The December First Thursday Art Walk is bigger than ever this month with exhibits from over 40 artists in 9 different venues, including the Customs House Museum, and the brand new Austin Peay Downtown Art Gallery.

Come spend an delightful evening with many of the best artists in Clarksville-Montgomery County.

Kendall Welsh from ARTIfacts was kind enough to send us this information about December’s artistic extravaganza.

Clarksville/Montgomery County Arts and Heritage Development Council

The Clarksville/Montgomery County Arts and Heritage Development Council invites you to join us for a reception to celebrate the opening of this year’s second high school art performance and exhibit.

December 3, 2009 – 4:00p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Dramatic performance at 4:45 p.m.

• Student Art Gallery, Customs House Museum, 200 S. Second St.
• Art by Kenwood High School students
• Dramatic cutting by Rossview High School students

After the reception, you are invited to continue celebrating the arts in Clarksville on Franklin Street and Strawberry Alley for December’s First Thursday Art Walk.

Downtown Artists Co-Op

The Downtown Artists Co-Op is having their annual Holiday Bazaar.  These are usually smaller works such as 4×6 oil paintings on canvas to 11×14 framed photographs that are provided by the DAC members.  These hand-crafted pieces of art are priced to make them attractive as thoughtful gifts.  The reception will be from 5 until 8 p.m. with The Red River Breeze musical group providing live entertainment with a blend of Celtic and contemporary music. Red River Breeze plays a mixture of traditional folk music, primarily Celtic, Renaissance and Old Time American. The music is all instrumental and is played strictly acoustic which allows the group’s sound to be easy to listen to and very melodic.

• Amy Slater – ceramics
• Cliff Whittaker – photography
• Richard Hogan – painting
• Gail Myers – painting
• Liz Forney – jewelry
• Connie Livingston-Dunne – Fractals
• Susan Bryant – photography
• Dorothy Thomason – painting
• Cyndi McGrail – painting
• Nada Fuqua – painting
• Heidi Hopkins – photography

Peg Harvill Gallery in the Roxy Regional theatre

The Peg Harvill Gallery in the Roxy Regional Theatre will present the work of Claire Coyle Taylor, Nathaniel Taylor and Bobby Conroy Taylor now through December 19. The show will open Thursday at 5pm to coincide with the Roxy’s annual Toy Drive. Thursday night only, you may bring a toy in exchange for a ticket for a sneak preview of the holiday classic HANSEL AND GRETEL. Curtain is a 7pm and the show is rated K for kid-appropriate!

The FrameMaker

The FrameMaker located on 705 North Second Street, will be featuring photographer, Greg Sand.  Greg Sand is an artist and photographer who explores the issues of existence, time, and death. He works primarily with digital photography to produce work that addresses the nature of photography and its role in defining reality. Sand received his BFA in Photography from Austin Peay State University in 2008. The photograph exhibit is “Morphology” -

Morphology is a series about beauty and death. It is an observation of the visual marvels of creatures that were once full of life, but now lie motionless beneath a loupe. This series is a reminder of the ephemeral yet beautiful nature of life.

Visions Metaphysical Boutique

Visions Metaphysical Boutique will have artist Amanda Harrison, acrylics (modern/abstract), & Afton Chandler, acrylics (modern/impressionist).  Visions also would like to encourage everyone to come see all the street art before it is auctioned on Saturday.

Ingredients

Ingredients will feature jewelry designer Melanie Hazen, a high school librarian who has been creating jewelry for the past eight plus years in Cumberland City, Tennessee.  Melanie creates beautiful handmade mixed metal and lampwork glass jewelry.

Ingredients will also be featuring fitness instructor Ludgerio “Nino” Mora.  Nino has been a personal trainer for 9 years, he owns and operates Total Fitness Personal Training located at 110 Franklin Street, Suite 200. Nino will be conducting BMI testing, blood pressure reading, diet plans, and samples of protein bars and drinks.

Austin Peay Downtown Gallery

The Austin Peay Downtown Gallery first opened in early November with “Whatever,” an exhibit of work by APSU Art alumni. Gregg Schlanger, art department chair, said this new show will feature pieces created by full-time and adjunct faculty.   Faculty members participating in the show include Greg Schlanger, Kell Black, Susan Bryant, Mark DeYoung, Jim Diehr, Connie Livingston Dunn, Barry Jones, Rachel Kirk, Suta Lee, Cindy Marsh, Robert Neitzke, Brad Reagan, Billy Renkl, Ken Shipley, Jesse Shaw, Jennifer Snyder and Bruce Childs.

ARTIfacts Emporium

ARTIfacts Emporium will feature the art of Lee Ireland and Peggy Bonnington.

Lee Ireland has been a multi-media artist for over twenty years. She began her career in pastels and pen & ink but ultimately found her niche working with the brilliance of glass in all in various forms.  She started with stained glass windows of all sizes and displayed with the local art group ARTZ. She quickly branched out into mosaics turning shards of glass, broken plates and mirrors into decorative works of art.

Peggy Bonnington has studied and made art from childhood, having worked with many well-known painters, potters, book and ceramic artists over time.  She has experimented with a variety of media including paint; ink, pencil and printing on paper; paper and bookmaking; ceramic mosaic and pottery; and other materials and techniques.  Collage and experimental mixed media particularly draw her.

Most recent work includes fanciful drawing, images and assemblages incorporating a variety of found objects, collected relics, collaged print or texture to create experimental mixed media works intended to be fun for artist and viewer alike.

Hodgepodge

Paige King’s Hodgepodge is featuring the art of Jennifer Ford.  Jennifer is a ceramics artist who lives and works in Clarksville Tennessee with her husband and three children. She received a BFA in ceramics from the University of South Carolina and has also studied at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Having three small children has made it difficult to find time to spend hours in the ceramics studio, so one day she picked up her iPhone and began taking pictures with it as a creative outlet.

A little less than a month after that space first opened, these professors are doing just that. At 5 p.m. on Dec. 3, the APSU Department of Art Faculty Exhibit opens with a reception to correspond with the First Thursday Art Walk through downtown Clarksville. The show runs through Dec. 31, with the gallery closed Dec. 24-26 for the holidays.

The Austin Peay Downtown Gallery first opened in early November with “Whatever,” an exhibit of work by APSU art alumni. Gregg Schlanger, art department chair, said this new show will feature pieces created by full-time and adjunct faculty.

Faculty members participating in the show include Schlanger, Kell Black, Susan Bryant, Mark DeYoung, Jim Diehr, Connie Livingston Dunn, Barry Jones, Rachel Kirk, Suta Lee, Cindy Marsh, Robert Neitzke, Brad Reagan, Billy Renkl, Ken Shipley, Jesse Shaw, Jennifer Snyder and Bruce Childs.

The gallery, located at 116 Strawberry Alley in downtown Clarksville, is open from noon to 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays. For more information on this space or the faculty exhibit, contact Schlanger at 931-221-7789 or .

I remember the first time I heard about Milk; it was during a meeting of the gay-straight alliance at Austin Peay State University. The advisor was long-time gay activist and art professor, Dr. Bruce Childs (who’s now enjoying a very well-deserved retirement). Childs mentioned Harvey Milk in passing during a conversation, which inspired me to learn more about this keystone piece of American gay history.

Back in 1977, when Milk first came to light in San Francisco politics, the country’s gay community was beginning to enjoy some much-needed exposure and was well on its way to achieving a few minor protections and gay-rights laws. (Some, like the anti-discrimination law passed in Dade County, Florida, were later repealed through the work of “religious right” leaders). Bryant later received her thanks: a pie in the face.

Bryant also led the push for Florida’s ban on gay adoption (still the only one in the country, thank goodness). It was men and women like Harvey Milk and other leaders who would work to provide a strong, positive face for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender community. To say that tempers were flared during that time (especially with Bryant’s asinine declaration that she would help “get rid” of all the homosexuals in the country) was a bit of an understatement.

Milk, in stark contrast to the hateful rants of those using religion to excuse their vitriol, devoted much of his life to speaking out against the humanitarian crises of the day. After moving with his then-partner Scott Smith to San Francisco’s, they opened a camera shop on Castro Street — which was quickly becoming that city’s gay neighborhood.

Milk’s popularity grew quickly, thanks to his humor and a certain charm, eventually being called “the mayor of Castro Street,” Ironically, he lost his first election, coming in tenth out of thirty-two candidates in the race for a seat on the Board of Supervisors (city council) of San Francisco. He ran (and lost) again in 1975, and finally won the seat in 1977, thus becoming the first openly-gay elected official in the country.

The brief Biography shown on notablebiographies.com details his very brief time on the supervisory board:

As city supervisor, Milk was the driving force behind the passage of a gay-rights law that prohibited discrimination, or unequal treatment, in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. At his urging, the city announced a drive to hire more gay and lesbian police officers. He also started programs that benefited minorities, workers, and the elderly. Milk then gained national attention for his role in defeating a state senate proposal that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools in California.

Harvey Milk once said, “If a bullet should go through my head let that bullet go through every closet door.” That’s exactly what happened on November 27, 1978, when former city supervisor Dan White shot Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Both men were killed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Milk, a new film by Gus Van Sant, will be released to theatres all across the country. It will be premiered this week in California, sent to limited release on November 26th, and then will go to a wide USA release on December 5th. The movie stars Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, and Josh Brolin as Dan White. James Franco plays Scott Smith. It’s my sincere hope that it will come to Clarksville.

Milk himself was the topic of an earlier Academy Award-winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, released in 1984. The documentary is already known throughout the gay community as the definitive story of Harvey Milk, and the new film stands to reintroduce the entire nation to the story of one man who made a difference in both life and death.

I want to give a special thanks to Dr. Bruce Childs for his work and his tireless passion that he held for his entire tenure at Austin Peay. And I especially thank him for introducing me to the story of a man who’s passion — and life — changed everything.

Thanks, Bruce.