PASC END OF MAY 2024 NEWSLETTER | |
It has been quite a month, the only word that comes to mind is bananas! We launched our first public studio and gallery in Detroit, PASC Detroit at Lantern, with a huge public opening on May 9. Cranbrook Art Museum is adding 15 PASC artworks to their permanent collection and PASC attended a symposium with over 80 other professionals from progressive art studios across the US and the world. Read more below.... | |
Left Image: Scott Campbell speaking to PASC artists in the PASC Detroit Gallery about curatorial practice.
Right Image: audiences at the opening of If Anyone Can Hear This, May 9, 2024, at PASC Detroit Gallery.
| PASC DETROIT AT LANTERN OPENING |
Our PASC Detroit at LANTERN grand opening was an incredible success. We had hundreds more people then have ever attended to view the exhibition If Anyone Can Hear This, curated by the effervescent artist and curator Scott Vincent Campbell, and tour through our new, airy and bright studio. We’ve sold 11 artworks out of this beautiful show. Many more are available on our website or at the gallery. Drop by soon to see them in person before the exhibition closes on June 15th.
PASC Detroit, which all who read our newsletter are well aware, is inside LANTERN a newly developed arts and culture centered warehouse in the East Village neighborhood of Detroit. We share this building with current tenants Signal-Return, several Detroit-based artists with studios on the second floor, and future tenants Collect Beer Bar, Coup D'état, Café Franco and Assemble Sound. There will be a ribbon cutting in the Fall when construction is complete and all tenants are fully moved in. This project and other projects by the Curis' are gaining a lot of national attention, bringing attention to PASC. Read more about the initiative in NY Times, Art Forum, Bloomberg, Wallpaper magazine.
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Left Image: Intrepid PASC Art Advisors Renee Willoughby and Ben Haddix leaning against our 24ft moving truck used to move all studio equipment into the new PASC Detroit at Lantern.
Right Image: PASC artists working inside the new PASC Detroit Studio.
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It has taken a lot of perseverance and perspiration to get us here. PASC is lucky to have such a dedicated staff who have worked long and hard to prepare our new space, from moving heavy equipment from our old to new studio, to organizing and rearranging the studio, to painting walls in the gallery. We are thankful for our incredible staff, our supportive new neighbors, and Library Street Collective who have brought us along in their ambitious plans for cultural development in Detroit. The new space looks and feels fantastic.
And most importantly our PASC Detroit artists should be celebrated. For they have moved almost seamlessly into this new space, with an overall sense of gratification and overwhelming confidence. You can see the change in their artwork, it is lighter, more open, and driven than the work they made in our previous private studio. It speaks boldly. "See me, I am an artist, this is my space!"
Our move into LANTERN signifies a monumental chapter for PASC, Services to Enhance Potential (STEP), and the Detroit art world, situating us alongside other pivotal neighboring art organizations such as Signal-Return, The Shepard, I. M. Weiss Gallery, Pewabic Pottery, Louis Buhl Gallery, and others, in this vibrant arts-and-culture-centric neighborhood. Our proximity to other professional artists and the broader art community will empower PASC artists, expand their cultural identity from artists with disabilities, to simply artists, playing a pivotal role in the evolution of Detroit's art and culture scene. Please consider donating to PASC to help us cover our moving expenses and further our program.
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Top Image: View of Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Bottom Images from Left to Right: Alsendoe Owens, Orange and Blue Face, 2023; Sherri Bryant, Imagination Map, 2023; Ronald Griggs, Man with Popsicle, 2023, 3 of 15 artworks accessioned into Cranbrook Art Museum's permanent collection.
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CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM ACCESSIONS FIFTEEN PASC ARTWORKS INTO THEIR COLLECTION | |
In more astonishing PASC news, Cranbrook Art Museum has overwhelmingly voted to accession fifteen artworks by PASC artists Sherri Bryant, Marquise Rucker, Alsendoe Owens, Jeremy Dillard, DeRon Hudson, Ronald Griggs, Keisha Miller, Lewis Foster, Renee Rogan and Nejwa Elghoul. This work will not only become a part of their permanent collection at Cranbrook Art Museum, but will also be exhibited in the museum within the next year in their collections exhibition.
This is an incredible achievement for these artists and marks a growing trend by museums to collect and recognize the importance of artists with disabilities and progressive art studios, as key contributors to local and national contemporary art. We will update the public when these artworks will go on view.
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NEXT PASC EXHIBITION "PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE" CURATED BY MATTHEW HIGGS AND ERIN SOMERVILLE OF WHITE COLUMNS
We are excited to announce that our next exhibition "People Are People", opening on June 20, 5-7pm; at PASC Detroit Gallery, is an exhibition of portraiture by PASC artists and will be curated by Matthew Higgs, Director/Chief Curator and Erin Somerville, Deputy Director/Curator both at White Columns, NYC. White Columns is a non-profit art gallery founded in 1970 by artists to serve as an experimental platform for art, serving underrepresented artists.
In addition to presenting art exhibitions by emerging artists director Matthew Higgs has been a staunch champion of artist with disabilities from progressive art studios across the United States, sharing their artwork with new audiences through White Columns and other exhibition venues and opening them up to further gallery and exhibition opportunities. Erin Somerville is a Detroit native, prior to her work with White Columns, she was co-founder and co-director of the exhibition space Cleopatra’s in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Bridget Finn, a long time PASC art advisory board member. We are thrilled to have Matthew and Erin on board for this future exhibition.
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Left Image: PASC Art Advisor Eleni Zaharopoulos and Anthony Marcellini, PASC Program Manager, standing in front of Creative Growth artist William Smith's mural at SFMOMA.
Right Image: Lori Bartol, Director of Center for Creative Works and Deni Fisher, Director of Art of Life with Anthony Marcellini speaking on a panel at the Creating Community Symposium about the development of a national Progressive Art Studio Alliance.
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PASC ATTENDS 5TH ANNUAL CREATING COMMUNITY SYMPOSIUM, OAKLAND, CA
Two PASC staff members, PASC Art Advisor Eleni Zaharopoulos and PASC Program Manager Anthony Marcellini, attended Creative Growth’s 5th Annual Creating Community Symposium, alongside 80 other symposium participants from numerous art studio programs for disabled artists from across the US, Canada, England and even Australia. This is anual event gathers staff from progressive studios across the country to share experiences and strategize with others in our small but growing field.
Creating Comminity supported presentations from many studios on everything from sales, to social media strategies, to public art projects. Anthony was also part of a group of studio leaders from across the country who are proposing the development of a Progressive Art Studio Alliance (PASA), a member organization that will work towards expanding resources and changing policies to improve the outcomes of supported studio programs across the United States, providing shared opportunities for advocacy, collaboration, education, research, and public policy.
Both Eleni and Anthony were lucky to attend this fantastic conference and will be sharing what they learned with the rest of the PASC team.
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WELCOME AMBER BEASLEY PASC DETROIT GALLERY ASSISTANT
PASC welcomes our newest staff member, Amber Beasley, Gallery Assistant at PASC Detroit Gallery. Amber is helping to run our first permanent gallery in Detroit. Amber is a Detroit native and alumnus of Wayne State University, earning a B.F.A in Art History with a personal concentration in Black American and African history, contemporary art, culture, and folklore. Amber is a multi-disciplinary artist with an intense love for her community and city. She participated in ICI's Detroit Curatorial Seminar from November 2023-April 2024.
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Left Image: Alison Wong Director of Wasserman Projects speaking with Brent Mikulski, former CEO of STEP, and Anthony Marcellini, PASC Program Manger, about PASC at BasBlue.
Right Image: Rodney Hudson standing between two of his artworks presented in PASC at BasBlue, BasBlue, Detroit
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ONGOING EXHIBITIONS: PASC AT BASBLUE & COSMIC CONNECTIONS
PASC at BasBlue
Art of BasBlue
Location: BasBlue, 110 E. Ferry St, Detroit
Exhibition Dates: March 10 – June 30
Alison Wong, Curator and Director of Wasserman Projects, has curated a selection of artwork by thirty-four PASC artists as part of the Art of BasBlue program supported by Wasserman Projects Fund. BasBlue is a non-profit organization made possible by the BasBlue Foundation, dedicated to empowering economic mobility and leadership skills, and providing resources for personal and professional development for underrepresented and under-resourced women and non-binary individuals in Southeast Michigan.
Featured artists Stanley Brown, Sherri Bryant, Alyce Carter, Sereal Crawford, Detroit Angel Tweety, Santina Dionisi, Julieann Dombrowski, Chantell Donwell, Robert Duncombe, Zaineb Elhasan, Derek Ellis, Lewis Foster, Ronald Griggs, Khristopher Harris, Rodney Hudson, Susan Hudson, Shawn Jackson, Joseph Lucas II, Tracy Mason, Ryan McDonaugh, Nathaniel McNeal Jr, Keisha Miller, Debbie Osteen, Alsendoe Owens, John Peterson, Angela Rhodes, Dale Roberts, Renee Rogan, Marquise Rucker, Gayle Sanford, Thomas Saunders, Aaron Taylor, Jeremy Taylor, and Lauren Williams.
Cosmic Connections
Location: PASC Southgate Gallery,13721 Eureka Road, Southgate, MI
Exhibition Dates: February 29 – June 21
Hannah Lilly, PASC Lead Art Advisor, has curated Cosmic Connections our next show at our PASC Southgate gallery. This exhibition showcases several PASC Southgate and PASC Westland artists, who present artworks that reveal our universal 'cosmic' connections through figurative and abstract language, from depictions of planets, to our human and natural commonalities.
Featured Artists: Manual Bart, Autumn Bez, Jirard Bond, Stanley Brown, Therrin Burns, Alyce Carter, Dennis Cenzer, Jon Coleman, Ryan Cooke, Santina Dionisi, Robert Duncombe, Zainab Elhasan, Bethany Fater, Alex Ferguson, Derrick Hall, Montgomery Matthews, Billy Medley, Megan Mowers, Justin Pollard, Josef Rampp, Randy Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ferree, Marquise Rucker, Nicolas Tamsen, James Tischler, and Theodore Thornton
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Progressive Art Studio Collective is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP) a non profit organization which provides support and services to over 1,400 persons with developmental disabilities and mental health differences in Wayne County. | |
@ProgressiveArtStudioCollective | |
Services To Enhance Potential (STEP) News | | | | |