A Night of PechaKucha Talks Hosted by CVA Action

Saturday was another great event hosted by CVA Action (the nonprofit where I'm the vice president of the board). We held a night of PechaKucha artist presentations by 8 former CVAers. Basically, a PechaKucha lecture is where you present 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds - once the presentation starts, you have to keep up with the rapid-fire slides, and then you're done 6 minutes and 40 seconds later. They were informative, inspirational, and entertaining. We had the pleasure of holding the presentations at Rosalux Gallery where Val Jenkins (former Chair of Fine Arts at CVA) was in a 2-person show.

Here are a number of photos that show a bit of what the night was like:

Photo from Josh of Val, me, and Shannon (board president) shortly after starting to get set up.


Photo from Diane of Caroline and I working on some lighting.


A photo that CVA Action Instagrammed showing that the food truck had arrived just outside the gallery.


People starting to arrive.


Photo from Josh of some of the ENKI growlers of beer.


[click image to enlarge] - Diane's panorama of Shannon getting the night kicked off!
You can see me standing near the front, as I was about to be introduced as the emcee for the event.

Things got underway, and (after we got the projector turned on) the night went off without a hitch. Board President Shannon and I both snapped crappy iPhone photos of the presenters from either side of the gallery:

Pascal Staub was our "remote" presenter presenting from Switzerland. Here's video of him
presenting on the computer screen, with his work being projected on the wall behind him.


A photo from Josh from the back, showing the projection and a pleasantly crowded gallery.


Joseph Kuefler working to inspire us.


Joseph


DC Ice sharing her work.


DC


Another photo of DC from Kolean P, former professor at CVA sitting in the front row.


Jehra Patrick discussing the work she's done with MNArtists.org and the Walker Art Center.


Jehra from the back.


Abby Haddican talking about her design process.


Abby (and yes, that's Ryan Gosling on the computer screen...)


Ben Levitz sharing how he worked towards opening his printmaking shop "Studio on Fire."


Ben


Marc Stephens sharing a mini-retrospective of Aaron Purmort's work.


Marc


Jamey Erickson getting ready to entertain us with stories of starting/closing his design firm,
astro photography, sending cameras/weather balloons into space, and his newest start-up.


Jamey was too expressive: all of my photos of him look something like this.


[click image to enlarge] - Our 7 presenters: DC, Abby, Joseph, Marc, Jehra, Ben, and Jamey.
(Not pictured: Pascal from Switzerland.) Thanks you 8! You were amazing!!

People hung around to talk with the presenters and to eat more tacos afterwards.

Photo from Josh of people mingling post-PechaKucha.


As the CVA Action board cleaned up, we finished the last of the ENKI beer.


Rosalux was put back to normal to showcase Val Jenkins and Laura Stack's work by 10:30 p.m. What a night!

Stay tuned for maybe 1 more post from the PechaKucha talks once some more images come in. And check out CVA Action's website and Facebook page for more info.

p.s. The day after the PechaKucha talks, the REVERBERATIONS show at Form+Content and Traffic Zone Galleries came down. Here's CVA Action board member Diane B taking out some nails as Lynda and Kaitlin take a piece off the wall:

Never mind my son in the foreground...

Here are some photos from the REVERBERATIONS opening, and here are some photos of the show itself.

Crazy Good Photoshop Skills

As seen on 9gag, here's someone who's a Photoshop wiz:

Someday, I hope to be that good in Photoshop. Someday.

Pecha Kucha Artist Lectures

CVA Action is hosting a night of PechaKucha artists lectures at Rosalux Gallery THIS SATURDAY, March 21, 2015.

From the CVA Action Facebook page:

What is a PechaKucha you ask?

PechaKucha is a simple presentation format of a set of 20 slide show images, each image advances automatically every 20 seconds as the presenter shares their work. We are thrilled to have 8 artists and designers who attended the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN share a snapshot of their work since their CVA days!

PechaKucha presenters are DC Ice, Jamey Erickson, Abby Haddican, Joseph Kuefler, Ben Levitz, Jehra Patrick, Pascal Staub and the late Aaron Purmot, whose work will be presented by his colleague Marc Stephens.

See you there!

In addition to the quick 6 minute and 40 second presentations, we will have food from A La Plancha Taco Truck available for purchase, and beer from ENKI Brewing. Here's a photo from CVA Action on Instagram from earlier today:

Some of our growlers from @enkibrewing for our #PechaKucha talks Saturday night.

Here's a flyer we passed out at the "Reverberations" opening reception with brief bios on the presenters:


[click the flyer for a larger version]

To attend, you do NOT need to be someone who went to CVA. We're doing this as a way to highlight the great artists who came out of CVA. So come to this if you're interesting in hearing about designers, illustrators, printmakers, and arts administrators talk about their work and their life in the arts. Or simply come because you like Mexican food and beer.

Rosalux Gallery, Saturday night: 1400 Van Buren Street NE #195, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Here's our Facebook event page. See you there!

"Reverberations" Exhibition at Form+Content and Traffic Zone Galleries

I recently stopped by Form+Content and Traffic Zone Art Galleries to photograph the CVA Action "Reverberations" show. Here are a few photos from Form+Content:

That's my piece to the far left.












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And here are some photos from Traffic Zone:

The traffic light outside of Traffic Zone Gallery.




The desk in the middle was part of a performance at the opening by Aki Shibata.














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If you missed it, CLICK HERE to see lots of photos from the opening reception of "Reverberations" from earlier this month. And stop by to see the show before it comes down next weekend.

UP NEXT for CVA Action events is a night of artists talks coming up next weekend. Here's the Facebook event page. I'll post more about this next week. We'd love to see you for tacos, beer, wine, and artist lectures on the 21st!