy blue plasma in her “#24.”

Heather Huston (Canada) has skeletal pole structures and a low blue watery horizon in her “Glancing, Passing” silkscreen (2011); the three soft ground etchings with aquatint by Jochen Koehn (Germany) pose stylized foliage forms, with a triangular black dot grid overlay in “3-010” (2010); Eva Pietzcker (Germany) employs a Japanese woodblock technique with fine incised white grasses on rounded hills and floating leaves and grasses on water in “River, Maine” (2010); and Paul Coldwell (UK) uses laser cut reliefs and collage in his “Canopy II and III” (2011) pieces with dot matrices overlaid with dark linear maps and small white destination points.

The “Global Matrix” exhibition is enhanced with the addition of pieces from the Dayton Matrix group, mainly members of the Dayton Printmakers Cooperative with outstanding pieces including: Ray Must’s intaglio and copperplate abstract “Indian Summer” with its intense networks enhanced by blue and white specks; Gabriela Pickett’s skeletal personages around birth and death in the linocut “Lesser of Two Evils”; Matthew Burgy’s Warhol soup can silkscreen take-off labeled “Can of Paint Soup (Gogh for It)”; John Driesbach’s hovering iguana and emerging bather in the lithograph “Akumal”; and Ernest Koerlin’s linear etching of commedia dell’arte figures among entwined roses in “Search for Singularity.”

Global Matrix III is on display at the Wright State University’s Robert & Elaine Stein Galleries located in A132 Creative Arts Center on the university campus, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. Thursday, and noon-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information call (937) 775-2978 or visit www.wright.edu/artgalleries.