September 2020 THE CHARBONNEAU VILLAGER 11
Charbonneau Arts
Association
By ERIC HOEM
The art gallery will
feature “The
Pandemic Art Project”
What started as
a necessity for
our Charbonneau
Festival of the
Arts is fast becoming
a fun project
with new opportunities
being
HOEM
created. The CO-
VID-19 crisis forced us to change
plans and develop a virtual arts festival
in order to have any hope of accomplishing
any fundraising mission.
As the last couple months have gone
by, we are finding ways to expand
our horizon rather than just copy online
our traditional in-person weekend
festival.
Enter “The Pandemic Art Project”
The art gallery area of our 2020 Charbonneau
Festival of the Arts will include
a timely feature: “The Pandemic
Art Project.” Organizers envision this
gallery to be a space where responses
to the COVID-19 crisis can be shown.
Registration for this part of our virtual
exhibit will be open to all ages. In the
registration area of our website, students
will need to provide parent or
guardian permission. Otherwise, the
“Pandemic Art Project” will be combined
exhibit. Participants will be offered
the opportunity to tell the story
behind pieces of art created during this
pandemic.
Personally, I am looking forward to
seeing what students are developing in
relation to the pandemic. We know that
the lives of young people are being
thrown upside down by the pandemic:
staying at home, no school, no personal
time with friends. What has life during
quarantine been like for them and how
might it be reflected in art?
Our project hopes to provide a space
where artists can express their experiences
creatively in ways that verbal descriptions
cannot fully accomplish.
Lead organizer, Elaine Swyt, hopes that
through this part of this year’s festival,
“We will be enriched all the more for
sharing this with our festival viewers.”
Music stage
Another opportunity that a virtual
arts festival offers is that we can include
a broader range of music. Charbonneau
resident and jazz guitarist David
Rowe is organizing this part of the
2020 festival. Already, a number of notable
musicians will be appearing on
our music stage.
Singer-songwriter Molly Tentarelli
will be sharing tunes from her debut album.
It is described as “an autobiographical
musical journey of her life . . .
her love, her heartbreak, her sense of
humor, her art, and most of all . . . her
music.” After I visited her website and
listened to a couple tracks, I was convinced
that Molly is the real deal. As a
vocalist, she has a sensitive delivery,
assured musicality, and clarity of content
that I found quite appealing.
Another musician participating in
our virtual music stage will be guitarist
and composer Don Latarski. Don recently
retired from the University of
Oregon where he headed the guitar
studies program and has published extensively
about guitar technique. Living
in Oregon, he has naturally taken
his guitar outside and let the surroundings
influence his musical composition.
He recently composed a 32-minute
piece for guitar. Inspired by a journey
taken in the Oregon outback, he illustrates
the musical score with a collage
of original videography, still frame photography,
and computer animation.
“River Suite” is a nine-part work of audio-video
art that carries us down river
from the Cascade mountains to the
shore of the Pacific Ocean. I enjoy
sounds of the acoustic guitar and was
mesmerized by this multimedia composition.
Other musicians joining the music
stage include Basso a Deux, Rebecca
Hardiman, Becky Hunt, Kevin Karrick,
the LeMaster Jazztet and David Rowe
with Oren Sreebny.
The 2020 Charbonneau Festival of
See CHARBONNEAU / Page 12
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