Fill in the Blank Gallery at Version 11: MAPS

Maps help us to navigate unfamiliar spaces and areas, convey information about where we are, and can help guide us in where we want to go. How do you navigate your creative landscape? Fill in the Blank Gallery is putting out a call for Chicago artists, musicians and writers to help us map how you see your current Chicago creative community for a project that we will be doing in conjunction with this years
Version Festival and the Co-Prosperity School.

Version 11 is a celebration of the Chicago communities —projects, spaces, groups, individuals—creating their own strategies for participatory economies,  co-prosperity, and the pursuit of genuine happiness. Version will demonstrate the possible, celebrate the impossible, and showcase the ingenuity, spirit and passion that create The Community we aspire to take part in together. This is an invitation to share your community, your goals, your dreams for a better Community of the Future. It’s all we have left.

Produced by the Public Media Institute, a non profit 501(c)(3) arts organization, Version is an annual arts convergence that brings together hundreds of artists, cultural workers, and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas and progressive art initiatives of our day. The ten day festival showcases emerging trends in art, technology and music.

We will be collecting maps from Chicago creatives for possible display in our booth April 23 and 24, 2011 during the The MDW Fair: visual arts landing in Chicago. The booth will be located in the publications section of the fair since we will also be hosting an online gallery that displays all entries and some select submissions will be published in an issue of Proximity Magazine.

DETAILS FOR SUBMISSION:

1. Physical submissions must be dropped off or received in the mail no later than Wed, April 20th 2011. Please check our website (www.fillintheblankgallery.com) for gallery hours if dropping off. These will be considered for inclusion in the festival and all submissions will be included in the online gallery for the MAPS project.
   Fill in the Blank Gallery
   5038 N Lincoln Ave
   Chicago, IL 60625
2. If you are unable to get us physical artwork we are also accepting digital submissions. These will be displayed in the online gallery for the MAPS project along with artists name and a link to their website (please provide with your submission). Digital submissions must be mailed to submissions@fillintheblankgallery no later than Fri, April 22nd 2011 with the title MAP in the subject line. Please send 2 high res .jpgs (hint: scanning or taking photos in natural light is best).
3. Name, title (not required), medium you usually work in (i.e. visual artist. musician, writer etc.).
4. Website (if you want us to link it on our site).
5. These works can be conceptual, but should still read as a “map” Acceptable formats include:
   • 2D (drawings, paintings etc)
   • audio (mp3’s or CD)
   • writings
   • sculptural works
6. Size requirements:
   • Minimum of 8.5 x 11” when laid flat (some sculptural works may be smaller)
   • Maximum 2ft x 3ft when laid flat (cannot exceed this size)

At the bottom of this post you will find an example of some of the art maps made by students in the Co-Prosperity School. The Co-Prosperity School is an Artist-Run School for and about the advancement and understanding of contemporary Chicago Art. Through guest speakers and class member presentations it shines a light on the contemporary art scene of Chicago.

The idea for the art maps comes as an adaptation from James Elkins, an art historian who also teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and will be one of the speakers at the next session of the Co-Prosperity School. In his book, Stories of Art he explains the exercise originally intended for art historian students to help them visualize their personal relationship to Art History. We have included some of the text from the book as well as some visual examples.

These are meant to be fun quick projects and can be as elaborate or as simple as you’d like. We are looking for how you see your current chicago art community. What places, groups, studios etc. you frequent and find important, your influences and inspirations and any other information you find relevant for your own personal art map (such as where you work and/or your career goals etc.).

EXAMPLES:

“Sometimes the most difficult subjects need to start with the simplest exercises. Einstein invented thought experiments to help him clear the thickets of equations in his new physics. His frequent antagonist Niels Bohr spent a great deal of time inventing and drawing thought experiments designed to overturn Einstein’s thought experiments. Even today’s physicists talk about “toy systems” when they can’t work with the full mathematics.....Many complex enterprises begin with things so simple they seem laughable.

Let me start, then, with a simple exercise to help think about the shape of art history. It is also a thought experiment: the idea is to draw or imagine a very free and informal map of art history as it appears to you. Your to find the mental shape, the imaginative form of history, and do it by avoiding the usual straight timelines. In other words, the drawing must be a product of your own imagination, suited to your personal preferences, your knowledge and your sense of the past.  The map will be your working model, your “toy system”.... You’ll see, I hope, that your version of art history has a great deal to say about you: who you are, when you were born and even where you live.

“For me one of the easiest pictures to draw is a constellation, where favorite artists and artworks are loosely arranged around some center. This is a drawing I made of the images I was thinking about in the summer of 1998; at the time I was writing about several of them.
Naturally a drawing is very personal and isn’t likely to correspond to anyone else’s. One of the stars is a Tai plaque,  a little prehistoric piece of bone inscribed with tiny lines; another is Duchamp, who always seems to be floating somewhere around; a third is the “Wrangel-Schrank” a German Renaissance cabinet with bizarre pictures done in wood inlay. A star at the right of the moon stands for the paintings my wife made: they aren’t as well known as some of the other stars on the chart but for me they are just as important.

At the center is the moon, which I labeled “natural images: twigs, grass, stars, sand, moths’ wings.” I put those at the center because at the time I was studying natural history as much as I was studying art. Down near the horizon, shining faintly, are the Dutch artist Philips de Koninck and Czech artist Jan Zrzavy: the one invented landscapes with low horizons, like this one, and the other showed me just how eccentric a 20th c. artist can be. To most people this constellation would be fairly meaningless, or just quirky; but for me, it conjures up a pattern of art history that preoccupied me at the time, and it does so surprisingly strongly: as I look at it, I find myself being pulled back into that mindset.”
      
 - James Elkins, excerpt from Stories of Art

Origami Art Map by Mary Ayling, October 2010

Mind Map by Stephanie Burke, October 2010

Mind Maps by Jeriah Hildwine, October 2010

Collaboration with SPORE Projects

LOCATION: SPORE is presently located in St Louis, Missouri.

GALLERY MONTHS: Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Feb, March, April, May (off months- Dec, Jan, June, and July).

ARTIST RESIDENCY: We offer a communal 1-week residency w/ an "opening", community share and/or performance for out-of-town artists and musicians. This includes studio access, housing, general materials, and use of a bike. Sliding scale donation of $50-$100 covers food, studio and housing costs.

MOBILE COLLABORATION: SPORE relishes collaborations in other communities. Exchanges can range from a weekend to short residencies.

Send proposal to Emily at ghostsihavebeen@gmail.com

Include in your proposal:
1. 3-5 jpegs of past work or website link
2. Concept outline. Including writing, drawings, video, and/or images.
3. List materials. These should be found, constructed or recycled.
4. Q- How the project will engage the community?

For more information about SPORE see their website at: sporeprojects.blogspot.com

Tamms Year Ten Photographs For Prisoners Project

This is a call for artists to become involved with a project that is in the process of growing and forming. Although this is a photography project, all artists are welcome to participate, not just those who would consider themselves "photographers". The letter below explains where the project is at currently. If you are interested in being involved in some capacity please email Sarah at: sarah [at] sarah-ji [dot] com.

Dear Activists & Artists,

I attended the Tamms Year Ten* Letterwriting Potluck tonight, and I proposed a photography project that was well received by the organizers as well as two ex-inmates, one of whom spent years in Tamms. I offered to start reaching out to other photographers who may be interested in participating.

We don't have it totally thought through, but the basic premise would be to get requests from prisoners for photographs that they would want us to take and send to them, to give them a view of the outside world (something they are severely deprived of), whether it be of specific objects or of their old neighborhoods or maybe even of their friends or family (that last one just came to me, so I didn't actually bring that up at the meeting tonight). We're not sure exactly how we'll do this, whether we would pick several men to begin with who may benefit most from a program like this, or whether to open it up to the entire Tamms population (which is about 250 or so if I remember correctly).

I guess the scope would depend on how many other photographers (and I use that term loosely) I can interest in volunteering for this project. Many of you are already or have been involved in Tamms Year Ten. Others of you are artists and/or activists who may know of photographers who would be interested in being involved. Please email me () if you would be interested in participating. We're thinking of having a meeting to talk more about the project. If you could forward this to other friends who might be interested, I would appreciate that as well. And let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions.

Peace + Love,
SJR

*A little about Tamms from the Tamms Year Ten website:

"At Tamms supermax prison, every man is held in permanent solitary confinement. Prisoners never leave their cells except to shower or to exercise alone in a concrete pen. Food is pushed through a slot in the door. There are no communal activities, phone calls or contact visits. The expected consequences of long-term isolation are observed at Tamms: men scream uncontrollably, compulsively attempt suicide, mutilate themselves and do other unspeakable acts. One-third of the prisoners have been there over a decade. Many are mentally ill." For more info on Tamms Year Ten, please go to their website: 

http://www.yearten.org/

Neo Obama Portrait-O-Rama at the Neo-Futurists

Our very own Mary Ayling will be judging this fun competition held by the Neo-Futurists! Please note that we are not handling submissions, you must go to the Neo-Futurists' website and download their submission form

We've got Lincoln. We've got Nixon. We've even got Polk. Now The Neo-Futurists seek a brand-spankin' new portrait for the Hall of Presidents, our in-house gallery of 43 utterly unique, amazingly hand-crafted portraits representing each U.S. president. Submit your original Barack Obama portrait and help us add president #44 to the line-up!

Your Obama “portrait” can be literal, abstract, mixed-media, text-based, sculptural, funny, serious, left, right, up, down... We don’t care.  Just make it yours!!! 

For more details than you can shake a paintbrush at, visit www.NeoFuturists.org.

Visit The Neo-Futurists on facebook to see photos of the Hall of Presidents. Please become a fan while you’re there!

Submissions are due September 24, 2010.

Artwork can be any medium, any size, up to 18” x 24”.

Finalists will be chosen by a panel of Illustrious Judges:

• Mary Ayling - Owner of Fill in the Blank Gallery
• Sarah Chazin - Owner of Sacred Art
• Pepper Coate - Community Outreach Coordinator, Chicago Artists Coalition
• Andrew Huff - Editor & Publisher of Gapers Block
• Miss Mia (Mia Park) - Host of the TV show “Chic-A-Go-Go” - Chicago’s dance show for kids of all ages!
• Caitlin Stainken - Neo-Futurist Ensemble Member
• Oli Watt - Current Hall of Presidents Artist & SAIC Printmedia Department Faculty Member

Neo-Futurist audience members will narrow the finalists down to one WINNER by casting their ballots from October  1 – 24!  For your chance to VOTE, come to our hit show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, 30 Plays in 60 Minutes (Fridays & Saturday @ 11:30pm, Sundays @ 7:00pm).  Voting will take place in our lobby immediately before shows. Attend as many shows as possible between Oct. 1 - 24 to vote early and vote often!

The winning portrait will be unveiled at a very special fundraiser on October 28, 2010, with food, drinks, unique performances, and the opportunity to own a piece of history.  All non-winning art will be auctioned off, with all proceeds benefiting the Neo-Futurists.  Tickets go on sale in early September. To purchase tickets, and for more information, visit www.NeoFuturists.org. 

Prizes:

• Winning Artist receives a $250 prize
• Winner will revel in the glory of having his or her portrait on permanent display in the nationally acclaimed Hall of Presidents, receiving over 20,000 views per year! 

Artists interested in entering a portrait should go to www.NeoFuturists.org for more details and to download the Submission Form.  There is a $10 entry fee per piece. Artists may waive the $10 entry fee, excluding themselves from the juried competition.  Those waving the fee will not be entered to win $250 and their pieces will be accepted as a donation in order to be auctioned off on October 28.

May 2010 Exhibit: Improv: Submissions

We are looking for artists, performers, musicians, poets and others who would like to participate in our month long exhibition, Improv. We will be hosting events Saturdays during the month and are open to proposals for various groups and individuals who either use improvisation in the creation of their work or reference it in some way.

We have 2 options:

1. One for artists (visual, performers, musicians etc.) who would like to hold (30-45 min) long sessions in our space on a weekday evening between the hours of 4-8pm.
2. And one for our "Open Window" sessions on Saturday afternoons between the hours of noon-4pm. We have two large bay windows in the front of our space that we will have open for 15-30 minute sessions.

• Dimensions of the actual pane of glass are: 68" wide x 88" tall, or roughly 5.5ft x 7ft
• The dimensions of the interior space of the windows are (it's a trapezoidal shape):
  88" across at its longest (edge of the sill)
  68" across at the shortest (near the glass pane)
  46" deep (from the front gladd pane to the edge of the sill)

You can see the description of the exhibition here.

Please email all submissions and inquiries to info@fillintheblankgallery.com. Title the email MAY EXHIBIT or else it will not be read. Included in the submission should be:

• Outline of your idea including what the medium is (visual performance, music, dance, spoken word etc.)

• Dates and times you would like to reserve

• Please let us know if your submission is NOT family friendly and why. (This will not exclude you from participation.)

Please Note:

• Artists are responsible for all necessary materials to create your work. We can provide some basics such as outlets and chairs.

• All events are free and open to the public. The artist will not be compensated in any way.

• The gallery will keep an updated schedule of everything that is happening over the course of the month on our website. However, as true to the nature of improvisation, we do not guarantee an audience for your contribution to the exhibition. We may document contributions through photography, video, webcam, etc.

Please send us your submissions by May 1, 2010. The exhibit will run from May 8-May 28 2010.