Pathways: Paintings by Irma Freeman

Sound Performance by Michael Johnsen and Slow Poke

Michael Johnsen

Instrument builder and performer Michael Johnsen was born in 1968 to German immigrants in Pennsylvania, where he continues to live. A tinkerer’s curiosity about electronic music led eventually to extensive private study and the design and construction of his own instruments. Drawing on the rich American tradition of experimentation and ingenuity, he has built up an integrated system/menagerie of devices specifically for live performance whose idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through their complex interactions. Working almost exclusively on the analog end of the hypothetical digital/analog spectrum, his work is characterized by a relative lack of ideas per se, and an intense focus on observation, the way a shepherd watches sheep. The extensive patching of large numbers of devices produces teeming chirps, sudden transients and charming failure modes; embracing the dirt in pure electronics. His intention ultimately is to observe the instruments’ behavior as if a thing in nature. As an antidote to all that wire, he is equally devoted to the singing saw, a simple folk instrument. Most of what he might have learned has come from the natural world,
like watching robins run. He is particularly fond of sounds that end.

 He has played widely in the US and Europe in improvising and noise contexts, at large festivals, museums, squats, and kindergartens, including the Pittsburgh Biennial, Musique Action 2008 (France), Lampo, Issue Project Room, Karlsruhe Kunstverien, and three High Zero Festivals in Baltimore. Recent collaborators include C Spencer Yeh, Margaret Cox, Jerome Noetinger, Jack Wright, Pascal Battus, Thomas Lehn; also Michel Doneda, Michael Zerang, Joe McPhee, Bhob Rainey, Tom Djll, and Greg Pierce.  His recordings are distributed  in Europe by Metamkine.

Slow Poke

“"Music as a form of entertainment has its place, but sound affects us on more levels than any other sense," says Steve Sciulli, half of the ambient-electronic duo Life in Balance, along with his wife, Ami. "So we've mostly been involved in music that's functional, on a lot of levels."

One of those utilitarian aspects is meditation -- specifically "Crystal Bowl Meditation: A Vibratory Journey into Deep Meditative States," the eighth and latest CD by Life in Balance since the couple met a decade ago in the Squirrel Hill shop Mandala Books, a now-defunct haven for seekers of New Age enlightenment. Just don't call the group New Age.

"We prefer the term 'post-New Age,' " stresses Steve. And having experienced a varied career in the local scene, from '80s postpunkers Carsickness to '90s Celtic rockers Ploughman's Lunch, his depth of knowledge goes well beyond that of your average musical guru. So he appreciates the importance of their new CD issued by The Relaxation Company (which markets CDs for use in yoga, massage, healing, meditation and sleep) because it's also part of the same business as Ellipsis Arts, the label that released "Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music," a three-CD/DVD set with a foreword written by Brian Eno and featuring such masters as John Cage, Morton Subotnick and Iannis Xenakis.”

Music Preview: Life in Balance wants to take audience to dreamland

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08227/903990-388.stm#ixzz0mc9mEEra

Paintings by Evan Knauer

Waterscapes by Irma Freeman

June 4th - July 18th, 2010

Artist Statement

Irma Freeman painted waterscapes in many forms including: oceans, rivers, waterfalls, and other mysterious and abstract aquatic impressions. Although most of her life she spent in Pittsburgh, Irma’s children and grandchildren would frequently bring her photographs of places, wherever they would travel. Thus, Irma would often use collected imagery, combined with her own imagination, to paint places where she herself had never been: vistas of South America, Madagascar, Africa, India, China, the West Coast, the East Coast, as well as pictures from National Geographic and other picture books and magazines. The paintings in this exhibition range from the 1970s through the early 1990s.  Irma did see the Atlantic Ocean first hand when she visited her family in Maine; A time when she came face to face with the overpowering and majestic power of the natural world; a place, which would, understandably, become the inspired subject for many paintings. Her husband Lou also saw the Ocean for the first time late in life. His reaction upon seeing where the horizon meets the vanishing point of the endless sea was memorable. He said, “It looks like, “the Three Rivers!” In 1990, Irma lived with her grandson by the Swanee River in Gainsville, Florida. During this time, Irma made many paintings and drawings of her beautiful subtropical riverside view. Irma enjoyed painting large and small canvases, as well as the occasional object, such as the Chinese dressing screen included in this exhibition. With her vivid pallet and gift for impressionistic scenery, Irma’s seascapes bring us to a to a unique place, where either impending storms breathe ominous mystery or extreme serenity meet a kind of visual optimism.

Biography of Evan Knauer

Local Artist Evan Knauer was born in the Allegheny Mountains 50 miles east of the Athens of Appalachia, the second son of a second son who was also an artist. His father, Robert W. Knauer was teaching Art at Indiana University at the time. Later they moved to Shaler township because Robert got a job teaching Art at Fox Chapel High School from 1968-1981. Robert Knauer died in 1981, the exact year Evan was graduating high school and planning a career in the U.S. Army. As a result of his fathers death, Evan got Grants and Scholarships to attend Carnegie-Mellon University.  Evan has since been exhibiting around Pittsburgh for the last 25 years. He graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985.  After graduating, Evan had an exhibit at the Pittsburgh National Bank vestibule "art" area and never looked back.  He frequently exhibits in local underground spaces curated by the likes of Bob Ziller, Lauri Mancuso, Smith Hutchings and Manny Theiner. Evan would like to personally thank Sheila Ali for this opportunity to exhibit his works in such a fine space.  Evan presently works as a AV-Integrator for SMARTSolutions Technologies. He also plays banjo and guitar in local jazz, rock and country bands

Artist Statement

Evan Knauer’s large colorful paintings are informed by the Neo-Expressionist movement of the early 1980's. Evan likes to paint from non-visual references often music or writing and often uses Erin Snyders beautiful feet as a subject to paint. His work is usually a layering of oil paint and polyurethane designed to confuse the viewer at first, but always hopes to engage the viewer in a synesthetic self-analyzing exploration of hidden toes and ankles. His paintings are usually large colorful non-representational washes of oil paint and polyurethane. But this exhibit at the Irma Freeman Center will be new paintings all made this year with very representational. Stenciled images of crows and bees and flowers abound.

The Evenings Music: Erin Snyder Classical Duo, The Love Letters & Troy Riot Trio

We welcome back Erin Snyder to the If Center!

Erin has been teaching and performing in the Pittsburgh area since 1984. As a cello performance major at Carnegie-Mellon University and principal cellist in the school's orchestra, she studied under Anne Martindale-Williams of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and George Sopkin of the Beaux Arts Trio.  She also studied with Joel Moershel of the Boston Symphony Orchestra during a summer at the Tangelwood Music Center. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall in New York City. For the last eight years, Snyder has been teaching cello privately at Musik Innovations and playing with orchestral and chamber groups throughout the Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. She has extensive recording and playing experience in non-classical genres, as well.  She played electric cello in the jazz quintet Watershed from 1990 to 2000, has played upright bass in numerous bluegrass, rockabilly and country bands since 1993, played electric bass locally and nationally since 1986 (including a recent appearance at the Grand Ole Opry's Opryland Plaza in Nashville, TN) and recently toured the United States as the fiddler in a country-rock band

The Love Letters

The Love Letters are a band made up of Pittsburgh veterans Mike Shanley (bass), Aimee DeFoe (keyboards), Buck Knauer (guitar), and Erin Dawes (drums). They blend together recent new songs, and past songs from their former bands going all the way back to the mid-eighties such as Bone of Contention, Cousin It, The Mofones, and Blogurt.

http://www.myspace.com/thelovelettersusa  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/The-Love-Letters/108418585867523?ref=ts

Troy Riot Trio, formerly the Higgs Boson Trio, the Frisbee Wenzel trio

Emmett Frisbee, his brother, Winston T. Goode and Rubric "Red" Puccoon have performed together in various soul-pop-bop-rock groups for the last thirty years and in the Troy Riot Trio for the last four years.  The instrumentation of bass guitar (Emmett), drums (Winston) and tenor saxophone (Red) allows the trio to explore at length, compositions by Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Oliver Nelson, Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk Rashaan Roland Kirk and others, while performing at a volume that won't scare pets, give cause to the neighbors to call the cops or make your ears ring or thrum for hours after the music stops.

THe Rusty Nail

What was formally a four piece rock band many years ago is now a one-person (Brett Alexander Boye) anachronistic bagpipe indie rock-driven experiment, both aural and visual. As part of the IF Center’s “Energy: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” exhibition, the Rusty Nail(s) will perform any lead bagpipe and/or vocal live inside a geodesic dome/cylinder while a DVD projects various films, stills and what not as well as the background music. The Rusty Nail will open the show at 7:30 and perform a second set around 9:30 pm. <http://www.therustynails.net/>

Robin Vote is a local band self-described as “panic, maybe.  Space-trash. Oh, but you’ll love us.” Shedding his West Kentucky roots with hair newly-dyed and a nose for the strange, Colin Baxter headed to Pittsburgh in the wet summer of 1873.  Having never seen a river, and finding himself suddenly entwined by three, Colin did the only thing a West Kentuckian with a nose for the strange could do - form a band.  The early iterations were odd - muck-driven space-face bass slop - but his insatiable lust for the strange still grew, and the constricting rivers bound him more tightly.  On April 18, 2003 - 14 years to the day that Colin first learned what the color red felt like - Colin took a walk, eastward from Pittsburgh.  With a traveler's tune on his lips and and a bell in his hand....he walked.  As the second night closed in, finding himself in the strange place which he guessed was not too far from Monessan, he stopped.  Colin was paralyzed, but the traveler's tune persisted.  Helpless against the unwieldy tune, Colin released and the tune, now luminous and animated, dove from his lips and inseminated the browning plot of crabgrass and paint chips he stood on.  The ground grew restless and Colin collapsed to the ground in tuneful ecstasy - from the ground sprung three demi-gods, naked and smiling...and whistling.  Sated at last, Colin returned to Pittsburgh with the trio of half-gods in tow.  "We Are Robin Vote" he cried as he broached the city limits, and his pets echoed the cry.  "WE Are Robin Vote"!  

<http://www.myspace.com/robinvote>

Antiquated and Future (or Imaginary) Technology was a group show where 16 artists exhibit found/collected or constructed Technology. The idea of technology includes plans, video, kinetic and other objects, installations or state of the art, green or DIY technology. This was a multi-layered exhibition. The idea of  technology was something that takes a trip through centuries back in time, as well as exploring contemporary functional, futuristic and fanciful, imaginative types of technology. We explored the outreaches of the creative force that drives innovation and invention.

Exhibiting Artists include:

        Alberto J. Almarza, Brett Boye, Bruce Anthony Brinker, Ciara Hegadorn, Christine    

        Bethea, Chuck Lipinski, Dennis Childers, Dumpster=Home Collective, Krishnan           

        Padmanabhan, Leigh Ann Letta, Nina Marie Barbuto, Ryder Henry, Sarah VanTassel

        Suzanne Werder Trenney, Will Schlough

Pathways: Paintings by Irma Freeman is a collection of work that finds actual paths and roads, which often lead to imaginary places. We find ourselves amid vivid and peaceful, if not transcending harmonious color and juxtaposition. This collection of Irma Freeman paintings complements our exhibition on technology by its structure of composition, and with its determination of going somewhere, on the road to a better place: in the woods, rivers, hills and valleys.  In these paintings we find ourselves on the path to abstracted cities, temples and delightful wonderlands, basking in playful patterns, colors and forms. These are the pathways of pure imagination.

Antiquated & Future (or Imaginary) Technology Pathways: paintings by Irma Freeman

April 2nd - May 15th