Atlanta is a festival-smitten city, with funnel cake-scented outdoor events humming year-round except during the depths of winter.
For those feeling crafts-deprived though, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center is launching an indoor alternative next weekend: the Callanwolde Arts Festival.
Held inside the expansive 1920 Candler mansion on the edge of the Virginia-Highland neighborhood, the 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Jan. 26 fest will feature 80-plus painters, photographers, sculptors, metalwork, glass artists, jewelers and more. It also will offer artist demonstrations, music and dance performances, plus food trucks.
The arts center partnered with the Atlanta Foundation for Public Spaces in organizing the inaugural event. Tickets: $5. 980 Briarcliff Road N.E., Atlanta. Information: 404-872-5338, www.callanwolde.org.
VISUAL ART
WonderRoot announces artists for third CSA
WonderRoot, the Reynoldstown arts nonprofit, has announced six artists who will participate in its third CSA (community supported art) project, a twist on the traditional agricultural CSA (community supported agriculture): Meg Aubrey, Nikita Gale, Jason Kofke, William Massey, Michael Stasny and Marcia Vaitsman.
For the third edition, 40 investors will purchase “shares” in six works of art by the metro artists for $600 ($200 less than “Season 02” for the same number of works).
Artwork will be distributed over the first half of 2014 at a series of three “Pick up Parties,” each featuring artist talks. The works will range in medium, including photography, painting and printmaking.
The ideas behind Atlanta’s first art CSA include to support Atlanta artists by commissioning them to create work; to help keep local talent here; to help artists increase their collector base; and to cultivate a culture of art collecting locally.
Information: www.wonderroot.org/csa.
Booth welcomes new shows
Cartersville’s Booth Western Art Museum has opened two exhibits:
- "Taking the Reins! The Art of Donna Howell-Sickles," a show by the native Texan who is one of the more prominent female artists in Western art. Howell-Sickles is known for graphic paintings and prints of spirited cowgirls with horses, dogs, bulls and other Western animals. Her works, according to the Booth, "inhabit a realm between history and mythology." Through April 27.
- "Windows of the Soul: A Portrait of America," more than 30 mixed-media works, including assemblage boxes, photographs, encaustic paintings and sculpture, by Johns Creek artist Susan K. Friedland. She will give an Art for Lunch talk at 12:15 p.m. Feb. 5. Through April 6.
501 Museum Drive, Cartersville. 770-387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org.
MUSIC
Capitol City announces ‘14 season
Capitol City Opera Company, celebrating 30 years in Atlanta, will perform a fully-staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” to launch its 2014 season.
The performances, 8 p.m. March 7-8 and 3 p.m. March 9, will be at Oglethorpe University’s Conant Performing Arts Center, as will a September production (dates to be announced) of Franz Lehar’s lighthearted operetta “The Merry Widow.”
The company’s annual fundraiser, “On the Light Side,” featuring the music of Cole Porter, will be July 26 at Church of the Atonement in Sandy Springs.
Capitol City will continue to perform its monthly Dinner and a Diva series, held the third Tuesday of each month at Petite Auberge restaurant in the Toco Hill shopping center intown and every other month at Sugo in Johns Creek.
For details on these, touring school shows and holiday performances by the company's Madrigal Singers: www.ccityopera.org.
BOOKS
Photographic walk on N.Y.’s wild side
Tod Seelie's "Bright Nights: Photographs of Another New York" (Prestel, $35) made several best photography books of 2013 lists, including The New York Times Magazine's.
“Since the early aughts, he’s mined the city’s subcultures, photographing friends and strangers in mosh pits, strip clubs, underground encampments, and assorted protests and happenings,” American Photo wrote in its top 10 list. “With an eye for drama, Seelie captures the energy of reckless youth in vivid low-fi.”
The New York photographer will appear at the Westside’s Poem 88 gallery at 6 p.m. Jan. 28 for a talk, Q&A and signing. Copies of “Bright Nights” will be available for purchase.
1100 Howell Mill Road, Suite A04, Atlanta. 404-735-1000, www.poem88.net.
THEATER
Essential announces Playwriting Competition co-winners
Essential Theatre, which has supported Georgia playwrights and presented new plays to Atlanta audiences since 1987, has announced Theroun Patterson and Karla Jennings as co-winners of its 2014 Playwriting Competition.
- Jennings' "Ravens and Seagulls" is described by Essential as "a heartfelt story about four sisters going through the process of losing one of them to illness."
- Patterson's "That Uganda Play" was written in reaction to Ugandan Parliament member David Bahati's anti-homosexuality bill of 2009. Some reports dubbed it the "Kill the Gays" bill due to originally proposed death penalty clauses.
The last time there were two winners was 2006. Both playwrights will receive a $600 cash prize and a full production in this summer’s Essential Theatre Festival, which since 2011 has focused purely on world premieres by Georgia playwrights. Dates and a venue will be announced soon.
Details: www.essentialtheatre.com.
Alliance selects GM
The Alliance Theatre has appointed Mike Schleifer, who has worked for 13 years for Baltimore’s Centerstage, as its new general manager, beginning March 3.
Schleifer was Centerstage’s production manager for the last five seasons, and also worked at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University and the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, N.Y.
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