GATHER ATLANTA: Sincere thanks to everyone!
We here at BurnAway.org would like to thank everyone who made Gather Atlanta possible this past weekend! We had an amazing turnout and appreciate everyone who came to show their support.
A special thank you goes to Cinque Hicks who moderated our panel, as well as the five speakers who participated: Louise Shaw, Rachael Spiewak, Matt Haffner, Michael David Murphy, and Stephanie Dowda. Another thank you goes to our own Jeremy Abernathy who organized the panel. We also thank our sponsors: Eyedrum for the use of their space, Max Lager’s for the beer, White Birch Vodka for the vodka, Parkgrounds for the coffee, and Turkheimer & Hadden for their financial assistance. And, of course, we thank our “partners in crime”—the folks at MINT Gallery, WonderRoot, and ThoughtMarker.
It is our hope to make Gather Atlanta an annual event. But there have been requests for another event sooner than next summer, so keep your eyes on BurnAway.org for all the latest details.
If you have any feedback, feel free to contact our editorial staff at burnawayga@gmail.com. We are proud of how Gather Atlanta turned out, but we realize there is always room for improvement.
Thanks again to everyone who came out!
Thanks, Meghan! I also have a list of very specific shout-outs — in no particular order:
1. Jonathan Putnam of WonderRoot for video taping the panel talk!
2. Park Grounds for contributing the additional visual/olfactory sensation of coffee making, which was like a performance in its own right
3. Debbie Michaud, the Creative Loafing A&E Editor, for writing these extravagantly flattering words:
“GATHER Atlanta’s bringing together the thinkers, doers and lovers of burgeoning local artists … Top notch, folks, top notch.”
4. Jason Parker, for helping get the word out on Art Relish:
Gather Atlanta is tonight!
5. Sarah Paulson, intern for Atlanta Celebrates Photography, for acting as official Gather ATL photographer
6. Our own BurnAway intern, Toria Munoz, for being a champ
(and thanks to you Meghan, for putting together some beautiful last-minute materials for our table!)
7. The sound dude at Eyedrum, whose name I have clumsily forgotten, who was a total and utter champ!!!!
8. White Birch Vodka, because there was sooo much vodka
9. ERICA JAMISON, for her leadership, since MINT Gallery is and always was the *lead organization* for Gather ATL, and should be recognized as such!
10. MIKE GERMON, also of MINT and the mind behind ThoughtMarker, for comradery and help in all late-night and last-minute crises.
11. Caitlin St. Louis of CPACS (Center for Pan Asian Community Services), for instrumental research on how to run a discussion panel
12. Louise Shaw, for being such an outspoken optimist and lover of Atlanta
13. Stephanie Dowda, whose clear thinking steered me in the right direction at a very critical point in planning the discussion panel
14. Everyone who got angry/passionate/excited enough to come to the microphone and share your ideas! (Even you, Jerry! Har har.)
15. Everyone who filled out surveys, since we shall use those to plan future events!
16. EVERYONE WHO CAME TO GATHER ATL, because you ARE beautiful!!!!
::: )
AND, since I’m not sure everyone is aware — this review of Gather Atlanta was posted to ARTNEWS on Tues … I’ll post the whole thing here for your convenience:
The turnout for Gather Atlanta was large. Artists and artist-run organizations filled the main gallery with tables and exhibitions from photo-printing processes, printed T-shirts, CDs, DVDs, books and miscellaneous artworks. All of this in front of a background of paintings by musician/artist Dan Melchior all 24 by 36 inches, jagged forms and faces in stress but hard to get a good look at with so many people and things in front of them.. In the rear gallery was a show of what seemed to be examples of art from several previous Eyedrum shows, mostly painting, drawing and collage. In the small gallery were rather delicate drawings by Joe Elias Tsambiras, each with large drips of gold paint drooling down the wall from their frames, like overflowing tears or some other less identifiable body fluids coming sometimes, it appeared, even from the eyes of the figures in the drawings themselves.
One of the main topics of the panel – held in the theater section of Eyedrum – was the emphasis by both the panel and audiences members on the fact that the only route to be taken by the arts community was to be programs and organizations run by the artists themselves. This trend could of course be seen in the list of members of the sponsoring organization, Burnaway, including artist-run galleries like Eyedrum, Beep-Beep, Wonder Root and House of Art.
One of the panelists, the director of Sopo Bicycle Co-op, described the sort of behavior guidelines that her organization used, including not taking tools out of the hands of other people while they were working.
Cinque Hicks. the panel moderator, brought up the subject of artists writing reviews outside the usual media outlets, using blogs and Internet sites for example. Louise Shaw added that she thought that people doing this could eventually get paid. Hear, hear! But it wasn’t clear where this money would come from.
Although Gather Atlanta appeared on the surface to be a youth thing, which is really good, there were plenty of older artists. The parking lot overflowed, the panel session was packed, so was the exhibition/networking room and the front walk Robert, Eggtooth, Stan, Evan, Lisa and more. And several babies belonging to whom
Steve Seaberg