First Installment of Bacon Bits

As newly appointed President of the Wayne Bacon International Fan Club, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Wayne’s beginnings with Shackway Corporation in Australia.

Television was first introduced in Australia in September of 1956, just in time for the Melbourne Olympics. Within a few short years it became the nation’s most popular form of entertainment. Shackway initially became involved in Australian television as a sponsor of a daytime drama. When the production company folded, Shackway became the producer.

In 1959, Shackway premiered the evening drama, Firecar, starring Wayne Bacon. He also had a role on the short-lived Shackway produced show, Vampire Hunter. The rest, as we all know, is history.

Wayne was not the only Bacon to get the acting bug. His cousin, Liam Bacon, was a popular television commercial actor who appeared in over 81 commercials between 1956 and 1964. The above commercial features Liam and appeared often during Melbourne Tonight, Australia’s much-loved variety program.

I’m so honored and excited to get to know more Wayne Bacon fans from around the world. Please send me your Wayne Bacon stories HERE.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Payne

President

Wayne Bacon International Fan Club

If you want to learn more about Wayne Bacon or Shackway Corporation visit SooVAC until January 7th and explore Everybody Wins!

Give the Gift of Art

Here is a collection of tiny limited edition prints available now at SooVAC $25 or online here:


Listed in order of appearance: all prints 5"x6" Edition of 30

Ass by Andrea Carlson

Landscape Debris by Caleb Coppock

Another Live Birth by Marie Gardeski

Hidden Are Her Curses by Bethany Kalk

Wood by Liseli Polivka

Vista by Cherith Lundin

S.I. by Ryan Macintyre

Nature Study by Erika Olson Gross

Swinger by Bruce Tapola

All About You...Simon Huelsbeck

Get to know one of our exhibiting artists Simon Huelsbeck whose work in now on display at SooVAC. Hope none of his astounding work was lost in the flooding!


1.What is your first art related childhood memory?

First Grade, first day of art class. This kid had what I thought was a beautiful cigar box filled with art supplies neatly stacked and organized. He takes out a marker and proceeds to draw all over the box with a thick black line. I was slightly shocked and horrified but bizarrely excited. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?

The violations of Osvaldo Romberg. The lushly painted, perversely historical work of Vincent Desiderio and Julie Heffernan. I’m slightly infatuated with Mathew Barney’s frames. The quiet understated poetry of colleague, friend and artist Joseph Hu. The now old sight -sized graphite drawings of colleague and friend Gabriel Augustus Boyce. The surfaces and white rooms of Felix Gonzalez Torres. The sublime of Casper David Friedrich.

3.What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?

The same artists over and over:

Sigur Ros

Spaghetti Western String Quartet

Mumford and Sons

Bon Iver
Andrew Bird

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Life Size Styrofoam Easel and Cello
300 Pounds of Plaster
And at the moment, unfortunately, not me. My studio was flooded last week and its horrible.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?

Stumped on this one. Not much of a hater.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?

Lisa Murch bugs
David Bowen Print

Almae Larson photos

Steve Firkins drawings

James Denoyer drawings

Keiko Yagashita Dog Silkscreen

Beautiful Mic Stowel Ceramic/Painting

Joseph Hu Self Portrait as a comrade of sorts

A lot of my own work and a few more words to make stairs

7. What are you working on now?

I’m casting my kids smallest toys. Making a little ladder of twigs. Trying to figure out how to get my kid to sit still long enough to cast his feet. Sculpting little painting surfaces. Excited for two upcoming exhibitions that will give me opportunities to experiment: James Wegner Gallery in March 2012 and UCR Art Gallery in Septemeber 2012.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be?
Liminal Being

Thanks Simon and good luck with the studio!

Point of Roughness: Work by Simon Huelsbeck will be up through December 3rd HERE.

For more of Simon's work visit HERE.

All About...Books

Now that SooVAC is host to three little free libraries I thought is would be a good time to highlight this project and the essential nature of books in the arts.

Founders of Little Free Library Todd Bol and Rick Brooks came up with the simple yet brilliant idea of creating elegantly simple housing structures of reclaimed wood and other found materials, in order to bring literacy awareness to one neighborhood at a time. For More on this amazing project you can visit their website HERE and the recent Star Tribune article HERE. These image are of the libraries that now call the exterior of SooVAC home. Bring by books to exchange (follow the take a book leave a book motto)...artist created books are especially welcome. As the project grows we are hoping to commission local artists to create their own Little Free Libraries. The Amish Built Little Free Libraries are available for sale at SooVAC, you can contact us at info@soovac.org or 612-871-2263.











Books can be an essential companion to artists work...recontextualizing and expanding an initial concept or creating a completely different view. It is a more intimate look at an artist's work...not only in its ability to expand a conversation but as an object that marks an experience one can easily take away with them for later exploration.

On Saturday October 22nd, 6-9pm, during the closing of hot 3-way action and Jet-setter Hideaways: The Utopian Propaganda, there is also going to be a book release of a Location Volume exploring the process involved in creating hot 3-way action. Location Volumes is the brain child of local artists Scott Nedrelow and Ruben Nusz, a publishing experiment created to give artists an unmediated platform to define their own work. Visit HERE to see previous volumes of Location books.

And one last note...well more like a recommendation for one of my favorite artist created books, an old one but a good one:

David Bryne's Your Action World: Winners Are Losers with a New Attitude

All About You...Katharine Hawthrone

This week we are going to take a look back at one of the choreographer/performance artists that participated in the August 13th performance evening at SooVAC:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Creative movement classes at the local community center – my parents say I took dancing much more seriously than other children. I also used to dance in my driveway a lot, to the great amusement of our neighbors.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
My biggest influence/inspiration is the body in motion and physical concepts from the natural world. I use my background and training in physics to explore and conceptualize the world around me, which I enact through motion.

3. What did you listen to while creating this piece?
Christopher Jette (the composer) and I listened to a lot of Roy Orbison while making SoundLines, the piece we presented at SooVAC. The piece itself uses a wide range of sounds, from drones to granular synthesis. I often choreograph material in silence and later adapt it to the sound score.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
Radio & radio transmitter, headlamp, a bag of fresh fruit

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
I’ve never really enjoyed Mozart – I’ve always felt like I was missing something with respect to his compositions, it sounds like elevator music to me.

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
I love maps, strange things with stories, and Americana. In my apartment we currently have a STOP sign repurposed as a coffee table, antlers, car license plates, and topographical maps.

7. What are you working on now?
In early 2011 I created a piece called Lumen, in which the performers wear and control a small light source. Right now I am working on creating a partner work to Lumen, called Lux, to further explore light as a spatial and movement element. Both works are part of my larger investigation with how to integrate technology into performance. I’m fascinated by how to take a technical element that is normally external to movement performance (light) and deeply embed it into the performer’s interactions.

8. What will the title of your retrospective at BAM be?
Techné (the ancient root word of technology)

Thanks Katharine!

For more about Hawthorne's performance at SooVAC visit HERE.
For more about her work visit HERE.

All About You...Melissa Loop

Read all about Melissa Loop now showing at SooVAC:

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?

I remember having to decorate these cardboard doll figures in the first grade. I made a ballerina and I was deeply concerned that people might think she was bald on the back of her head unless I could indicate otherwise. In the end, I made a ponytail on the top of her head (hey it was the 80's) out of fringed construction paper and then bent the paper so it went behind her head. My teachers thought it was great and put it in all kinds of those little art shows, but they all kept straightening her hair so that her ponytail stuck way up on the top of her head like she was an idiot and I found it infuriating that it was never displayed correctly.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?

David Hockney has slowly taken over as my biggest influence. I love how he still embraces all of these new technologies in his art.

3. What did you listen to in the studio while creating this show?

Lots of audio books. I had no idea that historical novels were so captivating. Plus I now know a boat load about the English Monarchy.

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.

I have a bunch of moss, model train figures, and these glittered plastic fern pieces from Michaels.

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?

The Mona Lisa

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?

Lots of random stuff. Pictures of ships and birds from old books I have a shelf with a kinds of vintage and Japanese toys. Not much else though cause we moved last April and I can't ever decide where to hang anything.

7. What are you working on now?

I have another exhibition opening in Portland OR in just a few weeks so I am finishing up a large group of paintings that are a continuation of the Utopia Jet-Setter series. I am really excited to start a group of much larger paintings this winter. They will be abound 5x8 ft...maybe larger.

8.What will the title of your retrospective at MOMA be

Wait...I have a retrospective at the MOMA? Fantasy Island: The World's Greatest Hits.

Come by SooVAC to see Melissa Loop's work in person, up until

October 23rd. And there will be a closing reception Oct. 22nd 6-9pm

More of Loop's work HERE.

Thanks Melissa!

All About You...Kristin Van Loon

We couldn't let the amazing Choreographers/dancers that performed at Soo in August go with out getting them to answer the all about you questionnaire. First we get some insight into Kristin Van Loon.

1. What is your first art related childhood memory?
Lying in a crib and hearing my dad practice with his barbershop quartet.

2. As an artist, who is your biggest influence?
Duchamp for the seed that influenced…John Cage, Steve Paxton, etc. etc. etc.
I always have a pet artist. Right now it's John Baldessari.

3. What did you listen to while creating this piece?
These three songs over and over and over and over and over:

George Harrison: "My Sweet Lord"
Simon & Garfunkel: "Keep the Customer Satisfied"
Chicago: "Make Me Smile"

4. Name three unexpected items one would find in your studio.
-a giant Thomas Hirschhorn 1999 wall calendar
-a ping pong table
-a ten-foot pole
(all figured prominently in this piece)

5. What is your least favorite famous work of art?
-the cow public sculptures

6. What art do you have hanging on your walls?
My walls are craptastic. From where I sit, I see: Sean Smuda photos (real deal), Bill Starr photos (real deal), xerox art by Louise Odes Neaderland (real deal), Elliott Durko Lynch mail art (real deal), plus cheep reproductions by Gehard Richter and David Salle and Damien Hirst.

7. What are you working on now?
"Show Me Sun Blindness and I'll Show You a Strong Bank" (with Arwen Wilder as HIJACK): a sextet for Zenon's Dance Zone

and a new, as yet untitled HIJACK duet for the Walker's Choreographers' Evening in November

8. What will the title of your retrospective at BAM be?
Twenty Five Hundred Dollars

Thanks Kristin!
To see more of Kristin Van Loon's work visit HERE.