GET YOUR ATH TOGETHER
NOSTALGIA AND LONGING
Help Set the Table: A long-standing
Thanksgiving tradition for many people wish
ing to show gratitude for everything they
have in their life is to help out those in the
community who are in need of more. Local
soup kitchen Our Daily Bread will be closed
on Thanksgiving due to overwhelming com
munity response in hospitality, but other
locations serving Thanksgiving Day meals to
the public include Timothy Baptist Church, the
Campus View Church of Christ and Emmanuel
Episcopal. Volunteers can also help provide
a meal to one of the families in the transi
tional housing program for mothers and their
dependent children through the Athens Area
Homeless Shelter. Contact volunteer@
experienced volunteer instructors, to compete
for the Audience Favorite and Judges' Favorite
awards. The Audience Favorite title will be
determined through voting at the show (one
vote for every $1 donation) and online. All
proceeds will benefit Project Safe, a non
profit organization working to end domestic
violence through prevention and educational
programs, crisis intervention and supportive
services for survivors. Tickets can be pur
chased through the Classic Center box office
by calling (706) 357-4444 or visiting www.
classiccenter.com and are $10 for students
with IDs and children and $15 for adults. For
more details and to vote for your top competi
tors, visit www.project-safe.org.
The Athens Area Humane Society is hosting a Holiday Pet Food
Drive for its Food Bowl program through Dec. 15.
helpathenshomeless.org for instructions on
how to be paired with a family. The Athens
Area Humane Society is similarly hosting
a Holiday Pet Food Drive for its Food Bowl
program through Dec. 15 to gather unopened
bags of cat and dog food that will be distrib
uted to pet owners who would otherwise have
difficulty feeding their pets this holiday sea
son. Visit www.AthensHumaneSociety.org for a
list of drop-off locations. Food Bowl applica
tions and to donate online.
Step Up: The latest brainchild of Pat Priest,
the mastermind behind Dancing with the
Athens Stars, will shake the stage of the
Classic Center on Dec. 4. Initially inspired by
the MAD (Men Against Domestic Violence)
Steppers exhibition that debuted during the
2010 Dancing with the Athens Stars, Priest
and her co-producer Joan Prittie created
Stomp Out Domestic Violence as a new step
competition. The lineup consists of eight
teams representing local businesses and com
munity groups: the Athens Banner-Herald, The
Links, Project Safe, The Omni, Professional
Sisters of Empowerment, St. Mary's Healthcare
System, Orange Twin and Athens Regional
Medical Center. Over the past several weeks,
these teams of novices have been prepar
ing routines full of choreographed clapping,
stomping and shouting, under the direction of
Occupy ATHICA: Many people have
been searching for ways to fuel
political discussion beyond holding
signs along roadsides and camping
out in tents, especially now that
temperatures are dropping. Well,
ATHICA is now accepting submis
sions for "OCCUPY: This Is What
Democracy Looks Like," a benefit
exhibit exploring the Occupy Wall
Street movement (on display through
Jan. 8). The works of 99 artists will
be offered for $99, $9.99 and 99C,
with proceeds supporting OWS. If
you are a local artist interested in
having your work included, email
curator Tatiana Veneruso at occupy@
athens.org with a URL or jpegs repre
sentative of your work and a reliable
phone number, and tell her whether
you would like your work to be avail
able to the public in exchange for
a $9.99 or $99 donation amount
(profit splits available for the lat
ter). The exhibit is also interested in
incorporating performance art (com
edy, music, poetry, etc.), for which a
brief description or video of should
be emailed. The deadline for sub
missions is Dec. 3, although spots
will fill up on a first-come, first-
served basis, and entries must be delivered on
or before Sunday, Dec. 11. A "Draw-In" and
reception will kick off the exhibit on Saturday,
Dec. 17 from 1-3 p.m., during which the pub
lic is invited to drop by and add their own
sketch to the 99-cent wall. Check out www.
athica.org for more information.
Kill Your TV: Registration for late winter
and spring programs through ACC Leisure
Services begins Dec. 3 for residents and Dec.
7 for non-residents. This upcoming season's
lineup includes a wide array of art and dance
classes, theatre workshops, fitness and nature
programs, Spring Break camps, holiday events
and more. Registration takes place at the loca
tion of the program unless otherwise noted,
and full details can be found online at www.
athensclarkecounty.com/leisure. Sign-ups for
classes, seminars and workshops at the State
Botanical Garden are also currently underway.
This winter's schedule includes workshops such
as "Watercolor Inspired by Nature," "Cooking
in the Garden: Bringing the Brine" and
"Design Basics for Edible Landscaping," among
certification courses in medicinal plants, tree
identification and vegetative plant propaga
tion. Online registration is available at www.
botgarden.uga.edu.
Jessica Smith misc@flagpole.com
For many, this time of year is full of nos
talgia. Rituals like Thanksgiving help us mark
time in our lives and remember family holidays
past. Sometimes these are warm recollections,
but sometimes the past is recalled with cring
ing regret or longing for an impossible perfec
tion that never was...
No Place Like Home: This kind of dream world
is one Nina Barnes has created in her 'Tilted
Series": 15 mixed-media pieces on display
at the Faculty Building at Gainesville State
College's Oconee campus. Norwegian artist
Barnes, who is of Montreal mastermind Kevin
Barnes' spouse, describes the inspiration for
these artworks as they occurred between
the release of two of Montreal albums. She
says: "It was, to a degree, a reaction to years
of working towards realizing other people's
visions and wishes."
The scenes she has developed in this series
are wonderfully colored and textured. Often,
a figure at the left foreground engages our
focus. These characters' faces are made up
of layers so that it appears they wear masks,
and the way Barnes has constructed their
visages makes it unclear which is the "real"
flesh and what is the disguise. Most of the
figures stand in front of geometricized houses
and picket fences simplified into visual meta
phors for "home." Trees and mountains in the
background stand against skies textured with
stylized snowflakes or blue craquelure. Barnes
says that these images represent "a troubled
longing for belonging—the nomad that has
nowhere to return. The houses are just dreams,
not in reach; it's the Other's safe haven."
Her artwork has a heartbreakingly beauti
ful melancholy about it. "Tilted Travel," for
example, shows two figures alike in appear
ance holding a red thread between them.
Perhaps siblings, perhaps two parts of a single
self as in Frida Kahlo's self-portrait "The Two
Fridas," they stand in front of a small house,
the thread connecting them both to the home.
A memory of childhood connects them, even
though they seem to occupy different places.
The idea of how we revise memories over time
meshes perfectly with Barnes' creative process.
She says, "The process begins with watercolor
and hand-drawn figures, which are combined
in collage format. Layers and layers of tex
ture are added and then printed—only to be
altered again with watercolor and ink."
This exhibit was coordinated in conjunc
tion with the "Georgia Roots" exhibition on
the GSC's Gainesville campus, which highlights
the transformation of music from its tradi
tional beginnings to its contemporary state.
Barnes' work will be on display at the Oconee
campus through Dec. 8, with an artist's
reception on Dec. 1 at noon. Contact Gallery
Director Beth Sale at bsale@gsc.edu for more
information.
Sand and Spices: Back in Athens, Mohammed
el-Ganouby's paintings in encaustic are on
display at ARTini's Art Lounge on Broad
Street downtown. Though working in com
pletely different media and styles, el-Ganou-
by's work is also concerned with nostalgia,
nomadism and the idea of "home." As an
Egyptian now living in the American South,
his work explores how culture creates a collec
tive identity.
"A recurring feature of my
paintings, installations and
mixed-media pieces is the use
of raw materials—sand, wood,
spices and wax—chosen both
for their association with rural
southern Egypt, where I grew
up, and for their suggestion of
primitiveness. The use of such
materials draws on my own
individual memories of time and
place, speaks to collective local
histories and plays with com
mon stereotypes of Egypt's rural
population as being both back
ward and the living embodiment
of authentic Egyptian culture,"
he explains.
Reminiscent of Mark Rothko's
paintings, el-Ganouby builds up
color and texture in rectangular
planes to create what appear
to be doorways or portals. The
image on the canvas is a thresh
old, sometimes occupied by vague figures
scratched into the pigmented wax and other
times vacant. Though not really figurative, one
untitled painting appears to be an abstracted
landscape. The lower portion of the canvas is
dominated by pigment textured like oxidized
rust while the blue sky hangs above, the two
squares connected by cross-hatching and the
barest outline of trees or reeds incised into
the wax. El-Ganouby's paintings are exhib
ited opposite portraits and rural scenes by
Madison, GA painter Cheryl Whitestone. On
view through early December.
The Art of War: The intersection of our public
and private selves is the subject of the current
issue of The Georgia Review. In addition to
essays and short stories on this theme, the fall
issue includes images of artwork by war veter
ans titled the "Combat Paper Project."
Mindy Wilson, Managing Editor, describes
the project: "The 'CPP' is an organization
devoted to helping war veterans try to make
some peace with their battlefield experiences
by teaching them how to make handmade
paper out of their old uniforms. The work we
published is a series of prints these vets made,
featuring their interpretations of traditional
war images on this so-called 'combat paper.'"
Check out the portfolio at http://garev.
uga.edu/fallll/artintro.html and look for the
fall issue in bookstores.
Caroline Barratt arts@flagpole.com
Nina Barnes' mixed-media works are on display at Gainesville State
College’s Oconee campus through Dec. 8.
NOVEMBER 23,2011- FLAGPOLE.COM 9
