Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets

The Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets seeks jugglers, stilt-walkers, fire-eaters, acrobats, musicians, all other performance types, and anyone who wants to be in a parade. Freaky people need apply. We will Assemble at Peculiar Pet Making Parties to make Attire and Adornments that will Transform ourselves into Exotic Creatures! Peculiar Pet Making Parties are free and open to artists of all ages! You may use our art supplies, or bring some of your own.

Peculiar Pet Making Parties:
Sun 8/30 1pm-4pm Bailey Theater Park, 20 North Front St. (next to Kingoff's Jewelers)
Tues 9/1 6-9pm Bottega Bar and Gallery 208 North Front St.
Tues 9/8 6-9pm Bottega Bar and Gallery 208 North Front St.

The Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets as will be featured during the 8th Annual Art Walk in Downtown Wilmington, Saturday, Sep 12th at 1:00pm, starting at Front and Orange Streets.
Peculiar Pet Making Parties need art supplies! Paint-glue-fabric-fur-sparkles-feathers-string-cardstock-ribbon- all that stuff you’ve been saving for something. THE SOMETHING IS HERE! Please donate your unwanted materials to The Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets!
Please drop off materials at Wabi Sabi Warehouse, 19th north 9th Street, this Thursday or Friday or Monday, 10-5pm

For more information:
Chris Andrews artandantiquewalk@hotmail.com
Dixon Stetler dixonstetler@gmail.com

Art Studios available at IAC’s Wabi Sabi Warehouse

Make art in the heart of Wilmington’s Soda Pop District! Like Wow!
Rent includes all utilities, wireless internet, a shared kitchen and
other lively artists nearby.
Get out of your garage! Live!
email Dan Brawley for more info
dan@cucalorus.org

Dixon’s After-School Garbage Art Guild for Kids

The After-School Garbage Art Guild projects involve weaving, painting, performance art, public collaborations, mosaics, sculpture, and assorted other messy fun cool stuff using recycled materials. Garbage Guild kids will end the session with a REAL art exhibition and reception at Wabi Sabi Warehouse.

Classes will be held at Independent Art Company's Wabi Sabi Warehouse, 19 north 9th Street.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays

(sign up for the same day each week)

3:45-5:00pm
September 22- December 17

$350 Tuition includes all art supplies and snacks
Class is limited to 5 students ages 8-13

email Dixonstetler@gmail.com for info

Basic Batik Workshop at Wabi Sabi Warehouse!

Saturday, July 18, 2009
10:00am-4:00pm
$70 includes all supplies

Whether or not you consider yourself artistic, experimenting with batik will lead you to new discoveries about yourself and your creative process. With an understanding of the basic techniques of batik, you can explore a contemporary interpretation of this ancient medium. Layers of color will be created through successive steps of waxing and dyeing, using traditional tjanting tools, brushes and sponges. Prepare to play with the unpredictable, and work intensively on several pieces of batik. Students will complete either an apron or canvas tote.

Class size is limited to 12 adults For registration and information: dixonstetler@gmail.com

Many More Miles

Bike Tire Tube Palapa

Dixon Stetler

Sunset Park Elementary School, Wilmington, NC

March 2009

“My Downtown Wilmington”
@ Wabi Sabi Warehouse Photographs by Carlton Wilkinson Asst. Professor of Art / Gallery Director Dept. of Art and Art History, UNCW
Exhibition dates: March 27-May 1 Opening reception: Friday, March 27, 7-10pm

My Downtown Wilmington
Since my arriving in Wilmington in January 2007 I have had a real roller coaster ride of emotions concerning my living downtown. I soon learned that I joined a beautiful, historic area that has a true dark side. The dark side was a historic separation of race and class.

The housing boom was had just begun to cool off in 2007. I made its final assault in 2008 which put on hold the ‘gentrification’ process that the city encouraged as a renewal of a vital downtown.

There is mixed blessing about the revitalization process as many historic residents were faced with relocation as the area became more expensive to reside in. Property values and taxes have effectively, burdened the low-income residents. The downtown region was marketed as the new, hip neighborhood with the amenities of having central access to the riverfront businesses and landmarks. The poor, black residents were marginally included in this transformation. Additionally, drug and gang activity nag the peaceful existence of young professionals and affluent retirees who decided to nurture the charm of living downtown.

Over the past two years I have photographed some of the nuances that makes Downtown living a great asset, such as, the city festivals, restaurants and access to art performances. But I also photographed the social ills of neglect, poverty, drugs, gangs and crime. The latter is a culture that did not fit in the ‘New Downtown’ historic and revival neighborhood structure. Some might say that these social ills do not fit anywhere else.

I am sharing my experiences with both light and heavy heart. It is a place I now describe as my home – Downtown Wilmington. -Carlton Wilkinson

'Down the Line' Recent work by Erica Morgan at Wabi Sabi Warehouse

Exhibition Dates: February 27-March 20, 2009

Opening Reception:

Friday, February 27th, 7-10pm

Erica Morgan's unconventional artwork revolves around her passion for environmental awareness and sustainability. She uses materials that are both fabricated/manufactured and organic/natural to address the relationship between the two opposites and how they affect each other. All of the fabricated materials she uses are either found, like a discarded sliding glass door frame, or materials previously existing, such as vintage fabrics. The organic material is never alive or still intact with nature when she discovers it and deems it useful and the origin of location for all her materials is absolutely relevant within each piece.

Upon recently moving back to her coastal hometown of Southport, she was faced with a place not recognizable to the little girl who used to go fishing with her dad at 6am on the rocks. The rapid growth of Southport has created development that condemned memories, allowed profit to swallow nostalgia, and ultimately forced the environment to succumb to the people. Of Course, change is inevitable, and Erica understands both sides of this issue within her art.

She believes that neither the organic nor fabricated could exist without the other; just as love would not be love without hate, and life could not be life without death. They simultaneously depend on one another in order to maintain their identities while battling each other for existence. She is not trying to declare the natural or manufactured victorious over the other; because she believes that they do not have to be at odds, and should not be at odds. Ultimately, Erica establishes a balance between the two, believing that in order for society to most efficiently survive, a balance between environment and development is absolutely necessary and urgent.

'Down the line' features unconventional works that address the relationship between Erica and her hometown, her hometown and its growth, and personal relationships that have been influenced due to her hometown.

Please join us on Friday, February 27th, from 7-10pm, for a reception with the artist, and also tour the artist's studio, housed in Wabi Sabi Warehouse.