Bottleracks & Fountains
12 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 12 ratingsA podcast about what it means to make contemporary art and culture happen in a small town. The hustle. The sweat. The DIY tips. An @anti_aesthetic project. Episodes every other week.
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Episodes
Artists in Place, Zoom Culture, and the Meaning of Art Orgs on Community
April 25, 2020 20:06 - 52 minutes - 47.6 MB"How are you doing during quarantine? It’s the question we are all asking each other over seemingly endless Zoom calls. In this episode we gather a few artist friends to talk about what life is like on their side of the screen, how their studio practice has changed (if at all), and the shifting thoughts around local arts organizations. In a matter of weeks, Zoom has gone from being a corporate tool for virtual conference rooms to a verb describing our main way of connecting, gett...
Opening an Art Space Just in Time for Quarantine
March 29, 2020 18:14 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBWe’re back! Welcome to Season 2. Our last episode aired in May of last year, since then a lot has happened. You might recall our debating over organizational structures, whether or not to go nonprofit, what to do about the lack of money for the arts as a whole, the systemic problems and the essential need as artists to take care of each other and throw the parties we want to go to. The art world, along with everyone else, is now in a different kind of crisis because of the novel c...
Art's Mission is Culture-Critical
May 29, 2019 14:07 - 1 hour - 719 MBA starting point for this conversation was the essay ‘Arranging the Deck Chairs’ by Josephine Zarkovich, published by the Oregon Visual Arts Ecology Project this month, where she describes in no uncertain terms the disappearance of medium-sized arts spaces due to rising rents, declining college enrollments, and a diminishing middle class. This means few options for emerging artists to take the next step that doesn’t involve leaving the Northwest or giving it all up in favor of paid ...
Hey! Let's Write About Some Art! With Vicki Amorose
May 15, 2019 07:00 - 1 hour - 144 MBVicki Amorose is a performance artist, writer, educator and expert discussioner. Active in the local art community in Eugene, and author of the book "Art-Write: The Writing Guide for Visual Artists," she got her start in the post-punk scene in San Francisco in the 1980’s and admonishes us to remember what artist Nayland Blake has said in conversation with the brilliant Sharon Louden: "The magic of that era is that we threw the parties we wanted to go to.” Lest we forget! A fun fact...
Building an Audience and Daring to Go Big
April 17, 2019 07:00 - 36 minutes - 371 MBLouise Kennelly settled in Maryland after adventures around the country and abroad, and has been in her position at Frederick Arts Council for three and a half years. She notes that interest in contemporary art has really taken off in Frederick during this time. She talks about working through the bureaucracies of art in public spaces, compromising and having a plan B. The Sky Stage that was created with the artist Heather Theresa Clark is an example that persistence pays off. It h...
Exploring the rural & putting the urban in its place
April 03, 2019 07:00 - 59 minutes - 597 MBStacey Ray is an arts admin professional, and the Programs and Communications Manager at Lane Arts Council in Eugene, OR, with serious experience in both the arts and rural life. She has previously interned with TBA Festival/PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) and studied Arts Management at the University of Oregon, but grew up in central Montana, in an unincorporated community of about 20 people, where her family has been for five generations, working as farmers, butcher...
Small town context, big city gallery models, & 1000 true fans
March 20, 2019 07:00 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBIn an article by Laura van Straaten in Vulture in November 2018 titled ‘Ten Galleries Whose founders Quit the Big City To Become Cultural Trailblazers in the Heartland’, gallery owners from a range of cities in the Midwest and South talk about operating a gallery outside metropolitan art capitals, nevertheless, traveling to art fairs in major cities to sell work. We get into the purpose of art fairs, platforms for selling art, and marketing methods, including a vivid description of ...
Starting a collective, Staying Nimble, and Drawing Drag Queens with Tropical Contemporary
March 06, 2019 08:01 - 1 hour - 60.6 MBThis time we sit down with Jam Jessie Allison, Maddison Colvin, Andrew Douglas Campbell, and JoJo Ruby, of Tropical Contemporary, to talk about life after grad school, and what it means to be part of a collective that puts on exhibitions and art events right here in Eugene, OR. Tropical was founded in 2015 by a group of graduates from the University of Oregon MFA program in Art. Everyone in this conversation had their particular reasons for joining the group, and we hear about thei...
Community, Context, and Educating Audiences with Sandee McGee
February 20, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBWhat is it like to jump feet first into a successful community arts organization, honoring tried-and-true programming while trying to bring in something new and challenge expectations in a way that isn’t alienating? Sandee McGee is an artist and Gallery Director at the Umpqua Valley Arts Association in Roseburg in southern Oregon. She talked to us about creating a space where community arts and more traditional art practices can cohabit with challenging contemporary work, and how t...
DIY Spaces, Economy, and Residencies with The Blue House
February 06, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 96.2 MBIn Episode 3 of Bottleracks & Fountains, ECA’s Julia Oldham is at a residency at The Blue House in Dayton, Ohio, and interviews Nicholaus Arnold and Ashley Jonas about their project. They talk about creating a viable way of life as artists and what their journey has looked like so far, moving to Dayton after completing their MFAs and figuring it out. The appeal of making the move from the big city to a small town: affordability of space, longevity, solidarity, and a more immediate ...
On Persistence, Patience & Getting it Done with Isaac Marquez
January 23, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 81.5 MBIn this episode we talk to Director of Cultural Services, City of Eugene, Isaac Marquez, about his journey of becoming director of the city's cultural programming by way of his position as Public Art Manager, the staging of a comprehensive visual arts festival, and the contentions of the art community of a small city: high and low, performing arts and visual arts, old guard and new initiatives. We come up against issues of scale, and the proximity of the full spectrum of art in a sm...
Big City vs Small Town
January 09, 2019 07:04 - 1 hour - 60.2 MBBottleracks & Fountains Ep 1: Big City vs Small Town In this inaugural episode we introduce ourselves, and talk about our personal experiences and thoughts on making art in big cities and small towns. We get a brief history of Eugene Contemporary Art, which is directed by co-founder Courtney Stubbert, and emerged out of the need for a contemporary arts initiative that was lacking in this town of under 200k. We talk about the various conversations around contemporary art in places l...