We kick off with a request for help. Several Oregon State University organizations are joining forces to raise donations for Maui wildfire relief – and they’re specifically seeking gift cards from Home Depot, Costco, Walmart and Target.
If you’re able to help, the cards can be dropped off at the Gill Coliseum box office between 9 am and 4 pm, Monday through Friday, through the end of the year.
Props to the orgs doing the organizing: OSU Hui O Hawai’i, Kalo Hawaiian Civic Club, Halau Hula O Hawai’i, OSU Athletics and the Asian & Pacific Cultural Center.
The Art Center this Month: Time is running out to catch the Around Oregon Biennial Exhibit, it’s artworks that “venture from traditional conceptions of their medium, and showcase Oregon for all that is strange, wild, and fighting to regrow,” as selected by Ashley Stull Meyers, Chief Curator for PRAx. This exhibit only runs a few more days, see it on or before Saturday, Sept. 9.
Also, you have until Saturday, Sept. 16 to see the Renee Couture exhibit, Soft Ambition in the Corrine Woodman Gallery. Couture explores notions of resistance and acceptance as experienced through recent life changes. She discusses her work in a TAC Makes: A Podcast available on Spotify and YouTube.
Starting Sept. 20, it’s the 8×8 Art Gallery (with a twist!). It’s the fifth iteration of this annual exhibit, which includes works as small as 6×6 inches and as large as 10×10 inches. On TAC Makes: A Podcast, founding organizer, Kimberly Long discusses the background of, and new twists around, this unique fundraiser.
Following the Artist Reception & Preview Event on Thursday, Sept. 28, which runs from 5:30 to 7 pm, artworks will be available for online purchase from 8 pm until Friday, Oct. 6, before the Gala. All remaining works will be available for $40 at the Art for the Heart Gala, on October 7.
Also, let us mention that TAC will celebrate their 60th birthday in community at an Art for the Heart Gala, Saturday, Oct. 7, 6 to 9 pm, Tickets are on sale now: $75 each
On Thursday, Sept. 14 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, join The Arts Center and Common Fields for Chromatic Vibes – a free, artist/maker creative community mixer. There will be music from The Jeanne Gregg Band, good food, and fun activities. It’s also an opportunity to learn about Art Center programming, share your input, and get to know other local makers.
Common Fields is donating 10% of the evening’s proceeds from Black Forest, Kalamata Bistro, and Common Fields to support The Art Center. All peoples, media, practices, and levels of experience are welcome.
Finally, note that Dualities, featuring Gabe Babcock and Roberta James opens Sept. 21 and runs until Oct. 28. The Dualities exhibit highlights two extremes in a way that connects them – that nature is vulnerable and fragile, yet also unyielding and perdurable.
Gabe Babcock primarily uses found materials, creating works grounded in the natural world. Roberta Monte James is a fiber artist whose work is often inspired by an aspect of nature or a specific geographical area, and the environmental realities affecting them.
A TAC Makes: A Podcast interview with Gabe Babcock and Roberta Monte James will be available on Spotify and YouTube beginning September 18, 2023. A reception is slated for Thursday, September 21, 4 to 7 pm, which falls on the evening of the Corvallis Arts Walk.
The Sum of Us, Library Random Review: Oregon State University sociology professor Dwaine Plaza will review The Sum of Us by Heather C. McGhee, as part of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library’s Random Review series, September 13 at 12 pm.
Heather McGhee is an educator, lawyer and progressive activist on the costs to society of systemic racism.
Her book The Sum of Us, which was nominated for the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, expands on that theme. Subtitled What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, the book makes the case that eliminating racist laws and policies actually improves the economic prospects for white people as well.
Professor Dwaine Plaza has been at OSU since 1997, has served in the OSU Faculty Senate, and was associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts from 2016 to 2018. Teaching Sociology in the School of Public Policy, his subjects have included race and ethnic relations, globalization, immigration issues and social justice. In 2022 he won OSU’s prestigious Richard Bressler Senior Faculty teaching award.
The program will take place online via Zoom. Click here to register here for this free event.
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