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Arts & Life

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A printmaking class at the Middletown Art Center in Middletown, Calif. Photo by MAC staff.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Join artists John Jennings and Laura Kennedy for Restore workshops this weekend at Middletown Art Center.

Jennings will lead a block-printing workshop this Saturday, April 6, and Kennedy will lead a mixed media sculpture class on Sunday, April 7. Both classes take place from 1 to 5 p.m.

Adults and children ages 11 and up of all levels of art making experience, from newbies to professionals, are invited to join Restore classes for just $5 per class.

“In my journeys through the various modes of printmaking, I’ve found none quite as dynamic and magical as relief printmaking,” says Jennings. “Whether you choose to work with linocuts or woodcuts, we’ll explore the range of possibilities from vigorous to delicate lines and the play of light and shadow in defining our two dimensional space.”

Laura Kennedy’s “Soul and Story – Mixed Media Sculpture” class is an opportunity to create a found object assemblage using natural and man-made materials that express one’s soul and story.

Kennedy will be there to guide participants’ artistic process and effectively combine materials. While she has plenty of materials to share, participants are encouraged to bring objects that are meaningful to them to include in their work.

Please register in advance for these and all Restore classes at www.middletownartcenter.org/Restore, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 707-809-8118. Space is limited and reservations are required.

Works from both classes may contribute to upcoming exhibitions of Restore work and prints may be included in MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images. The first chapbook, Resilience – a community reframes disaster through art, is available for purchase at MAC or on the MAC Web site. You can preview the book at www.middletownartcenter.org/chapbook.

The Restore project provides low-cost classes most weekends through May in printmaking, mixed media, sculpture and creative writing. While all classes are open to the public to attend one or many times, MAC encourages folks to come to several classes, to hone skills, learn new ones, develop a body of work and participate in a collaborative sculptural project for Rabbit Hill.

On Sunday, April 14, from 1 to 5 p.m., Restore features “Vertical Pathways for Rabbit Hill”, taught by sculptor Emily Sheibal, the class involves woodworking and additive sculpting in concrete using hardware cloth and burlap.

On Sunday, April 21, Clive Matson will return for a writers’ workshop, also from 1 p.m.

Please visit www.middletownartcenter.org/Restore for more information, to stay up to date on Restore class schedules and to preregister.

The Restore project was made possible thanks to support from the California Arts Council, a state agency, with additional support from local organizations, businesses, and individuals. Visit www.ca.arts.gov to learn more about the California Arts Council’s important work in communities and schools throughout California.

The MAC Gallery currently features “Living Color,” a vibrant exhibit open to the public Thursdays from 11 a.m .to 5 p.m., Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Be a part of the growing arts and cultural scene in South Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by participating in Restore classes, or by attending one of the many events or classes at MAC. Visit www.middletownartcenter.org or “like” Middletown Art Center on Facebook to stay up-to-date.

A mixed media sculpture class at the Middletown Art Center in Middletown, Calif. Photo by MAC staff.
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Daffodils at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum in Kelseyville, Calif. Courtesy photo.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The regular monthly Ely Stage Stop Fiddlers' Jam, with lively music, will be held on Sunday, April 7, from noon to 2 p.m. in the barn at the Ely.

Food and beverages will be available for sale.

This month's raffle basket theme is “April showers bring may flowers.” Included with the basket is a beautiful bouquet from Flowers by Traci of Kelseyville and a gift certificate from Kelseyville Lumber, also of Kelseyville.

Hundreds of daffodils are blooming. Come early and enjoy the bright yellow blooms that are scattered over the Museum property, from the house to the barn.

The Ely Stage Stop & Country Museum is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road, between Kit's Corner on Highway 29 and the Riviera. The gates are open every weekend from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Look for the museum flag.

Visit http://www.elystagestop.org and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/elystagestop, or call 707-533-9990 for more information.
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Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

Is it worse to live in a city where you can't see a big storm coming until it's right on top of you, or to be out on the plains where you can see it coming for almost too long?

I like this long look at an approaching and then passing storm by Max Garland, who lives in Wisconsin. It's from his fine book, The Word We Used For It, from the University of Wisconsin Press.

Happiness

The storm was headed in our direction—
big loom of gray like the absolute West
leaned over us. Reports of damage
in the neighboring counties—a silo unfurled
and took wing, a house trailer
twisted loose. On the Doppler screen
the storm looked alive, yellow and green
at the fringes, with a fierce red heart
trending to violet. Sirens swept over
to scare it away, like songbirds
grow strident, circle and bluff
at the sight of an owl.
When the rain came in sheets,
I regretted my sins. When lightning
cracked the red pine's half-rotted heart,
I wished the world more joy
in general. When the worst was over
and the grass lay flat, but alive,
and the sky was a waning bruise,
I thought of that silo, how it wasn't mine,
and all that grain cast back into the world's
wind, maybe some of it still flying.


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Max Garland, "Happiness," from The Word We Used For It, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Max Garland and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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The Fargo Brothers. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Fargo Brothers have been burning up stages since 1979, racking up more than 4,000 performances from California to the Canadian border.

Let’s see if they can do it again at the Soper Reese Theatre’s Third Friday Live concert on Friday, April 19, at 7 p.m.

The band is made up of four seasoned professionals who deliver a brand of Blues, roots Rock and Roll, and Americana with a fire and intensity that only three decades together can bring. Known for their vocal harmonies and tight ensemble playing, the Fargo Brothers always put on a show that gets the crowd up and dancing.

Michael Lester Adams is the group’s songwriter, singer, and guitarist. Russ Whitehead sings and plays bass; Joost Vonk sings and plays drums; and Mojo Larry Platz sings and plays guitar. Major sponsor for the Third Friday Live Series is Strong Financial Network. Also sponsored by KXBX 98.3 and KNTI 99.5.

All seats for Third Friday Live are $15. Dance floor open. Tickets are available online at www.soperreesetheatre.com or at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main, Lakeport, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets also also available at the theater box office up to two hours before show time.

For more information call 707-263-0577. The theater is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Rural Arts Initiative, or LCRAI, and Lake County Land Trust invite Lake County students aged kindergarten through 12th grades to enter the “Explore Lake County Nature” photo contest.

Photos must be taken in Lake County.

Cash prizes will be awarded in three categories: kindergarten through fifth, sixth through eighth and ninth through 12th.

Prizes are $100 for first place, $75 for second place and $50 for third place.

Contest winners will earn their classroom free art supplies in the amount of their prize.

Get out those cameras, cell phones and tablets and head outside. Submit photographs at www.LCRAI.org/contest.

Submissions must be received by April 26.

All photos will be printed by LCRAI and displayed at the Land Trust’s Art and Nature Day Celebration on Saturday, May 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Rodman Preserve and Nature Center, 3560 Westlake Road, Lakeport. Winners will be announced at 1 p.m.

This free event will include fun art and nature activities for children and grownups of all ages.

The Lake County Rural Arts Initiative is working with Lake County schools and community partners to bring arts to our children and help fund the expanded arts program the schools want and need; utilizing art teachers, local artists and combining the arts with more traditional subjects.

Art education increases test scores across every subject area, lowers dropout rates and closes the achievement gap regardless of socioeconomic status.

Most importantly, is it the basis for developing the No. 1 attribute sought by today’s and future employers, innovation and creativity.

Visit www.LCRAI.org for more information on Lake County Rural Arts Initiative, its programs, projects, contests and opportunities to get involved.
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US (Rated R)

Jordan Peele, the writer and director behind the surprise hit thriller “Get Out,” follows up with his sophomore outing in the unnerving “Us,” an identity crisis story steeped in bloody horror and plot twists.

Having first established himself as a comedian teamed with Keegan-Michael Key, Peele is uniquely positioned to weave comedic elements for bright spots of levity into work that might otherwise be too mind-bending.

Nevertheless, Peele is seemingly obsessed with symbolism, some of which takes time to be revealed as meaningful. After all, you may ask yourself what’s up with all the white rabbits in cages stacked high in an underground room?

Significant imagery takes hold in the opening flashback to 1986 when advertising for the Hands Across America event to fight poverty flashes on a television screen, which makes sense only later on.

This 1986 prologue finds young African-American girl Adelaide (Madison Curry) vacationing with her parents in Santa Cruz, where the summer fun of the boardwalk amusement park beckons.

Wandering off the beach into a hall of mirrors funhouse named “Find Yourself,” Adelaide gets lost and during a frantic search for an exit comes face to face with another young girl that looks like an evil twin.

In the present day, Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o), along with her husband Gabe (Winston Duke), teen daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and young son Jason (Evan Alex), return to her summer childhood vacation home on a lake near Santa Cruz.

When Gabe insists that the family take an outing to the same Santa Cruz beach to join their friends Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) and Josh (Tim Heidecker), Adelaide is filled with dread as the childhood trauma of seeing her scary doppelganger has not faded.

Later that night, a power outage leads to the discovery of the ominous presence of two adults and two children standing voiceless in the Wilson’s driveway, not responding to Gabe’s repeated inquiries about their intentions.

What happens next is a home invasion where the four intruders turn out to be nearly identical to each Wilson family member, all of them mute except for Adelaide’s double who speaks with a hoarse voice barely rising above an ominous whisper.

The scissor-wielding “shadow” figures are dressed in red jumpsuits which suggest an allegorical reference to prisoners heretofore tethered in the thousands of miles of underground tunnels in America noted in the title card in the film’s opening credits.

Of course, things become weirdly violent and chilling as the strange creatures pull no punches to stake their claim to the world aboveground. Only death awaits those unwilling or unable to fight back or flee.

Flight from danger for the Wilson family is fraught with intense terror and suspense, but escape from the imposters is not any easier than the encounters with evil in typical slasher films.

“Us” packs an interesting punch of audacious horror but any serious thought about the sociopolitical context Jordan Peele leads to passionate debate.

2019 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW

The TCM Classic Film Festival’s website is now complete with its scheduling for its tenth anniversary return to Hollywood from April 11th to the 14th for a movie lover’s orgy of cinematic pleasures.

Most appropriate for this year’s theme entitled “Follow Your Heart: Love at the Movies,” the opening night presentation is the 30th anniversary of “When Harry Met Sally…,” with stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and director Rob Reiner participating in a discussion.

Should opening night tickets not be available, “Dark Passage,” the third film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall together, is a great alternative. Wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, Bogart escapes to clear his name with the help of Bacall.

As if it’s not difficult enough to choose a film on the first night, the original “Ocean’s 11,” which captured the essence of “cool” in this 1960 heist film that brought together The Rat Pack, with Frank Sinatra masterminding an ingenious plan to rob five Las Vegas casinos.

The Rat Pack members, also including Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, may be long gone, but Angie Dickinson, having played the spouse to Danny Ocean, is still around to participate in a discussion.

Dickinson is also on hand for a presentation of Don Siegel’s direction of the 1964 version of “The Killers,” notable for the fact she was the femme fatale slapped around by Ronald Reagan, the perennial good guy, in his last and only film in which he played a vicious mob boss.

Fans of the “Star Wars” franchise should rejoice in the Saturday viewing of the 1977 original “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” in an IMAX presentation. Many would argue that this is the ultimate masterpiece of science-fiction.

TCM unearths the gems of a bygone era. “Blood Money” is the ultimate pre-Code film, with a leading lady who’s a masochistic kleptomaniac, jokes about hemorrhoids, and wall-to-wall civic corruption.

No matter the genre or the era, the Film Festival has offerings that appeal to a wide range of taste.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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