Reasons to Venture Out in a Storm

Heavy snow kept many indoors on Friday night, but some intrepid souls made it out to MAC650 Gallery on Main Street for the opening night of the cooperative's latest art show. It was well worth the trek out into the weather, which turned out to be not really all that difficult after all. We were treated to a demonstration of the graceful and controlled art of Balinese dance by the lovely and skilled Stephanie Elliott and Kelsey Tyssowski. The two are students of Shoko Yamamuro who Ms. Elliott lauds as “an incredibly talented teacher”. Her website is available here: http://shokochan.webs.com/index.html.

The dance was set against the backdrop of the latest art offerings throughout the gallery, and included an array of different media – paintings, drawings, photography, poetry, crafts, prints, and a delightful modern classical music symphony composed last year by coop member Paul Gobell that was available to hear at a listening station.

Most inspirational were the live musical stylings of the cross-genre quartet: Arun Ranganathan on scratch/turntables, Ivan Soobitsky on bass guitar, coop member James Day on keyboards and world-class musician and coop member David Davis on saxophone.

It was an unusual and winning combination that had people bopping around the gallery. And on the way out, back in the cold, the night was topped off by the beautiful site of fresh fluffy snow coating the bare silvery tree branches.

MAC650 Art Space has Affordable Artist Housing Vacancies at the North End Artist Cooperative (NEAC) in Middletown. Acceptance to NEAC requires 30 hours per year of community art service. Qualifying applicants are currently working artists who can provide some proof of income from art in the past year, and are committed to the cooperatives’ mission. For a preliminary application or further information, please call Stephanie Elliott at 860-371-9930; or selliott@wesleyan.edu