Charlotte Street news from elsewhere.
Via Kansas City PBS Flatland
Latin Grammy-Nominated Artist Hosting Event for Women’s History Month: ‘You’re Not Alone’
Mireya Ramos of Flor de Toloache, an all-female mariachi band from New York, isn’t taking her foot off the gas any time soon. Today, the Grammy-nominated artist is gearing up for a St. Patrick’s Day show with Trevor Turla at The Ship. Then she returns to record her next album in Kansas City. But amid her busy schedule, she felt a tug to honor Women’s History Month. She wanted to give back.
Ramos has been coming to Kansas City for the past 10 years, connecting with local leaders and artists such as Enrique Chi and Erika Noguera. This visit is different. She is focused on community building and women empowerment.
Via Kansas City PBS Flatland
One Percent for Art in KC
The new Kansas City International Airport terminal houses the largest collection of public art in the history of the city’s One Percent for Art program. This month, “Flatland in Focus” talks to some of the artists who have benefited from this funding and how a thriving arts community can best be supported.
Via Carnegie Mellon University News
Professor Barrois Exhibits at Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City
Professor Lyndon Barrois Jr.’s work is included in “clock:work” at Charlotte Street in Kansas City, MO. The exhibition, on view March 17 through April 29, treats sports as a source of inspiration while questioning the institutional bodies that oversee them.
The title, “clock:work,” refers to the timed and regulated structure of sports and art practices in a deadline-focused society, sifting through the topics of iconicity, representation, and systemic injustices. Just how games and races create a beginning and end using the shot clock, innings or starter pistol, the work of artists also exists within a self-imposed time frame that determines when an artwork is considered to be done. The selected artworks range from being critical to celebratory, exploring the individual elements that create a shared culture within sports.
Via The Pitch KC
Grammy-winning artist Mireya Ramos hosts Ladies Rock! to celebrate Women’s History Month
Ramos the founder of Ladies Rock! and singer for the Grammy-winning, all-female mariachi band Flor de Toloache, wanted to find a way to uplift women in Kansas City that are artists and creators. This event will be a time to network with local artists and uplift female creators.
The event, which is open to all women and allies, will begin with a vocal workshop led by Ramos. In the workshop, participants will experiment with their voices and learn techniques that helped the musician strengthen her own skills.
Via KSHB 41 Kansas City
Upcoming KC Rainbow Tour aims to preserve rich KC LGBTQ history
This summer, a new self-guided tour will be launched in honor of Kansas City’s rich LGBTQ history. Joel Barrett has been working on the KC Rainbow Tour over the past year, which will highlight the city's rich LGBTQ history he's uncovered dating back to before Stonewall. Barrett hopes the project will launch by June 3.
"I often tell people that essentially what was then known as the gay rights movement, back in the early 60s, was conceived here in Kansas City," he said.
Via The Pitch KC
Boon Area 1 is a surprise community asset reclaiming KC’s tarnished history
When I meet up with Carl at the site on a cold January Friday evening, it’s yellow grass, soft earth and a hand-sculpted ferrocement rain barrel. It’s a living project, requiring tending to and a long-term vision. It is art as environmental justice. It’s racial justice. It’s Boon Area 1.
Carl Stafford, founder of MyRegionWins!, created Boon Area 1 to be an “environmental, nature-based, interactive, functional art installation that generates revenue.” The site has a way to go before it’s completed, and unless you lived in the neighborhood, the site in winter might seem unremarkable, something to go unnoticed.
Via KC Studio
Artist to Watch: Seth Andrew Davis
The Kansas City composer seeks to bridge the performing and visual arts and help curate the Midwestern music scene
In just under 10 years, Kansas City composer Seth Andrew Davis, 28, has turned the role of the traditional musician on its side, combining the roles of performer, composer, improviser, producer, technologist and electric guitarist into one holistic endeavor.
Via 41 KSHB KANSAS CITY
NEA grant funds Kansas City’s Charlotte Street artist residency program
Kansas City-based Charlotte Street, an incubator for the area’s artistic community, is celebrating a recent grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This month, the NEA awarded a $35,000 grant to Charlotte Street to support the organization’s artist residency programs.
The program provides visual artists, writers and performing artists a space to build community, connections and experiment. The space is free and accessible 24 hours a day.
Via KC Studio
“The Law for Falling Bodies: A Queer Print Media Exhibit,” Charlotte Street Gallery
Gravity is a force that affects all bodies — tethering and tying us to this mortal plane of existence. In Galileo’s law of falling bodies, all objects fall at exactly the same rate with variances arising only from air resistance. Melding scientific conceptions with their artistic practice, curators and artists Shawn Bitters and Matthew Willie Garcia explore this idea through the lens of queerness and the medium of printmaking in their exhibit, “The Law for Falling Bodies: A Queer Print Media Exhibit.” This collection of work on display at Charlotte Street Gallery investigates queer realities through the varying perspectives of Bitters and Garcia as well as the other featured artists: Ash Armenta, Ruben Bryan Castillo, Kat Richards and Erin Zona. The title, pulled from Galileo’s theory, examines a different kind of gravitational pull in terms of queerness, one that opens people to their true selves aside from mainstream society’s expectations.