Photo by Sarah Elizabeth Larson
Monday, December 2, 6PM
Logan Center for the Arts, Penthouse Room 901
Logan Center for the Arts, Penthouse Room 901
As vanessa german's Gray Center Fellowship Exhibition comes to a close, the Open Practice Committee in the Department of Visual Arts, the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, and Logan Center Exhibitions present a performative talk with the artist and music producer & engineer Adam McDaniel, Co-founder of Drop of Sun Studios and Production.
vanessa german's Gray Center Fellowship Exhibition is curated by Zachary Cahill, Stephanie Cristello, and Mike Schuh and is supported by the Joyce Foundation.
Bios:
vanessa german (b. 1976, Milwaukee, WI) lives and works between Pittsburgh, PA, and Asheville, NC. Her artistic practice is intertwined with and inextricable from her dedicated role in activism and community leadership. In 2011, german founded the Love Front Porch in Pittsburgh, an arts initiative for the women, children, and families of the Homewood neighborhood that began after she moved her studio practice onto the front steps of her home. Three years later, in 2014, german expanded the space to encompass ARThouse, which combines a community studio, a large garden, an outdoor theatre, and an artist residency. Upholding artmaking as an act of restorative justice, german confronts the emotional and spiritual weight imposed by the multi-generational oppression of African American communities. As a queer Black woman living in the United States, german has described this as a deeply necessary process of adventuring into the wild freedom that the inhabitation of such identities demands.
Adam McDaniel founded Drop of Sun Studios and Production in 2015 out of a home studio with seven-foot ceilings and one room for all recording and monitoring purposes. While on paper it was a very modest-sized studio, the atmosphere and inspirational energy attracted local and nationally recognized artists to return time and time again to help realize their creative goals. Awareness spread by word of mouth and began to flourish with a need for an approachable space for creators at any level in their career. In 2018, Adam partnered with his friend and fellow producer, Alex Farrar, and what continued to define the studio went much further than the space itself or a list of gear, but an spirit of true collaboration and comfortability which made artists feel welcome and safe to create. The hope was to foster a true sense of community and help to further develop a new chapter of the music scene in Asheville and beyond.
In September of 2021, Drop of Sun Studios and Production opened the doors of their new location in West Asheville and quickly accelerated the amount of collaborations with artists both near and far, such as Angel Olsen, Archers of Loaf, Animal Collective, MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, and Indigo de Souza. The studio spaces are expertly designed to deliver beautifully accurate sound. In addition to acoustic excellence and top-of-the line equipment, the creative atmosphere is unparalleled in comfort, resources, and inspiration.
The original mission and desire to foster this local scene is further enabled by Lamplight AVL, a non-profit which offers studio space to artists, along with a time and place for exhibiting or performing created works. Lamplight AVL is also a major fundraiser for artists impacted by Hurricane Helene. What grew out of a one-room basement studio is now a centerpiece in the arts movement coming out of Asheville, North Carolina.