Alchy Picks July 5th to July 11th
Thursday | July 7th | 5:30 pm
The Arts Center
ART IN THE MAKING
If you’ve ever stared at a work of art and wondered how the artist did it, this event is for you! Artists @ Work is an innovative exhibit, held at the Main Gallery in the Arts Center in Corvallis. Usually the gallery features art created by artists in their own private studios but for this exhibit, artists are encouraged to use the gallery as their studio and visitors are welcomed in to watch the art creation in motion. This exhibit will be running from July 2nd to July 27th with a Brown Bag talk on Wednesday, July 13th from 12pm to 1pm which will feature artists explaining what their goals were in their Artists @ Work creations. A reception will be held for the artists on July 7th from 5:30pm-7:30pm and the public are welcome to come celebrate with them.
Featured artists will be Gale Everett from Albany, Elaine Green and Julia Lont from Corvallis, and Kendal Hathaway from Phoenix, Arizona. All four artists welcome the chance to talk with the public about their works during the event.
Gale’s work is often inspired by plant life, often utilizing organic matter in her mixed media creations. She invites the public to come help her create seedpods and flowers from handmade paper that she will also be creating at the Artists @ Work exhibit.
Elaine works with charcoal and draws much of her inspiration from the human form and life captured in photographs. She will be looking for volunteers to pose for a photograph which she will create from or stay for a longer live drawing.
Julia, an art teacher at the Corvallis High School, utilizes photography in a collage format when she creates, masterfully pairing photographs and painting methods to create her goal of sharing memories. Julia welcomes the public to bring their memories and snapshots to inspire her creations, including the ‘Laundry Line of Memories’ she will be hanging in the trees outside the Art Center Plaza.
The final artist, Kendal Hathaway is a mosaic artist whose greatest influences are drawn from landscape. Her usual works are smaller and are created with hand cut glass tiles, but for this event, she intends to use items from the Corvallis recycling center to create a large work, capturing the beauty of the Willamette Valley landscape. With the diverse styles of art offered by these four women, and their desire to include the community, there is sure to be something for everyone at Artists @ Work!
~Sarah Sullivan
Thursday | July 7th | 5:30 pm
Monteith River Park
THE BLUES RUNS THROUGH IT
The Willamette River will ring this Thursday with the growl and hum of Coco Montoya’s soulful blues as Albany Parks and Recreation’s River Rhythms concert series begins its 2011 season.
Held at the beautiful Monteith Riverpark and sponsored by dozens of community businesses, the free River Rhythms concert series brings a variety of genres and musical styling to Albany every Thursday, concluding on August 11th.
Coco Montoya’s blues and R&B sensibilities were mentored by the legendary blues man Albert Collins, whose alchemical fusing of the Texas, Chicago and Mississippi blues traditions can still be felt in Montoya’s current work. Montoya was awarded “Best New Blues Artist” in 1996 and his latest album “I Want It All Back” was released in 2010.
All River Rhythms shows start at 7:00 pm, unless otherwise noted. The Blanket Area opens at 5:30 pm for those of you that like to get cozy, and no chairs are allowed in the blanket area. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. A Children’s Art Area, featuring fun art and craft activities for kids is open from 5:30-7:00 p.m.
No concert is complete without something to snack on, and River Rhythms does not disappoint, featuring area food vendors serving at 5:30 p.m. Alcohol is not permitted before 5:30 p.m. on concert days in Monteith Riverpark. Pets are not allowed in the park on concert days.
Come enjoy some great blues music on the river this Thursday, July 7th with Coco Montoya and River Rhythms! ~Jimbo Ivy
Thursday | July 7th | 9:00 pm
Cloud 9
JIMBO SAYS GOODBYE
My poetical career in Corvallis began with The Alchemist Weekly. They were kind enough to take pity on a poor, friendless Kansas boy that had just rolled into town and looking for someone to publish a few of his poems as he endured the dreaded doldrums of Oregon unemployment.
From that first poem came a position writing with them, helping them create The Alchemist each week and based on that success Cloud Davidson agreed to let me host a monthly poetry night that came to be called “Poetics”. From that association came a job running sound for all the lovely bands and DJs at Cloud 9. In short, I owe my entire existence here in Corvallis to The Alchemist Weekly.
But now begins a brief season of goodbyes. I am, as many of you know, returning to Kansas to pursue my so-called higher education and thus this Thursday’s Poetics will be my last. Similarly, my article in next week’s Alchemist will be my last, not only because of my impending departure, but also because this fine institution is also saying goodbye to Corvallis.
In my experience, life is filled with such bittersweet comings and goings and thus lamentation is often a waste of spirit. Thus I intend to spend my last Poetics thanking everyone; The Alchemist, Cloud 9, and most of all you. Cause without y’alls support, I would still be a poor Kansas boy wandering around this land of green and gray, unnoticed.
Poetics at Cloud 9, Thursday July 7, 830pm. ~Jimbo Ivy
Thursday-Sunday | 9:00 am
Philomath Rodeo Grounds
FROLIC FOR THE AGES
To a certain sect of Pacific North Westerners, the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo represents something of a backwoods Hajj. It’s a rite of passage, and amongst a few die-hards, young boys cannot call themselves men until they have attended the Frolic.
There are no less than three separate rodeos taking place in Philomath this upcoming weekend. Between the days of July 7-10, the eternal clash between human versus beast will take place on an epic scale. Skills once learned and utilized out of necessity like bareback riding of wild bucking horses and cattle roping will now be performed for entertainment and in hopes of maintaining traditional down-home Western values in the age of crystal methamphetamine.
Events such as bull riding lack a clear understanding as to their meaning or past relevant practical application. This makes bull riding the most interesting to me and naturally the most popular event at most rodeos.
There is something about the sight of a small-statured man, as many bull riders are, climbing onto the back of a 2,000 lb. bull and then, in a fit of pure animal power, being flung around and off their backs like an unwieldy sack of Jell-O, that fascinates the human mind. It reminds us all of the time when sheer courage and machismo to risk life and limb in a pair of chaps meant something more than $500 an hour during Fleet Week in Portland, Ore.
It reminds anyone with an eye for history and nostalgia of the time when that sort of blind courage tipped the scales of life of death in favor of the man that blinked last when it was time to, as Hunter Thompson said, “Skin leather at high noon on Main Street.”
Despite the plethora of animal vs. human contests populating the weekend, the bulk of the weekend lies in the frolicking. There will be music, crafts, food, worship services, two parades, two dances and even a 5K run.
A full and easily navigable website offers literally everything a human being could or would want to know about the history, funding, location of the event, including a detailed schedule of the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo can be found at www.philomathrodeo.org.
The Philomath Frolic and Rodeo takes place this coming Thursday, July 7 through Sunday, July 10th in Philomath, Oregon at or near the Philomath Rodeo grounds.
~Stanley Tollet
