Make Holiday gifts for your family!

Ibiyinka Olufemi Alao is an artist, filmmaker and author who represented his country — Nigeria — and became the first place winner of the prestigious United Nations International Art Competition amongst 61 countries. His entry "Girls and a Greener Environment" chronicles the life of a girl-child from infancy to adulthood and the values she acquires along the paths of life.


Ibiyinka's perspective is from the traditional African viewpoint. Ibiyinka was trained as an architect at the University Of Ile-Ife Nigeria. His father was a very quiet man and from him, Ibiyinka grew up to learn that happiness in life is a code which we can often decode by listening to silent voices and speaking without talking.
Even at an early age, Ibiyinka saw what many others didn't. He saw life in "color" and "color" as a language. This unique perspective of life allowed him to depict, in a clear and elaborate manner, what he had a hard time articulating. The empty surface soon became a vehicle for bringing his thoughts to life and giving his opinion a voice. He says: "Wisdom is what we have when we realize that vanity isn't a vice after all, and that emptiness is an opportunity to fill. What really makes us artists is a void in our heart that is the size of the universe without us. We live our lives trying to fill this void. God himself created all to fill that void. This is how we break the codes of creation — Genesis."
Today, Ibiyinka's paintings speak volumes and the impact of his works has received worldwide recognition. His paintings are currently in the United States on tour. They have been exhibited at The National Museum of Nigeria, the Harvard Business School, the Indianapolis Art Center, the Martin Luther King Art Center, COCA St. Louis, Springfield, MO Art Museum, the African Unity Festival, the Nigerian Consulate, the Nigerian Embassy, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Cultures, the New York University Brownstone Salon, the Queens borough Library International Resource Center, the United Nations headquarters, the World Bank headquarters, as well as the Empire State Building.
In between exhibitions, Ibiyinka finds himself giving open lectures at universities and setting up workshops in community centers across the country. As Nigeria's Art Ambassador, Ibiyinka is available for speaking engagements, participation in seminars, panel discussions, workshops and exhibitions.
These paintings are a rare collection of an artist who has spent many years expressing a peaceful view of integration of cultures in our world today through the use of colors.

Exhibit of works of arts created by our Black Artists-in-Residence, with live music by Missouri Symphony.

CreativeMornings/Columbia is proud to announce their May speaker, Trevor Harris.
A few years ago Trevor Harris started his business. Through the Recollection Agency, Trevor preserves stories that matter to his clients. He records those stories that exist only within each individual. Trevor saves stories by intentionally gathering recollections and reflections from community elders and activists, historians and scholars. For Trevor’s business, now is imperative. No one gets out of here alive.
In this interactive talk Trevor will share the basics of how to capture those stories that matter most to you. You’ll walk away empowered to interview your wise neighbors, beloved relatives and mentors. Trevor will share tips for getting great recordings, editing and creative paths for sharing your final edit.
Please join us at Orr Street Studios on May 20 @ 8:30am. FREE tickets will be released on May 16. Hope to see ya there!

Artist David Spear and Author Dianna O'Brien.

Long-running lecture series featuring one visual artist slideshow and one writer reading, with discussion of the work presented.

Collage with Shawn Toston! All ages!

Featuring Zoe Hawk and Daren Dean

Join us Tuesday, Feb. 11,2020, for readings of poetry by Amy Huichun Liang and fiction by Daren Dean.

Amy (Huichun) Liang is a Chinese writer and translator, who serves as a Chinese Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri. She is the author of a poetry collection, 'autumn, presencing,' co-author (with Zhanjing) of 'Chinese Idioms' and co-translator (with Steven Schroeder) of 'Small (poetry by Li Nan),' and other anthologies of poetry translation. Her writing has appeared in Da Gong (Hong Kong), Sing Tao Daily (US), and a variety of media in China. Her translation appears in voice & verse (Hong Kong), Sichuan Literature, Rhino and other anthologies of Chinese-to-English bilingual poetry translation. Her poems 'Loneliness' and 'Translator' have been in the shortlists in, respectively, the 2018 Flushing Poetry Festival and 2019 International Flushing Poetry Festival. Amy received the 2016 Purple Chalk Teaching award of the College of Arts and Science at MU. She was an editor and reporter at the China National Radio from 1985 to 1988. She received a special award for reporting on the terrible forest fire on Da-Xing-An Mountain in 1987 from the All-China Journalists Association and was the co-winner of the 1987 Annual News Editing prize of the China National Radio.

Daren Dean is the author of the novel ‘Far Beyond the Pale.’ His new short story collection, ‘I’ll Still Be Here Long After You're Gone,’ was published by CJ Press in December 2019. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Louisiana Literature, Delta Poetry Review, Maryland Literary Review, BULL (Men's Fiction), Midwestern Gothic, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Oklahoma Review, Fiction Southeast, StorySouth, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Currently, he serves as an Assistant Professor of English (Creative Writing Specialist-Fiction) at Lincoln University of Missouri. Daren Dean was born in Missouri, but also considers North Carolina and Louisiana home.

Join us at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 10, at Orr Street Studios for the launch of the fall 2019 issue of Stephens Life student-run magazine, followed at 7 p.m. with presentations of photography, creative writing, and digital filmmaking works by Stephens College students.

After spending a semester of risk-taking—discovering and crafting their artistic voices through film, photography, and word--Stephens College students share their art. Through experimental film, photography and prose poetry, students share their visions and their voices.

In an interdisciplinary celebration, three Stephens College classes come together to share their artistic voice and visions. We believe that creating art is inherently about taking risks. Come see works from Experimental Film taught by Professor Kerri Yost, and Introduction to Creative Writing taught by Professor Ann Breidenbach, and Advanced Photography taught by Professor Chase Thompson. These classes include both majors and non-majors and encourage students to take the ultimate risk and share their work with the larger arts community of Columbia, Missouri. Come hear from these young, powerful women about their growth as artists in our community.

The evening starts with an open viewing of photography and short films accompanied with refreshments, followed by a reading and discussion.

Orr Street Studios is located at 106 Orr St. in downtown Columbia, Missouri. Join us the second Tuesday evening of each month during the academic year for literary readings and visual-arts presentations.

Join us at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at Orr Street Studios for creative writing by Donald Quist and paintings by Mike Seat.

DONALD QUIST
Donald Quist is author of the linked story collection For Other Ghosts and the essay collection Harbors, a Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner and International Book Awards Finalist. His writing has appeared in AGNI, North American Review, The Rumpus, and was Notable in Best American Essays 2018. He is creator of the online micro essay series PAST TEN, and co-host of the Poet in Bangkok podcast. Donald has received fellowships from Sundress Academy for the Arts and Kimbilio Fiction. He earned his MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is currently a Gus T. Ridgel fellow in the English PhD program at University of Missouri.

MIKE SEAT
Artist Mike Seat paints plein air landscape, portrait, figure, and still life oil paintings. Savoring the beauty of our world motivates him to express on canvas what one might ordinarily pass by unnoticed or take for granted. In this way, he feels grounded, peaceful, and happy -- all feelings he wants to share with others through his paintings. Most of Seat's work is done from life. In the Impressionist tradition, his landscapes are painted outdoors and completed in the studio, as Monet did. Figures, portraits, and still lifes are usually painted with the subjects present.

Join us for an inspiring evening of poetry and art with poet Leanna Petronella and artist Joy Wilson.

Joy Wilson is a large scale, narrative artist who lives and works in Columbia with her partner and their two children. A native of Kentucky, but most recently a trans- plant from Chicago, her oil paintings weave sculptural stories of still-life imagery of nature and flowers to tell stories of memory and time.

Joy spent over a decade working in commercial architecture and design before returning to her passion for art when she managed the former Gallery M at Melwood Art Center in Louisville, Kentucky. She attended Indiana University Southeast where her early work was recognized with various awards. Last year, her journey was featured in the Chicago Tribune as part of a series highlighting the evolution of gender and sexual identity through artists’ relationships with their younger selves. Joy has a studio at Orr Street Studios, and is represented by Sager Braudis Gallery in Columbia. Her art will be displayed in an October show at Sager Braudis.

LEANNA PETRONELLA
Leanna Petronella's debut poetry collection, The Imaginary Age, won the 2018 Pleiades Press Editors Prize. Her poetry appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, Third Coast, Birmingham Poetry Review, CutBank, Quarterly West, ElevenEleven, and other publications. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri and an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Hello Art Makers and Art Lovers! Our next SECOND SATURDAY for KIDS, Into Space 2, is coming up on Sat Oct 12, noon-3 p.m. Orr Street Studios, 106 Orr.

We will continue exploring the fascinating interactions of filled space and empty space in the arts that we began exploring at the July 13 SSfK.

If you were with us for the mid-summer SSfK, Into Space I, you know how intriguing it is to explore music, drawing & painting, clay modeling, and other arts in terms of space. If you weren't able to be with us in July, you'll have a great time making your first exploration on October 12!
Here's our line-up of interactive arts activities:

• Drumming: Jonathan Crisp & Pam Sisson

• Movement & Dance: JABBERWOCKY Studios

• Drawing & Painting: Orr Artists Dareth Gottmoeller, Jane Mudd, Byron Smith, Frank Stack

• Reading, Writing & Clay Figure Modeling: Kate Bushnell & Grace Cunningham

• Drawing and creating inhabitants for imaginary planets you'd like to live on

  As always, SSfK is offered free of charge to young people, ages 5-15, with accompanying adult. Bring a friend! Your friend will thank you!! We look forward to seeing everyone on Sat Oct 12, noon-3, 106 Orr St.

Orr Street's Hearing Voices Seeing Visions 2019-20 season begins next Tuesday September 10th at 7:00 pm with guests, artist John Fennell, and poet Lynne Lampe. Join us for an evening of imagination, art and poetry!

LYNNE LAMPE
Lynne Jensen Lampe's poems have appeared in Isthmus, South Florida Poetry Journal, New Letters, and The First Anthology of Missouri Women Writers. She studied with Larry Levis in his graduate workshop while earning her journalism degree at the University of Missouri and soon after received honorable mention in the first New Letters Literary Awards. After a decades-long detour into teaching, activism and visual art, she began studying and writing poetry again while researching her mother’s experiences in state mental hospitals. She edits books and journals in Columbia, Missouri, and is a member of Dame Good Writers and the Reflections poetry group.

JOHN FENNELL
Chicago native John Fennell has been a painter for more than 35 years and now works in Columbia out of Orr Street Studios. After graduating from Northern Illinois University, he attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago and then studied privately with artists Milford Zornes and Gianni Cilfoni. He later earned a master's degree in painting and drawing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has exhibited in Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as in St. Louis, Kansas City, Fulton, Ashland and Columbia, Missouri. His work is in many private collections. He recently retired as a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism where he taught magazine writing, design and publishing for 13 years. Before teaching, he was a journalist and editor. A former newspaper reporter, he assisted the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Mike Royko at the Chicago Daily News. For seven years he was the editor of the international design journal, Step-By-Step Graphics before becoming editor-in-chief of the award-winning monthly, Milwaukee Magazine.

About the Work:
Light in all of its manifestations has been my primary interest as a painter. Light is color and in a broader sense light is the foundation of seeing and a metaphor for knowing. Recent work explores color in three distinct areas:

COLOR FROM NATURE
The landscapes – influenced by the Hudson River School, the Impressionists, Cezanne, Matisse, Braque and others – are often painted or sketched outdoors and/or completed in the studio. I paint landscapes because I am fascinated by the natural world and the idea of transcendence, to be at once in the world and yet go beyond it. That’s what happens in painting, an act of the mind as much as it is of paint and brush. In a way, I become one with what I see, what I try to interpret. The landscapes are evidence of those journeys.

PURE COLOR
The geometric abstractions, influenced by the mid-century modernists, emphasize pure form and color – landscapes of the mind, if you will. I am particularly interested in how the mind orders line, shape and color from seeming chaos. I begin these explorations with random lines and swashes of color not knowing where the painting will lead. Guided by intuition, the lines and shapes gradually take form. As I add additional layers of paint – often over a period of weeks – I discover new patterns and colors.

URBAN-INSPIRED COLOR
The urban-inspired work begins with sketches on street corners. At times they remain true to the visual experience. In other works they transcend what I see into what I experience – the rhythm, color, and mood of urbanity. I think of these interpretations as visual music, like jazz. This ultimate transformation excites me because I am never sure where the painting will take me.

Hello Art Makers and Art Lovers. 

Please join us for the July 13 SECOND SATURDAY for KIDS, Into Space I: Inner, Outer and In Between, noon-3 p.m., 106 Orr Street. And mark your calendars for Into Space II, Sat Oct 12! 

Here's the line-up of art activities on Sat July 13 at Orr:
Ed Hanson, vocalist, choral music & theater director, founder of Talking Horse Productions: Sound & Silence in Music & Singing
Orr Street Studios Artists: What's in the Empty Space in a Painting
Columbia pottery makers: What's There & Not There in a Bowl
Teen artists: Making telescopes, seeing space
SECOND SATURDAY is for young people ages 5-15 with accompanying adult. Always free of charge!

Any questions Call or email us at: 573-289-0825; ourart.cparke@gmail.com

See you on Sat July 13, noon - 3 p.m., 106 Orr Street. And bring a friend to SSfK. It's a great gift of friendship!

Reception for Bo Bedilion’s exhibit: Plates.

Plus: friends, conversations, refreshments, music and fun!

Join us for a special evening of Art and Literature.

Catherine Armbrust, artist and Gallery Director of the Bingham Gallery at the School of Visual Studies, University of Missouri will show and talk about her work. Writers Cassie Donish and Grace Gardiner will read from their work. This will be the last Hearing Voices Seeing Visions till September. Don’t miss it!

Cassie Donish is the author of the poetry collections The Year of the Femme (University of Iowa Press, 2019), selected by Brenda Shaughnessy as winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Beautyberry(Slope Editions, 2018). Her nonfiction chapbook On the Mezzanine (2019) was selected by Maggie Nelson as winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition. A poet, prose writer, geographer, and educator, her writing has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Best New Poets, Colorado Review, VICE, jubilat, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review Online, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Co-editor-in-chief of The Spectacle, she earned her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where she received an Olin Fellowship and served as the Junior Fellow in Poetry. She holds a BA in English and comparative religions from the University of Washington and an MA in human geography from the University of Oregon. She currently teaches classes at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where she's pursuing a PhD in literature and creative writing. She grew up in South Pasadena, California.

Cassie identifies as a gender nonconforming femme, preferring sheor they pronouns. Her website and most other public materials currently use she/her.

Grace Gardiner's research interests include the relationship between jazz and poetry in American literature and culture, compositional practice across the arts and intermedia, lyric and genre theory, and posthumanism. Some of her recent work appears or is forthcoming in Mom Egg Review, SWWIM Every Day, and LETTERS. A former poetry editor for The Greensboro Review and intern for Persea Books, she holds an MFA in Writing from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. https://pearlsthatwere.tumblr.com/

Catherine Armbrust grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas but has enjoyed life in various parts of Missouri since 1989.  An alumnus of the University of Missouri, she earned her MFA in Fibers & Sculpture and BA in Anthropology.  Armbrust currently lives in Columbia, Missouri and works as the director of the George Caleb Bingham Gallery on the MU Campus. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the MU & UMKC Art Departments, and teaches Fibers at Columbia College (Columbia, MO). 

Though her work has shifted somewhat since her husband’s sudden passing in 2015, Armbrust’s mixed media work most often conflates biological and cultural themes in the forms of costumes, dioramas, collages, soft sculpture, and installations.  In that work she channels a Rococo spirit to parody human methods of collection, ornamentation, pleasure, play, and seduction.  

catherinearmbrust@yahoo.com

www.catherinearmbrust.com