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ART AT THE DEPOT
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
A Short. Worthwhile Drive: Later this summer
(in approximately one month), a new gallery
space in Farmington is opening its doors to
the public. Twenty minutes south of Athens
on Highway 129. just past Watkinsville and
situated in a former train depot, the suitably
named Farmington Depot Gallery will host
rotating regional artist exhibitions, as well
as ongoing displays by the 16 artist-members
and cooperative owners of the space. I was
fortunate enough to drive out this past week
end to see it. and, despite the renovations, I
can say for certain ;t's on its way to becoming
not only an impressive exhibition space, but a
destination for those seeking local talent.
doubt, will look right at home against the
untreated wood paneling and exposed rafters
of the new space—not to mention against
the gorgeous backdrop of Farmington itself.
Undertakings like this, I think, are deeply
interesting—in that they represent an
example of a region's persons creating work in
direct response to that region, and then, turn
ing it right around and showing it to itself.
It's a complex idea when one thinks about
it—but what exactly is it that you want some
one to remember you for? By asking our local
artists to respond so directly to a place, s
worth noting that what they produce speaks
more pointedly of a sense of place than any
The new Farmington Depot Gallery on Highway 129 is set to open its doors in the next month.
Situated nearby Wolf Creek and Geoff
Pickett's open-air ceramic studios, not to men
tion on the site of the annual J.B. Bishoff and
Friends Pottery and Art Sate, the modest town
of Farmington is host to some of our region's
richest visual treasures. Let's be honest here:
there really are not that many places to see
art in Athens. Up until relatively recently,
there were not too many in Atlanta. What's
consistently astonishing is the sheer number
of people who are right here making stuff for
public display. And furthermore, these artists
don't let the lack of pre-existing art spaces
determine their viewing schedules—much of
the time, they take matters into their own
hands and forge their own. Farmington Depot
is just such a venture and, like the Visionary
Growth Gallery, its substantial position off of
any "beaten path' is precisely its strength.
I met up with one of the artist/owners,
Chris Hubbard, the man behind the 'Heaven
and Hell' car, whose folk art will be one of
the mainstays of the new gallery. We briefly
spoke about the process of opening a gallery
(not easy), the potential involvement of local
farmer:* and locally grown food in future gal
lery events (sounds awesome and tasty), and
the substantial lineup of participating artists
involved. In no specific order, they are as fol
lows: Phil Goulding, John C lea velar.d. Matt
Alston, Jim Stipemaas, Tommy Jackson,
Nick Jostyn, Tom Phillips, Peter loose,
Leigh Fills, Susan Staley, Pat McCaffrey,
Lawrence Stueck, Katy Dement, Michael
Pierce, CM. and Grace Kelly Laster and, of
course, Chris Hubbard himself. Yowza.
Chris assured me that much of the work
would fall into a 'folk art"’"vein, which, no
thing else. Keep your eyes peeled for future
events out at Farmington Depot.
Pots-a-Lot The beginning of June in Athens
marks an arrival of so many things: dogs
eating watermelon, swarms of mosquitos,
a conspicuous lack of college students and,
most notably, a crushing heat that (I'm
afraid) isn't letting up for the next several
months. It also, however, marks a calendar
halfway-point to Christmas, and for many area
ceramic artists, an annual event to showcase
and sell their wares. I visited the Marmalade
Pottery Studio on Barber Street in the DOC
Building, which is currently showcasing the
work of Maria Dondero, Jorie Berman, Mandy
Stevens and Tiffany Whitfield. All of these
artists have been affiliated with the ceram
ics department at Lamar Dodd, but you would
never know it to see the variety apparent
in the work. A casual charm characterizing
Dondero's cups and flatware masks the true
elegance of mark and line that make up her
image-laden surfaces, while Whitfield's earthy
structures radiate a subtle but strong energy
that almost takes them out of the realm of the
everyday (where Dondero's work, I feel, posits
itself nicely). Berman's terra-cotta plates and
cups dress themselves in sumptuous lace-like
designs that border upon the intimate, white
Stevens' hand-formed organic vessels visually
wobble in a pleasantly disorienting manner.
Marmalade is definitely wortfr a visit. For
directions, more information, and totally ador
able pictures of stuff *hat Maria traded for
pots, visit http://www.mariadondero.com.
“ i Brian HHsefbergsr
Rock and roll is work; don't let anyone
ever tell you otherwise. It's hard work and it's
risky. When you start out, it's endless days
and nights of rehearsing, self-promotion and
playing lousy gig after lousy gig with little
more return than a break on the bar tab. You
spend half your time crammed into a van with
your equipment and the collective body odors
of your bandmates and the rest of it working
jobs that pay little because they offer the
flexible hours needed to go on the road. What
money you do make goes back into the band,
buying mics and monitors and such, all in the
hope that someday you may be the one-in-
a-thousand crew who can actually make this
thing pay.
The grueling work of playing music and the
attendant risks are why so many bands fall
apart or die on the vine. Even a moderately
successful band has an average career span
shorter than a single-A ballplayer.
So, if by some miraculous chance
your band actually makes it, gets
the big contract, starts playing
concert halls and arenas, then,
hell yes, you take every one of
the perks you've got coming. You
buy the mansion and the private
jet and the pair of pet ocelots.
You squeeze your aging ass into
those leather pants as long as you
can and you suck down the gal
lon jugs of Rebel Yell and do the
mountains of blow they set before
you. And you take the groupies
three at a time because, let's face
it, that window could slam closed
at any moment.
In the vast array of books
out there devoted to the Holy
Trinity of sex. drugs and rock and
roll there are surprisingly few
books about the first item, and
fewer still told from the point
of view of the girts who snuck
past, sashayed in front of, or just
plain serviced the road crew to
get at rock stars. And most of
those on the shelf are shamefully
apologetic, of the reformed and
repentant variety. Only Pamela
Des Barres' seminal Fm With the
Band and more recently Karrina
Steffens' Confessions of a Video Vixen spring to
mind as memoirs of women who volunteered
to be instruments of rocker debauchery and
came away without regrets.
Add to that number Roxana Shirazi's new
memoir The Last Living Slut Bom in Iran,
Bred Backstage (HarperCoUins, 2010). Shirazi,
by day a working academic and lecturer on
gender theory, presents a frank, graphic and
decidedly unwholesome chronicle of her life
as an infamous sex toy in England 1 s hard-
rock scene. There are more than a few ewww
moments in the book, so be warned.
What sets Shirazi's book apart from other
backj»Uye autobiographies is her b^Wtory.
Bom in Tehran in the waning days of the
Shah to an opium-addict father and a political
activist mother, Shirazi witnessed firsthand
the iron fist of political oppression and then
the even more restrictive hand of religious
oppression with the rise of Khomeini's fun
damentalist Islamic state. Her descriptions of
the Iran of her childhood are evocative and
beautiful something we get precious little of
in books about the Middle East. Less bucolic,
however, are her stories of the repeated
unwanted attentions of older men, something
she credits with discovering her sexuality at
the age of five.
Forced to flee Iran, her family relocated in
Manchester, England, a place as far removed,
in all ways, from Tehran as it's possible to
be. There her family found itself far from
their middle-class background and stuck in
the working-class immigrant trap, and young
Roxana, as a foreigner and a studious pupil,
was picked on mercilessly. As she got older,
however, Shirazi found an escape route in the
music of Guns N' Roses and her visceral (let's
use that word) reaction to metal.
The rest of the book is an endless stream
of sexual encounters as the bisexual and newly
uninhibited Shirazi sets out to hook up with
as many rockers as possible, and her standards
are exacting: only metal, no emo or pop, only
the headliners and never the roadies. She
parties with the likes of Velvet Revolver and
Avenged Sevenfold, and has encounters with
Tommy Lee and the post-heroin Nikki Sixx,
but most of her adventures take place among
B-listers like Towers of London, Buckcheny,
Brides of Destruction, and Adler's Appetite (Dr.
Drew fans know Steven Adler for his amazing
ability to procure smack no matter how thor
oughly the "Sober House' crew searched his
belongings). Things go great until she meets
with GN'R keyboardist Dizzy Reed, with whom
she breaks her cardinal rule and falls in love,
with disastrous results.
Shirazi tries very hard to couch her memoir
in terms of her empowerment through partying
as hard as the boys—even her title is intended
to reclaim the word 'slut' as a pqsitive—but
after awhile the endless depictions of sex start
to wear thin. I actually found myself wishing
she'd devoted more words to tier academic
career. Still, if you want an unadulterated and
horizontal (among others) view of the mad
ness of rock stars collecting their perks. The
Last Living Slut will not disappoint
Nettles
