Charlotte Street's Urban Culture Presents holiday OPEN STUDIOS 12/10

Charlotte Street's Urban Culture Project hosts an art-packed Art Downtown event the evening of Friday, December 10, 6-9pm (on Second, rather than UCP's typical Third Friday, with respect to the holidays). All free and open to the public, the evening features open studios at three locations, featuring 30+ artists and including a series of artist talks, live performances and one-night activities; and two exhibitions on view at UCP's Paragraph and Project Space.

OPEN STUDIOS

UCP's three Studio Residency Program facilities are currently providing free studios to 31 visual and performing artists and groups. Open Studios offers a chance for the public to see brand new work, meet the artists, learn about their processes, and purchase work directly from the studios. To support holiday art-giving, December Open Studios will include many cash and carry items for sale.

GUIDED TOURS to the STUDIOS will leave from Paragraph gallery, 23 East 12th Street, at 6:30 and 8pm. Maps of the studios will be available at Paragraph, sign boards will be placed at each studio building, and hosts at each location will guide visitors up to the studios.

OPEN STUDIOS DECEMBER 10 FEATURES THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS:
· PARTNERSHIP PLACE, 906 GRAND, 13TH FLOOR - Open Studios 6-9pm. Featuring Visual Artists Erika Lynn Hansen, Cory Imig, Paul Smith, Nicholas Naughton, David Carlisle, Julie Malen and Luke Rocha.
· City Center SQUARE, 1100 MAIN, 5TH FLOOR - Open studios 6-9pm. Featuring Performing Artists Susan Rieger (940 Dance Company), Leralee Whittle, Jane Gotch, Maura Michelle Garcia, and Black House Improvisors' Collective; and Visual Artists Terry Campbell, John Carroll Davis, Christina Dostaler, Abbe Findley, John Hilger, Misha Kligman, Carmen Moreno, Sean Starowitz, Cheryl Toh, Anthony Baab, Clayton Skidmore, Frank Norfleet.
· TOWN PAVILION, 1100 WALNUT, 6TH FLOOR - Open Studios 6-9pm. Featuring Visual Artists Brandon Barr, Diane Burchett, Erin Hinz, Katherine O'Hara, David Rhoads, Phil Shafer, Russell Shoemaker, and Jeff Tackett.

OPEN STUDIOS LIVE PERFORMANCES + SPECIAL ACTIVITIES AT City Center SQUARE:
· 7pm: Jane Gotch and Leralee Whittle. Improvisational dance collaboration.
· 7:30-8:15pm - Black House Improvisors' Collective. Live performance of new compositions by Russell Thorpe, Hunter Long, Peter Lawless, Brian Padavic and Jeff Davis.
· 8:30pm: Brandon Barr and Leralee Whittle. New media and dance collaboration.
· All evening: visual artist Sean Starowitz hosts YARD SALE, featuring "artist-grade clothes, art, junk, and cool stuff." Trades and bartering are highly encouraged.

SPECIAL ACTIVITIES AT PARTNERSHIP PLACE:
· All evening: visual artist Nicholas Naughton hosts A Constructed Christmas Image, a workshop and live printing utilizing the new portable press from INKubator PRESS. Naughton and friends will be creating one of a kind and small editioned cards for the holiday season, and invite the public to come create their very own holiday card or unique relief print. Holiday printing blocks, colors and paper provided.

SPECIAL ACTIVITES AT TOWN PAVILION:
· 6-7pm: Town Pavilion Studio Resident Artist Talks
· Phil "Sike Style" Shafer CLEARANCE SALE
· House Eradicated, a new installation by Jeff Tackett

EXHIBITIONS

PAGES: Book as Medium, Catalyst, Venue
Paragraph Gallery / 21 East 12th Street
Open December 10, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs through January 6, 2011

Curated by artist Amy Kligman and featuring work by 40+ artists, PAGES: Book as Medium, Catalyst, Venue celebrates the diversity of thought, process, and experience that can be revealed or inspired via the book. All of the artists in this show draw inspiration from books in some way, and as a collection the work demonstrates the potential of the book in artmaking, as a subject, tool, material, and or/springboard for other work. As part of the exhibition, Paragraph includes a "reading room" of work shown in a library-like setting, where visitors are encouraged to engage in browsing artists' books, sketchbooks, and zines.

Featured artists are: Cara Barer, Kelie Bowman, Joe Bussell, Caitlin Cass, Alicia Chester, Justin Cownden, Greg Crawford, Brian Dettmer, Christa Donner, Shea Gordon Festoff, Ben Finer, Julie Green, Julian Jason Haladyn, Tanya Hartman, Rob Hatem, Aimee Howard, Lisa Iglesias, Brooke Inman, Michael Krueger, Judith G. Levy, China Marks, Liz Maugans, Colleen Maynard, Ellen Mueller, Armin Mühsam, Mia Nolting, Jessica Owings, Nathaniel Parsons, Samantha Persons, Lee Piechocki, Caroline Pjecha, David Pjecha, Stephen Proski, Melissa & Lucy Powlas, Luke Rocha, Ryan Sarah Murphy, Tennille Shuster, Angela Silver, Sean Starowitz/Jordan Stempleman, the WAFA Collective, Courtney Weida, Corinna West, Donika Wiley, and David Williams/ Kotaro Itami.

I'D.: I IS, IS I?
Urban Culture Project Space / 23 East 12th Street
Open December 10, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs through January 6, 2011

In i.'d.: i is, is i? , three emerging Kansas City-based artists explore questions of identity and self-representation through an installation comprised of individual and collaborative multi-media artworks. Luke Pretz, Abbe Findley, and Terry Campbell investigate themselves, and specifically the manner in which their externally-oriented representations of themselves relate to and blur with their more private, internalized senses of self. Much of this blurring, and the consequent ambiguity relative to the notion of the "true" or "real" self, can be seen as product of contemporary media/technology, via which one is constantly in the process of (re)constructing and projecting one's "self," as well as evaluating others' self-projections via shared images and actions. How these dynamics relate to the forging of personal identity and lived reality are central to these artists' works.

Urban Culture Project is an initiative of the Charlotte Street Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Kansas City a place where artists and art thrive. Urban Culture Project creates new opportunities for artists of all disciplines and contributes to urban revitalization by transforming spaces in downtown Kansas City into new venues for multi-disciplinary contemporary arts programming. For more information, visit www.charlottestreet.org.