Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 10, 1990 TAG: 9004100099
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jeff DeBell
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The combined exhibit will take place as the Roanoke City Art Show in the spring of 1991. It will be held in the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts.
The journal that Artemis has published in connection with its own show will become the catalog for the merged show.
The exhibit will be coordinated by The Arts Council of Roanoke Valley, as it is now. The council arranges for a juror and handles other administrative details.
It also uses the city art show opening to announce the winners of its annual Kendig Awards for support of the arts.
"We saw it as the perfect opportunity for the groups to work together," said Brook Dickson of the arts council. "Instead of two shows, it can be one bigger and better show."
This year's Roanoke City Art Show starts April 26 in the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts. The opening reception will include presentation of the Kendig Awards and a reading of poetry by members of Artemis.
Mail modesty?
The prospectus for this year's Sidewalk Art Show raised an eyebrow or two at the U.S. Post Office, but was mailed without ado.
In keeping with custom, the prospectus bears a reproduction of the work of the preceding year's best-in-show winner. The 1989 winner was Eileen McCaul-Basham, who specializes in photographs of the nude human figure. The black-and-white photo is of a kneeling female, shown from the rear.
A postal clerk said she and her manager felt the photo should have been mailed "under cover" on grounds of taste, "but it was legal and it went."
The artist, who is accustomed to her work causing a stir, was philosophical. "It's funny to have your art approved by the U.S. Postal Service," she said.
Earlier this year, another nude by McCaul-Basham was pulled from the American Association of University Women art show at Valley View Mall when shoppers told a mall official it was offensive to them.
Out of space
Roanoke sculptor Mimi Babe Harris says she will formally complain about being denied space in the Sidewalk Art Show's sculpture garden this year.
She blames the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts Docent Guild for mailing her prospectus to the wrong address. When she discovered the error and tried to register, Harris said, she was told that the sculpture garden was full.
The show is a docent fund-raising project for the museum. It is part of Roanoke's annual Festival in the Park.
Harris, who is one of the Roanoke Valley's most respected artists, has had an exhibit in the sidewalk show for nine years. She has won awards in three of the last four years, including one best-in-show and two third places.
"I am distressed," Harris said. "This isn't just another show. This is the home show. I want to be in it and I can't and that makes me angry."
Making an entrance
Mill Mountain Theatre, aiming to be helpful, is running a clever ad for its Theatre B productions. It says: "You Have To Go to Church To Get Into Theatre B."
It's a useful reminder that Theatre B is in Center on Church, which is the new wing of Center in the Square. The entrance is at 20 E. Church Avenue - not through Center in the Square.
Visitors to other facilities in the new wing, such as the lecture hall of the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts, also should use the Church Avenue entrance. There are routes into the new wing from Center itself, but they're a bit labyrinthine and not really intended for the public.
For the convenience of theater-goers, Mill Mountain moves its box office to a small space outside Theatre B at 6 o'clock on the nights of performances there.
"It's what we laughingly call a box closet," said Doug Patterson of the theater's marketing staff.
Courthouse art
One ordinarily visits the Roanoke City Courthouse for something unpleasant like paying a fine or a tax bill or keeping a date before the bar, but it needn't be all that bad.
One can simply go to see the art.
The Sixth Annual Roanoke Art Commission High School Art Exhibit opened Friday. It is a forceful demonstration that there is an abundance of talent - both students and teachers - in the art classes of schools in and around the Roanoke Valley.
Besides being skillfully executed, the work is notably original in conception. As pointed out by Harriet Stokes, one of the judges, the days are over when high school art students do little more than copy the masters and the covers of National Geographic.
by CNB