'Color Me Skeptical' on display at UIS gallery

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Feature Writer

Famed editorial cartoonist Chris Britt’s “Color Me Skeptical” exhibit at the UIS Visual Arts Gallery is both surprising and moving. 
Britt’s witty and provocative cartoons appear regularly in The State Journal-Register and other Copley newspapers, so I was a little surprised with his abstracts on display.  At first they seemed like such a departure from his cartoons, but upon closer examination and thought I found his abstracts as Britt-astic as his other work. 
The rather large pieces on display are blocks of color with incredible texture that brings the pictures to life in a multidimensional way.  “Color Me Skeptical” went on display April 3; however, when I went to see it Monday is was still incomplete.  Titles were not up, so I cannot tell you about specific works.   
Each is square or rectangle with similar lines, but they all have a very different life to them.  Nothing about an individual work is hodge-podge or thrown together.  Every line, every square or triangle of color made sense and worked in harmony with the rest of the painting.     
Most of the paintings were playful and almost teasing in their mix of colors and textures.  Yet a couple were dark and unwelcoming. 
The more I looked at Britt’s works, the more different things I saw in each.  They are not just color and texture but something greater then that- a feeling.  If you could see feelings they would look like Chris Britt’s works.  I wanted to stay there all day looking at them to see what else I could find in his paintings.
It is very exciting to find such versatility in any artist, but particularly in an alum of the UIS Visual Arts department.  Britt’s cartoons are distributed to more than 400 newspapers around the country. His work has also appeared in Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today.
“Color Me Skeptical: New Works by Chris Britt” went on display at the Visual Arts Gallery April 3 and will be there until April 21.  The gallery will host an artist’s discussion beginning at 5:30 p.m. on April 21; a closing reception will follow from 6 to 7 p.m. The artist’s discussion, reception and exhibit are free and open to the public.  After looking at his work I have so many unanswered questions about the process and development I look forward to the artist’s discussion.  I strongly urge anyone who can to attend. 
The Visual Arts Gallery is located in HSB 201. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. For further information, contact Lara Stremsterfer at 206-6506 or at visarts-ga@uis.edu.

Dancing in 'Take the Lead' is almost too good

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Feature Writer

  Bottom line: “Take the Lead” could have been a lot worse.  Antonio Banderas plays Pierre Dulaine, a former professional ballroom dancer and dance teacher who volunteers at an inner city high school.  What ensues is your typical heart-warming, motivational story, peppered with some really funny moments and some rather implausible plot turns. 
Dulaine, a bicycle-riding Fred Astaire wannabe, is first motivated to volunteer when he sees a student vandalizing the principal’s parked car.  The school principal, played by Alfre Woodard (“Desperate Housewives”), sees Dulaine merely as a solution to her problem of not having any one to monitor detention, so she allows him access to some students. 
Dulaine finds himself in a room full of hostile teenage misfits (it’s always the misfits) who want nothing to do with his dancing or even the music he dances to.  Leading the kids is Ramos, played by Dante Basco (perhaps you might remember him as Rufio, King of the Lost Boys, from “Hook”) who happened to be a really excellent dancer. 
But shockingly (yes, that was sarcasm) Dulaine sticks it out and the kids eventually come around to the idea of ballroom dance.  But is it Dulaine’s persuasive enthusiasm, or the ballroom competition at the end of the year, in which $2,000 goes to the winner? 
Of course, the kids can’t just learn how to dance and win the competition.  The parent/teacher organization has to threaten to cancel Dulaine’s volunteer program.  In addition, he has to feel the pressure from his dance studio that he isn’t paying it the proper attention.  ATTENTION SPOILER:  Don’t worry, it all works out in the end.
There is also another story going on in “Take the Lead,” which felt a little random but helped to give the audience an idea of what hardships and circumstances the high schoolers faced.  Lahrette (Yaya DaCosta, of “America’s Next Top Model”) and Rock (Rob Brown from “Coach Carter”) both lost siblings to gang violence and blame one another until that crafty Mr. Dulaine force them to waltz together. 
“Take the Lead” is incredibly graphic when it comes to showing the audience the difficulty of being poor in a big city.  The dancing is also very good, too good.  There is no way students could become that good in a matter of months and compete against people who have been studying ballroom dance for decades.  Unrealistic!  I will acknowledge that Banderas was a very fine dancer and his acting was not bad.  However, I would not suggest he start clearing a place on his mantel for an Oscar.
This film is Ray Liotta’s (you know, the scary guy from “Corrina, Corrina”) executive producing debut.  I would advise him to stick to mob movies.  
“Take the Lead” runs 108 minutes and is rated PG-13 for thematic material, language and some violence.
Grade:  C

Make a mixtape

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Columnist

In today’s busy world, very few of us have an opportunity to be artists. The creativity that lives deep within each of us is rarely allowed to see the light of day, because we’re too busy studying, running to the grocery store, getting our oil changed, drinking beer, etc.
And yet, there is a form of art that so many of us engage it that no one ever really realizes.  In its own way, creating a mixtape is a very subtle art as well as the best method of preserving memories.  A mixtape refers to a homemade compilation of songs that was traditionally recorded onto a compact audio cassette.  However, as technology has advanced so has the art of the mixtape, but we still call it a mixtape, even if the CD is now the method of choice. 
Mixtapes generally reflect the musical tastes of their creators.  They can be merely a collection of favorite songs, or a list of songs linked by a theme or experience.  A good mixtape is more then a sum of its individual songs.  It becomes an artistic statement just in which tracks are added and in what order.
Regardless of their theme or mood, the brilliance of the mixtape is the ability to perfectly encapsulate a memory or a moment and conjure memories or feelings with a simple press of the play button.  Music makes different people feel different things.  But the fantastic thing about mixtapes is you can have “I'm In Love Wit a Stripper” right next to “The Elmo Song” and “Dixie,” and it makes complete and total sense to you.  Mixtapes represent a very specific experience in your life.  Mixtapes are the guardians of our memories.
In the words of John Cusack's character from “High Fidelity,”  “the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.”
“The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.”
I think the only rule you need to remember is to just go for it.  After a trip or graduation or whatever, sit down, think about the songs you kept hearing over and over, think about the songs you wished had come on the radio and had not, and think about the songs that talk about exactly what you were feeling or what happened.  Put them on a CD and then whenever you want, you can go back there to the person you were at the time and the experience itself.  Pictures only remind you what everyone was wearing. 

'Color Me Skeptical' on display at UIS gallery

Dancing in 'Take the Lead' is almost too good

Make a mixtape