Libby and I were in Projects Gallery the other day and saw some new work by Caleb Weintraub, a favorite artist of ours (who had a show at Projects in 2006). That reminded me I want to pass on a couple links to a great, hot-off-the-presses interview with Weintraub by Christopher Lowrance of mwcapacity blog. Part 1 and
Part 2.
I know that Weintraub lives in Bloomington, Indiana and I asked Lowrance whether he was in Bloomington as well (the interview is by email so he could be anywhere). And I also asked him to tell me a little about his blog, which is a team blog by two artists, Lowrance and Sam King. Here’s what I learned.
mw capacity is run by myself and Sam King, who both have mfas in painting from Indiana University, Bloomington (Sam ’04, me ’01). Sam lives in Fayetteville, AR, now, and I live in Columbia, MO. We both paint and do some teaching. Sam seems to have a lot of little projects besides: plays in indie bands, did a hilarious webcomic, etc. (My 5 month old is my only other project.) Most of our “about” blurb ideas are really hokey: ‘showcasing underexposed artists working outside of urban centers’ or ‘using the internet to build more feeling of community among midwestern artists’ , or same but ‘…dialogue between midwestern artists’. I think Sam’s short but sweet slogan, ‘a painter blog for no-coasters’ still has the best ring to it.
Hey, I don’t think those mission statements are hokey! There’s a real need for getting the word out about great artists who live outside urban centers…and creating dialog/communication about that and about ideas that matter…well that’s a terrific thing to do. (mw in mwcapacity by the way stands for midwest–just in case you wondered). Check it out.
