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March 31, 2011 | Issue 63
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Heather Joi. Photo by Philip Laubner
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Artist Profile: Heather Joi
“I was the best shot in my group, I maxed out my physical training score, I was a high-speed soldier,” remembers artist Heather Joi. She grew up in a military family and from an early age she realized she would be an artist. To give back to her country, the free-spirited painter joined the service. In contrast to the concrete reasoning, rigid lifestyle and strict discipline of the military, her art work is abstract, flowing and natural. If you look closer, the contradictions seem to dissolve.
Heather is prolific. The first show of her work I saw stretched over an eighty foot wall. It takes discipline and a strong work ethic to create such a large volume of layered, lacquered and consistently beautiful artwork. Heather is often told that her kinetic paintings remind people of mobiles, that there’s a physicality and motion in them, just as there was a physicality and motion in her military service.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Mercury isn’t in retrograde, people. Oh wait … yes it is, our mistake.
What Weekly’s long- awaited, highly anticipated, meticulously orchestrated, and thoughtfully created first event is going to be downright paranormal. Come help us celebrate a hellava good book by our contributor, our friend, Mr. Baynard Woods. It’s all happening tonight folks, March 31st, at the old Spy Bar (above the Midtown Yacht Club).
Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, step right up, we’ve got a jazz legend, snake charmers, a witchdoctor sheriff, bellydancers, leprechauns, flying dogs, warlocks and live music galore! We’ve got a banjo, a washboard, a sexy lounge singer and a hot ass dance party playing afrobeat and calaypso ’til sweat pours from your face and chills run up and down your spine like a ticked off rattle snake.
That’s right, this is a free event, people, so don’t forget to bring your lady friends and man fellows. 1940s vintage costumes are encouraged. Think: World Fair, Carnival, Southern Belle, Folk Magic or Gypsy. Remember, we didn’t call it a Hoodoo Dance Party for nothing, friends, so bring on the magic.
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WHAT WEEKLY MAGAZINE
Publishers/Curators
Justin Allen
Brooke Hall
Photo Contributors
Philip Laubner
Tedd Henn
Matt Kelley
Editorial Contributors
Philip Laubner
Dylan Kinnett
David Warfield
Video Contributor
Lee Boot
Designer
Brooke Hall
Chief Sponsor
Robert W. Deutsch Foundation
Contact
charmcity@whatweekly.com
www.whatweekly.com
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Artist Profile: Heather Joi
A self-taught artist for the most part, Heather has had mentors like painter Ron Smyth. She’s been drawing since she was a child, but Ron took her into his studio nearly ten years ago and taught her the physical properties of paints and varnishes, the history of the medium and an approach for the execution of her craft.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
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Heather’s work is abstract and moves towards form, but it begins as textures, feelings and colors. She didn’t start producing this way as a natural progression from realism. “One of my favorite things to say, in order to describe my process, is something that my high school art teacher Larry Mattingly said to me, ‘You are working backwards. Artists start with realism and move into abstraction. You are starting with abstraction and moving towards realism.’ I doubt that Larry Mattingly knew how much that statement made sense to me or even that he said it to me… it’s my process with all of my art forms.”
Photo by Matt Kelley, story by Philip Laubner.
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The Deutsch Foundation supports individuals and organizations committed to testing new solutions to enduring challenges, protecting society’s assets, exploring new domains of knowledge and social innovation, and advocating for the common good.
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Intuitive Insight: A Peek Under The Hood
A Column and Short Films by Lee Boot
Part 2 of a multi-post film series about how innovation and creativity intersect our prevailing cultural ideas about them here in the US.
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Lee Boot
WhoWeAm on What Weekly
WhoWeAm is a series of short films and articles exploring the notion that the world we create reflects a tangle of our biology, and the deeply embedded —often hidden stories that make us who we are. WhoWeAm, quite simply, is about Culture. Picture it as a huge octopus with a billion arms that reach out and touch each of our minds.
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WORMS
WORMS is the name of an event billed as “an interactive literary magazine in 3-D.” Every month, typically on a Wednesday, the basement of the Bell Foundry is opened for an evening of spoken word and other shenanigans. The evening’s host and editor, R. M. O’Brien, usually begins with an introduction that is two parts editorial and one part late-night showbiz. For the most recent incarnation of WORMS, O’Brien read from the letters of Saint Patrick, in honor of what O’Brien referred to as “the day the Irish celebrate the demise of their ancestral religion.” He mentioned the snakes, which are like worms, that Saint Patrick is said to have driven out of Ireland. The snakes that never existed there, that is. Someone heckled, “except for the two-legged kind.” This is an unusual sort of editorial, performed on stage; interactive, and although any editorial might be enjoyed with Natty Boh in a basement, these can be enjoyed in the company of a wriggling, live audience.
Photo by Tedd Henn, story by Dylan Kinnett.
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The Future of Cinema
These movie ideas from college students tell us something about the minds of young people, and the perhaps the future, but what? I started thinking, what if it were all one big glorious movie? The treatment would read like this:
Resistance fighter Biro is captured and subjected to secret Nazi experiments to create super-strength humans. The mutant human guinea pigs turn on the Nazis and destroy the secret laboratory. Biro’s grandson Taylor grows up and moves to New York, where he is introduced to a mysterious, charismatic young man named Chris. Later, Taylor finds his sister Liz is living in the same city, and takes her to a party at Chris’s where everyone wears bizarre costumes and gets extremely intoxicated. Turns out Chris’s father, Evan, is despondent after losing his wife in a car accident. Evan is depressed. By happenstance he meets a homeless guy, Ralph. They become friends and Evan allows Ralph to move in with him until Ralph can get up on his feet. Evan’s co-workers think it is weird. Ralph steals money because he is a compulsive gambler…keep going.
David Warfield
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David Warfield, Confessions of a Mad Filmmaker
A What Weekly Column
“And so here we have a unique opportunity to track the production of a truly independent film from the moment of conception (the script is not yet completed) to the first public screening, and beyond.”
Were not talking about EPK filler here, were talking about life, and its bound to get messy.“
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Video by Justin Nethercut
A What Weekly exclusive interview with STREET ARTIST Gaia.
Video by Nether.
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The Deutsch Foundation supports individuals and organizations committed to testing new solutions to enduring challenges, protecting society’s assets, exploring new domains of knowledge and social innovation, and advocating for the common good.
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What is What Weekly?
What Weekly is a multimedia magazine chronicling the real Baltimore movers and shakers- not the corporations, not the politics, What Weekly spotlights the people. Were paying attention to the good things happening in Baltimore and sharing it all with you.
Why online? Disposable print media is wasteful and, with the advent and proliferation of the Internet, it is becoming more difficult to justify. Technology is a gift and a tool. Let’s evolve and build things together.
If you want to be a part of the movement, you can send us your photos to publish, your events to promote and your ideas to talk about. Forward the email, share a link, start a movement. Your audience is the world, pass it on.
Whats the Goal?
One day soon you will hear a bit of news like this, “Online Magazine Reaches One Million People.” If we dont do it, someone else will. We want to build a large independent distribution channel and well use it to tell the world what you’re doing. We want as many people as possible clicking on the links to your websites and ultimately taking an interest in the Baltimore Renaissance and its artists.
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Whats the point?
This is a movement dedicated to uniting the creative community in and around Baltimore City and then sharing it throughout the world for the benefit of Baltimore and its people. The movement has already begun; we just gave it a name.
Using a multimedia platform, we want to put Baltimore on the map so it’s recognized globally for the artistic and intellectual hub that it is. We start by chronicling your amazing work.
We understand that the distribution of ideas is no longer bound by geography. This paradigm shift allows for cultural movements to exist locally and globally simultaneously. We can share everything, we can create anything and we can reach everyone. It’s time to do something with that power.
What Weekly does not exist without you. You are the soul of this movement.
Submit Your Idea.
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Whats the Mission?
1. Document the Baltimore Renaissance
2. Make Baltimore a better place to live and highlight good news
3. Help support Baltimores artists and independent businesses
4. Build a tribe, start a movement
5. Encourage more facetoface interaction within the community
6. Drive awareness of excellent events
7. Put Baltimore on the (global) map
Read more about the mission.
Whats the Good Word?
We believe in spreading the good news, which also means spotlighting organizations that do good things.
Submit Your Good Deeds.
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