Posted on 05/15/2008 7:57:42 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Annmarie Zwack has been named the Ithaca Festival's Artist of the Year.
Few Finger Lakes artists can claim to have impacted the American social conscious like Zwack can.
Her most recent work, "American Prophets," portrays famed author of The Color Purple, Alice Walker, filmmaker Michael Moore, and Julia Hill, a young woman who managed to save an old growth Redwood tree by living in it for more than two years. Zwack comments on the series, "With the current political situation, both at home and abroad, I have been feeling that it is important to have some positive examples of people speaking up, speaking out and making their voices heard. This idea inspired me to begin a series of quilted portraits of people I consider American Prophets."
Zwack has lived in the Ithaca area for 11 years. In that time she has painted murals for businesses and homes, taught art classes to kids at CSMA, GIAC, South Side Community Center and area schools, painted sets for three local theaters, and shown her work all over town.
It was at one of her exhibits, at Just a Taste restaurant, that Ed Marion, president of the Ithaca Festival board of directors, spotted her series titled Potential Buddhas. It is a collection of portraits in which the sitter was asked to choose a color to represent them. Painting from life, Zwack used the color to describe them.
When this years festival theme was decided: I am Ithaca, Marion thought of the portraits Zwack had painted and imagined them on the Ithaca Festival t-shirts.
With the theme I am Ithaca Zwack suggested the I-Fest organizers look at another piece of her work too. A painted silk quilt called Ithaca shows a woman holding the sun and her body becomes the earth and the waterfall her dress. With the Festivals change of date this year to Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, this Ithaca sun goddess was a perfect visual statement of the theme. Thus a design for the Ithaca Festival button, that supports the cost of the event, was born.
This year the Ithaca Festival also has a new director, Jake Roberts, who has a green vision for the Festival. The Festival aims to have a zero carbon emissions footprint.
I can see why she was chosen as an artist whose work exemplifies Ithaca.
Green Green - The New Christy Minstrels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NvLkBA9vsQ
When Green was fun, not a religion.
More here: http://www.zwackart.com/me/me_main.html
I was hoping against hope that just for once we'd get something like:
"Ms. Zwack made beautiful paintings of our local landscapes."
"Ms. Zwack wrote riveting plays about the moral choices a family must make. People of all ages could learn from and enjoy her productions."
"Ms. Zwack sang beautiful songs in the great American songwriting tradition of George Gershwin and Irving Berlin."
Oh, well. Back to reality.
Yeah, but what I really want to see is her velvet rendition of the Indian maiden flanked by her horse and pet wolf. That's the real test of artistic merit....
lol.....what a bunch of clowns.
hey that looks like a bitter white guy-where’s the gun and bible?
hey that looks like a bitter white guy-where’s the gun and bible?
I thought it was how well you can paint dogs playing poker.
There is no greatness in the arts anymore... or it’s never seen due to the political commentary. But I’m glad that if anybody paints Michael Moore it’s some third rate artist rendering a third rate American his third rate due. It’s all turd rate.
Oooooo!! That even beats my "Dogs playing poker". And, the copy on my mantle of "Elvis, sweating".
The Elvis is from his later, doughnut period though. Not as valuable as the works depicting his earlier performances.
"We're going to need a bigger canvas."
LOL! I crack myself up.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill was a very pathetic young woman. Brain-damaged in an auot accident, she was cruelly manipulated by Earth First and its fellow travelers. They kept her a virtual prisoner in that tree, long after she had let it be known that she wanted to c ome down. In the end, she did not save the tree and simply threw away two years of her life.
Is that supposed to be Michael Moore? It looks more like Bill Gates.
Are they going to use the quilt of Michael Moore as a circus tent?
He ate them already.
SOLD for a record $41,000,000.
Well not really. They sold some cow sliced in half in preserving fluid for that. But that just leaves the neglected bargains of today's market for the savy buyer.
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