Expressions of Ability Show

Jane Addams Hull House Center for Arts & Culture Presents
"Expressions of Ability, Community Artists Speak From Within"

For Immediate Release: January 16, 2006

Contact: Louise K. Smith, Director 773-907-9403

CHICAGO -- The Jane Addams Hull House Center for Arts & Culture is delighted to present "Expressions of Ability, Community Artists Speak From Within" an art exhibit and series of arts events in conjunction with Bodies of Work - The Chicago Festival of Disability Arts and Culture. Various artists with disabilities share their self-expression through painting, theatre, poetry, sculpture, fiber, photography and book art.

Exhibition

The exhibit and events run from April 2, 2006 to April 30, 2006 with an opening reception scheduled for Sunday April 2, from 2-4 p.m. in our community gallery. Our gallery hours are Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday 12-5 p.m. The Art Center is located at 1136 W. Wilson Ave.

Visual artists include: Sandie Yi, Steve Cahn, Jim Nowik, Michele Amerie, Quinn Zenner, and various artists from Community Counseling Centers of Chicago and Visions Network. Learn more about the show at www.hullhouse.org/arts.

Events

The Art Center will also be hosting a youth poetry reading and dance performance on Saturday, April 22, 2006 from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. Youth from Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago will perform various readings about their emerging self-awareness to their disability. The Western DuPage Special Recreation Association features 15 teens and adults with disabilities in a dance performance led by professional dance instructor Richard Gaines.

On Sunday, April 23, 2006 from 10 a.m. -12 p.m., the Art Center will offer a pottery workshop for blind or partially sighted individuals. There is a $25 materials fee. Those interested should register on-line by visiting our website at: www.hullhouse.org/arts. The workshop is limited to 10 slots.

On Saturday, April 29, 2006, from 1-4 p.m. Hull House is conducting a self-care training for the service professional entitled "Dealing with Compassion Fatigue and Enhancing Your Resilience." Because service professions often put so much effort into their work, they experience significant work stress that prevents them from being effective. The first half of this training will discuss the nature of stress and the major causes of stress in health care support staff, clinicians and administrators; physical, emotional and behavioral manifestations of stress and how to recognize them; what Compassion Fatigue (CF) is, and its symptoms. The second half of this training will introduce participants to techniques in art-making to deal with CF and the importance of self-care and specific self-care strategies. Three Continuing Education Units, (CEU) for social workers, therapists and counselors will be available through Jane Addams Hull House Association. For a registration form visit: www.hullhouse.org/arts.

In cooperation with the non-profit theatre group, Cheryl's Dreaming Big, Hull House will host a series of theatre performances entitled "Erasing the Distance: The People I Know", based on the true stories of individuals, family members and friends who have struggled with mental health issues, directed by Monica Payne. The show challenges audiences to recognize that mental illness does not just affect the homeless, incarcerated, or the poor, but rather is all around us in the people we know and love, and sometimes it is within ourselves. Storytelling workshops, panel discussions and interactive audience dialogues are an integral part of the presentations. After each show, audiences can engage in a professionally facilitated dialogue about the play's themes or converse with mental health experts available for a Q & A session. Mental health information and resources will be available. The performances begin at 8 pm on April 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30. The storytelling workshops will be held on Sunday, April 23, and Saturday, April 29, 5-7 p.m. Accessibility accommodations will be provided, please check the website for more information.

These workshops will engage audience members in autobiographical writing, oral storytelling and performance techniques. The facilitators will help participants share their experiences with mental health issues either personally or as a loved one through the workshop process. For more information, to purchase tickets, or volunteer, please call Brighid O'Shaughnessy, Executive Director and Festival Coordinator, for Cheryl's Dreaming Big at 773.944.5062 or email brighid@cherylsdreamingbig.com.

For additional information about any of these events, please contact Louise K. Smith, Director, at 773-907-9403, ext 101#.

About the Jane Addams Hull House Center for Arts & Culture

The Jane Addams Hull House is one of Chicago's largest not-for-profit social welfare organizations and was founded in 1889. Its mission is to improve social conditions for underserved people and communities by providing creative, innovative programs and by advocating for related public policy reforms.

The goal of arts programming within Hull House Center for Arts & Culture is to nourish the spirit and exercise the mind through art-making, and to make arts equally accessible to all Chicagoans.

About Bodies of Work

This program is presented as part of Bodies of Work - The Chicago Festival of Disability Arts and Culture, April 20-30, 2006. This citywide, multi-venue festival features artwork and performance that address disability issues and highlight the work of artists with disabilities in a variety of disciplines including the visual and literary arts, dance, film and theater. Lectures, tours and workshops are also featured. For more information, visit www.bodiesofwork.org, or call 312.744.6630, TTY: 312.744.2947.

About Cheryl's Dreaming Big

Cheryl's Dreaming Big empowers adults with mental illness to recognize and achieve their biggest dreams and greatest potential. Through innovative Mentorship, Leadership, and Arts Apprenticeship programs, participants claim their deepest-held values and then use their newfound knowledge and skills to make a difference in their communities and in the world. Cheryl's Dreaming Big is deeply committed to disarming stigma, generating awareness and stimulating dialogue about mental health through provocative personal story-based theatre.

Links:
Bodies Of Work: The Chicago Festival of Disability Arts & Culture
Jane Addams Hull House

Better Living Through Chemistry show

Letter from the President on the Closing of the Art House

Dear Art House Patrons, 

The Art House was opened in 1996 by Oak Park residents with a vision to restore the street to a previous era when neighbors strolled by, children played, and a strong community spirit prevailed.  They decided to use art as the vehicle to realize this vision.  The Art House began showing the work of local, talented people, and has continued doing so over the past ten years.  Artist volunteers from the Art House have brought the gift of art to seniors and homeless through their visiting artist programs, using art as a way to bring joy into the lives of people.  So it with much regret that I must announce the closing of the gallery in June.  I feel honored that I was invited in from the beginning and that I have had the opportunity to work with so many talented and committed people since then.  I also look forward to the Art House's gallery space to be filled with art from a new venture that is currently being negotiated and will continue to uphold the spirit and mission of the Harrison Street Arts District.  I want to thank the many artists, volunteers, contributors, and loyal viewers who have all worked and supported the Art House in so many ways.  A special thanks to the Oak Park Area Arts Council.  We could not have done this without you. 

I hope that the Art House enriched your lives in some way.  I know that I have personally learned so much from my term of service there.  I wish all of you happiness in your new artistic pursuits.

Sincerely,

Karen Schuman Art House President

From the Detroit Free Press, February 11, 2005:

THE 6TH ANNUAL DIRTY SHOW: No inhibitions at exhibition

BY MARSHA LOW

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

February 11, 2005

Standing inside a cavernous gallery, gazing at erotic images of man on woman, woman on woman, man on man, reptile on reptile, a sad truth occurs: None of it is outrageous.

The truth came Thursday, in an abandoned neighborhood in Detroit's New Center area, through a red door, inside an unfinished and rambling space. What's inside would seem to be every voyeur's dream, except that with over-exposure comes numbness.

"It's sad," said Doug Bowen with a shake of his salt-and-pepper topped head. A former Detroit artist, Bowen, 52, now calls St. Augustine, Fla., home. "Nothing's shocking anymore."

The art is on hand for an exhibition called the Dirty Show. It's set to open today and run Saturday and Monday at the Tangent Gallery and Hastings Street Ballroom on East Milwaukee.

Now in its sixth year, the exhibit of erotic art has become a highly anticipated tradition among a variety of aficionados from throughout the United States. The show has received praise worldwide.

The Dirty Show began in 2000 as an office party-slash-art exhibit in downtown Royal Oak, at the office of the now-defunct Orbit Magazine. Its hosts were Jerry Vile, formerly known as Jerry Peterson, Orbit editor; Jeremy Harvey, the man who more recently copyrighted the TRTL graffiti image for T-shirts, and Glenn Barr, a Detroit artist.

Vile and gang said Thursday they started the Dirty Show because they liked erotic art but were disappointed with the quality of most shows of it nationwide.

Among hipsters, the Dirty Show quickly became the talk of the town. By 2002, it had moved to the Bankle Building in Detroit to accommodate growing crowds. For one year the Detroit-based Museum of New Art played host, and then in 2004 the exhibit found its current home on the corner of Milwaukee and Oakland.

In years past, the show has drawn thousands of visitors, who came for what was then a free peek.

They are young and old. They wear plaid. They come topless. They sport Mohawks. And they come on leashes.

"They are generally people who like to go to galleries and openings," said Barr, who is showing a painting he described as a New Orleans brothel circa 1972. "But you also see a lot of people you wouldn't see anywhere else, like fetish people."

This year the show producers are looking to do crowd control by selling tickets for $10.

"We want it smaller," Vile said. "This is not a night club. This is an art show."

Yes, right, back to the art.

This year, 350 pieces will be on display, the artists hailing from Detroit to Japan. Vile boasts that the show has become an artist favorite, drawing more submissions that it can handle.

In room after room, paintings, photos and sculptures hang, offering unrelenting views of genitalia that were left natural, cleanly shaven, pierced and tattooed. The bodies are bent in every imaginable angle. The faces conjure pain, pleasure, surprise and disinterest.

There is humor -- a painting of a woman with arrows pointing to her body parts to indicate where various food groups are expelled from the body.

There is the absurd -- a penis protruding from a guitar, a female's nether region sculpted on an oversized fortune cookie.

There is the nonsensical -- a woman's dress made of sausage casings.

And there's the expensive -- a 1970s painting by Pablo Davis, an apprentice of Diego Rivera, will carry a $250,000 price tag.

"Yes, it is dirty and the topic might be disturbing to some. But it's fine art."

Disturbing or not, shocking or tame, Vile calls his erotic show something else: "The last word."

 

DIRTY SHOW FACTS

What: The 6th annual Dirty Show
Where: Tangent Gallery and Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E. Milwaukee, on the corner of Milwaukee and Oakland, in Detroit
When: Opens today, runs Saturday and Monday
Hours: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Monday, 7 p.m. to midnight
Cost: $10 for entry, tickets are available at the door or at www.dirtydetroit.com

Note: You must be 18 or over to attend