Cowboys and Cowgirls Come Out For the 6th Annual Southeastern Cowboy Gathering

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 6th Annual Southeastern Cowboy Gathering, hosted by the Booth Western Art Museum and presented by Comcast, happens March 12-15 at the Booth Western Art Museum.

The weekend kicks off on Thursday, March 12, beginning at 5:00 p.m. with a Meet the Artist Reception for Contemporary Visions of the West: The Art of John Nieto. At 7:00 p.m. featured artist John Nieto presents highlights of his career and shows examples of his work in the Booth Theatre.

Friday evening, March 13, at 7:00 p.m., experience The End of the Trail Supper and Concert, which includes a barbeque dinner served on the Booth Museum grounds amongst wagons gathered to compete in the Southeastern Chuck Wagon Cook-off. Musical group Call of the West will entertain guests around the campfire.

On Saturday, come out early as teams of cooks prepare beans, meat, potatoes, and dessert just as they did on the cattle drives of the late 1800s in the Annual Southeastern Chuck Wagon Cook-off. Throughout the day, musicians from around the Southeast compete in banjo, mandolin, guitar, and fiddle contests at the Grand Theatre. Saturday evening, featured entertainer R.W. Hampton, one of the leading Western entertainers in America today, performs at the Grand Theatre in downtown Cartersville.

A host of family activities and entertainment is on tap throughout the weekend, both inside and outside the Booth Museum. Children's activities, an adult cowboy poetry writing workshop and the Georgia Youth Cowboy Poetry Contest all take place within the Booth Museum Saturday and Sunday. Visit www.boothmuseum.org for a complete schedule.

Cowboy Church is held in the Booth Theatre on Sunday morning. This is a non-denominational church service with Western flair and free for everyone. Following the service, top cooks from around the southeast compete in the Dutch Oven Cooking Contest on the Museum grounds. After the judges have sampled entries, cooks will serve samples to the public.

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Booth Museum Celebrates the African American Experience in the West

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The largest exhibition of Western art by black artists ever assembled opens December 20 at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. "The Black West: Buffalo Soldiers, Black Cowboys and Untold Stories" features 65 works of art by 16 contemporary African American artists. Visitors to the museum can view the exhibition through March 22, 2009.

"The Black West" is an important and groundbreaking exhibition because it tells the often overlooked story of blacks in the West through the art of contemporary African American artists. In addition to the stories of black cowboys and buffalo soldiers, the art chosen for the exhibition focuses on the complete African American experience in the West, encompassing black explorers, lawmen, rodeo stars, outlaws, and women. The exhibition is co-curated by Booth Museum Executive Director, Seth Hopkins, and "Cowboy Mike" Searles, professor of history at Augusta State University.

Artists in the exhibition include: Gil Ashby (Michigan), Thomas Blackshear (Colorado), Alexander Bostic (Virginia), Eddie Dixon (Texas), Ed Dwight (Colorado), Michael Godfrey (Maryland) , Ed Hamilton (Kentucky), Dean Mitchell (Florida), Bob Snead (Texas), Ivan Stewart (Michigan), Ezra Tucker (Colorado), Bobb Vann (Arizona), Ernest Varner (Georgia), Steven Walker (Ohio), Burl Washington (Texas), and Bernard Williams (Illinois).

Throughout the run of the exhibition, the museum will offer programming on related topics including lectures by artists, writers, and historians as well as dramatic historical performances. Visit www.boothmuseum.org for a complete schedule.

In addition to the fine art on display in the "The Black West," the Booth Museum's Reel West Gallery will feature "Bronze Buckaroos: Mythic Images of the Black West." Featuring 25 vintage movie posters from the Booth Museum collection and the Ron Finley Midnight Matinee Poster Collection, this exhibition explores Hollywood's portrayals of the African American experience in the West. The museum will screen several of the movies advertised in the posters during the run of the exhibition.

For more information on the "The Black West: Buffalo Soldiers, Black Cowboys, and Untold Stories," call the Booth Museum at 770-387-1300 or visit www.boothmuseum.org.

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Georgia State Students’ Design Work Featured on CNN

At first glance, the portraits appear to be sketches of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. But look closer and each line and curve is a letter, a word, a sentence.

Students in Stan Anderson’s advanced typography class at Georgia State were approached by CNN to create typographical portraits of the presidential candidates using each candidate’s own words and platforms. The works were then posted at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/28/typography.irpt/index.html.

“I thought a nonpartisan type of political assignment would be terrific since it would allow the designers to actually research all six official presidential candidates running this year,” Anderson said. “I’m sure the students’ own views did play into their choices for their portraits, but they were very respectful of how they depicted the candidates.”

Each student created two portraits, choosing from the candidates running for president. While Obama and McCain were the most popular choices, students also depicted Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.

“No one was trying to sway another on how to vote or whom to vote for during this election,” Anderson said. “Words are powerful, and the use of the candidates’ own words made the assignment even more so.”

Last year, another of Anderson’s classes collaborated with CNN, presenting design work for the network’s League of First-Time Voters project. The assignments have been a way for Georgia State students to get real-world design experience, he said. Anderson came to Georgia State in 2001, after leaving CNN Headline News as Director of Design for the network.

“This year’s junior class of graphic design majors is some of the best and brightest — and creative — that I have ever seen,” he said. “Their keen sense of who they are and where they are in their chosen profession is remarkable. Each come to the projects with their own creative voice, and that translates into some of the most innovative and inspiring work I’ve ever seen. My students continue to inspire me.”

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Editor's Note: This artwork is fantastic. It's impressive to see how words can literally draw a picture.

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Arts Event Transforms Historic Castleberry Hill Neighborhood October 24

“Le Flash,” a night of art, light and sound
Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill district and Cleopas Park
7 p.m. to midnight Oct. 24

For one night, Georgia State artists will transform the streets of Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill district as part of “Le Flash,” an event coordinated by Welch School of Art and Design gallery director Cathy Byrd and local artist Stuart Keeler.

Performances and shows from percussionists, poets, filmmakers and fashion designers are among the more than 30 projects that will be featured as part of “Le Flash.” Highlights include an iron pour and the unveiling of a temporary fountain in Cleopas Park created by Paris-based artist Kristina Solomoukha.

“Stuart Keeler and I invented ‘Le Flash’ as a way to animate the neighborhood and synergize the relationship with the park,” Byrd said. “It’s a community project, and so many of Georgia State University’s staff, students and faculty members have become involved in making this happen.”

Byrd said she hopes that Solomoukha’s exhibit will help bring more Castleberry Hill residents to Cleopas Park, as it is currently an underused cultural space. “Le Flash” will be happening in collaboration with Castleberry Hill’s Fourth Friday Art Stroll, linking the historic district’s monthly event to the park.

“The energy’s there, the excitement’s there, and the community is waiting to share it,” Byrd said.

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News to Use in Fayetteville, Atlanta, Peachtree City, Macon and all of Georgia

Columbus Museum Acquires Major Art Collection of American Drawings

GFP Note: Columbus is showcased as our "day tripper" pick. The Columbus Museum is the second largest in the state of Georgia. Pop on down to view this exciting new art collection.

The Columbus Museum is pleased to announce the acquisition of a major private collection of American drawings. As a result, the Museum has established itself as one of the most significant repositories of American drawings in the nation. The recently acquired works were originally assembled by legendary collector Paul Magriel, and subsequently purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Flom of New York. The 105 sheets represent rare and important examples of American master drawing by some of the nation’s most prominent artists, including Raphael Peale, Henry Inman, Sanford R. Gifford, Jasper F. Cropsey, Winslow Homer, William Paxton, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Theodore Robinson, William Glackens and Ben Shahn.

The works celebrate the rich history of American drawing from the late 18th through the middle of the 20th century, and chronicle the many ways in which artists have used the medium to portray the nation’s evolving character. The Columbus Museum defines drawing as any unique work on paper, and the collection includes the great variety of approaches to drawing such as pencil, charcoal, watercolor, gouache, pastel, ink and silverpoint. The entire collection was displayed for public view for the first time in the 2007 Museum exhibition Tracing the Nation: Recently Acquired American Drawings. The acquisition was made possible by the support of members of the Museum’s 105 Society and a grant from the Mildred Miller Fort Foundation.

Since the Columbus Museum opened its doors to the public in 1953, drawings have represented
a collecting area in which the institution could readily afford important works of art by leading
American artists.

Some of the more than 400 sheets in the collection were individual gifts and purchases acquired
over the years. However, the majority of this collection is new as recently as the last five years.
In 2002, the Museum’s collection rose to a level of national importance with the acquisition of
more than 125 American drawings owned by Dr. and Mrs. Philip L. Brewer of Columbus. The Brewer acquisition includes great works by many of the key artists in American art history. In order to bring greater visibility to the collection, the Museum curated the traveling exhibition, Lines of Discovery: 225 Years of American Drawings andpublished an illustrated text of the same name to accompany the exhibition on its national tour.

The Museum’s collection took another leap forward with this acquisition of 105 sheets owned by
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Flom, of New York. The drawings represent an extraordinary acquisitions
opportunity due to their high quality and great rarity. Visionary collector Paul Magriel
(1906-1990) purchased American drawings during the 1960s and early 1970s when great works
were much more accessible and by modern standards quite affordable. Claire Flom, in particular, viewed her role as the caretaker of this collection and sought to place it in a public institution when she could no longer adequately care for it.

One of the principal motives for the acquiring the Magriel/Flom Collection is that the drawings
strengthen the Museum’s collection in several ways. First, they add depth to the Museum’s
relatively few drawings produced before 1850. Second, they include great works by key
American masters such as John Vanderlyn, William Sidney Mount, Frederic Church and James
Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose drawings were not represented in the Museum’s collection and
which are nearly impossible to find in today’s art market. Works by Thomas Sully, Thomas
Hovenden, Eastman Johnson, Theodore Robinson and Isabel Bishop complement paintings by
artists already in the Museum’s collection. Other drawings in the acquisition enable the Museum
to represent the work of key artists in depth — three drawings by Benjamin West to add to the
two drawings already present; two sheets by John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Thursby and Madame Helleu, represent the first Sargent figure drawings acquired by the Museum and stand as an important complement to the Museum’s Sargent watercolor, Spanish Window. Winslow Homer’s pencil drawing, Head of a Girl, represents the artist’s important period in England during 1881-1882, and now joins the Museum’s charcoal drawing by Homer, Pond Lilies, done on American soil in 1884. Also, two drawings by Robert Blum of his brother provide
representation by this important artist.

The Magriel/Flom Collection demonstrates the essential role drawing has played in the formation and development of American art. While representing an overview of American art, this selection of works attests to the unique properties of drawing and its status as the most intimate, immediate and versatile art medium.

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Georgia Power's Refrigerator Art Wins National Contest, Kicks off Refrigerator Recycling Campaign

GFP Note: Be sure to visit http://www.recyclemyoldfridge.com/artfridges.aspx to view Georgia Power's winning entry. There are some great fridges to see at the site.

PRNewswire/ -- What do art and refrigerators have in common? In many households, the refrigerator is a place for grade school artwork, but usually not the stuff that wins national acclaim. However, in an effort to bring attention to energy conservation, Georgia Power took its vision of decorating a recycled refrigerator to a new level, creating artwork that got noticed.

Displayed August 25 to September 2 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., during the Department of Energy's ENERGY STAR(R) The Art of Recycling exhibition, Georgia Power won "Judges Choice" in a nationwide call for old refrigerator units that have been recycled and converted to very creative works. Georgia Power Product Manager Vicki Nichols accepted the top award on behalf of the company at a ceremony September 2 in Washington, D.C.

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy's ENERGY STAR Recycle My Old Fridge Campaign, Georgia Power's "slot machine fridge" was selected among artwork submitted by students, institutions, utility companies, private organizations, and individual artists across the country.

"Georgia Power's old recycled refrigerator was decorated using vinyl vehicle decals on the sides, brush aluminum framing on the front with black acrylic signs," said Nichols. "There is an actual slot machine metal token tray at the bottom with slot tokens in the tray. It seemed a fitting design as Georgia Power is promoting a 'jackpot' of energy savings worth more than $100 a year."

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Western American Art South of the Sweet Tea Line II Opens at the Booth Museum

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Booth Western Art Museum announces the opening of Western American Art South of the Sweet Tea Line II. The exhibition contains 74 works of art from 37 locations across six Southern states, and showcases seldom seen Western Art from private collections, museums, and galleries. Guests will be able to view the artwork through November 30, 2008.

Western American Art South of the Sweet Tea Line II, or "Sweet Tea II" as it is known among the Booth Museum staff, allows visitors to experience art that will transport them to the most beautiful locations in the west to witness both the joys and hardships of life in the West. Works included in the exhibition span a 150 year period beginning with historic works by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran and ending with contemporary artists Howard Terpning, Ken Riley, Alyce Frank, and many others. Among the artistic treasures, many of which have never been exhibited to the public, are a watercolor by famed Western artist Charles M. Russell, oils by Taos artist E. I. Couse, and landscapes by artists such as Edward Potthast, Thomas Hill, and William Kieth.

"Sweet Tea II" is the second installment of a triennial exhibition series, building on the success of the first "Sweet Tea" in 2005. The current exhibition was co-curated by Booth Executive Director Seth Hopkins and Curator Jeff Donaldson, working with a wide range of private collectors and museum staff members around the Southeast.

The exhibition title, Western American Art South of the Sweet Tea Line II, loosely defines the geographic area which is home to these amazing works of art. The "Sweet Tea Line" is the line below which sweet tea is found in abundance while above it sweet tea lovers are left trying to dissolve sweetener in cold tea.

The Booth Western Art Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday until 5:00 p.m. with extended hours on Thursday evenings. Museum admission includes Western American Art South of the Sweet Tea Line II. For more information on the Booth Western Art Museum call +1-770-387-1300 or visit www.boothmuseum.org.

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The Sistine Chapel Gets A Charleston Brush Stroke

24-7 - Painted 12,000 square feet onto the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel is the depiction of famed Italian artist Michelangelo's biblical scene of God's Creation of the World, God's Relationship with Mankind and Mankind's Fall from God's Grace. Michelangelo's fresco tells a story to the world that words couldn't explain, that only he as an artist envisioned putting in pictures. For over five hundred years the painting has become a spectacle worthy of seeing time and time again. However time has left its trace upon the famed images that one Charleston S.C. artist is putting his artistic stroke to revamp The Sistine Chapel.

If the restoration in 1984 wasn't e enough to raise questions, many scholars believe that attempting to restore the immaculate works of art once more will tarnish the uniqueness of the Michelangelo masterpiece once in for all, while others may deem the idea improbable.

When The Sistine Chapel underwent a drastic make over it caused such a controversy, that historians and scholars differed on opinions as how to save the ailing work of art from losing its distinctiveness. That they fought to keep the history in tack from losing its original luster painted by Michelangelo.

Well we can only imagine what they are saying today, now that The Sistine Chapel is undergoing yet another monumental restoration process. But this time, on a scale un-parallel to what they can imagine.

Six months ago a Charleston native and artist had an idea. That idea was to recreate The Sistine Chapel and add a more contemporary appeal to it without tainting the story line or ruining the novel conception illustrated by Michelangelo. August 22nd, Kermin Middleton makes the attempt as he unveils The Sistine Chapel "Converted Gems: The Michelangelo Remix" at Castleberry Hills in Atlanta, and all eyes will be waiting to see what he's completed to restore what the world has come so amazed with each time it is viewed.

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Stolen Art Uncovered - Is it Yours?

The late William Kingsland's New York City apartment, found stuffed with hundreds of works of art after his death.

Talk about a surprising discovery. In 2006, a treasure trove of all kinds of art work—some of which has subsequently been identified as stolen—was uncovered in a New York City apartment. In an effort to track down the rightful owners, the FBI and the Public Administrator of New York County have posted pictures of the most important pieces on their website.

More than 300 works of art—paintings, sketches, sculptures, and other pieces by such artists as Pablo Picasso, John Singleton Copley, Alberto Giacometti, Giorgio Morandi, and Eugene Boudin—were discovered after the death of the apartment’s occupant, William M.V. Kingsland.

Kingsland was well known in New York City’s art circles as an engaging and intelligent connoisseur of art, books, architecture, and genealogy. But when he died, he left no will…and no apparent heirs to claim the floor-to-ceiling stacks of paintings and art works crammed into his one-bedroom apartment.

Turns out Kingsland was a pretty secretive guy—despite having many acquaintances, very few people had ever been inside his residence. In conversations with friends, he was often evasive about his early years and his family. And, as reported by the media not long after his death, William Kingsland wasn’t even his given name—he was born Melvyn Kohn and spent his early years in the Bronx before legally changing his name to Kingsland. He thought it had a more literary sound to it and would help him gain acceptance among Manhattan’s upper crust.

A surprising discovery. After Kingsland’s death, New York Public Administrator Ethel Griffin hired two auction houses—Christie’s and Stair Galleries—to sell the art. But as Christie’s researched the pieces to determine their provenance (history of ownership), it discovered some of them had been reported stolen in the 1960s and 1970s and immediately contacted New York Special Agent Jim Wynne, a member of our Art Crime Team. And after Stair Galleries auctioned off several pieces, one of the buyers—an art gallery owner—discovered the piece he bought had been reported stolen as well, so he too got in touch with Agent Wynne.

One bizarre side note: A mover hired by the Public Administrator’s Office to transport the contents of Kingsland’s apartment to a warehouse was charged for stealing two Picasso sketches each valued at approximately $30,000. And, it turns out that was not the first time those two sketches had been stolen…sometime before they ended up in Kingsland’s collection they were stolen from a New York art gallery around 1967!

With the cooperation of the Public Administrator’s Office and the two auction houses, we (the FBI) began investigating Kingsland’s collection of art and positively identified several works that had been stolen. And we think there are more. But because of the overwhelming size of the collection and the complex and time-consuming nature of provenance investigations, we decided the best and most expeditious course of action was to publicize the art work to the general public.

The FBI needs your help. If you have information on the provenance, acquisition, or ownership of any work of art from the Kingsland collection shown here—or if you want to make a claim—please contact Agent Wynne at (718) 286-7302 or by e-mail at James.Wynne@ic.fbi.gov.

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