A vivid and vibrant “Meeting of the Minds” exhibit will be presented on Friday, October 13, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., at The Brooksville Art Gallery At 201, 201 Howell Ave. in Brooksville. This will be a festive night full of visual and performance art to kick off the start of this new exhibit.
“As we move into yet another new year, we recognize that significant cultural communication means reaching out to our neighbors, listening to one another, and working together to create unique, new experiences and works of art!” stated a notice prepared by Pedram Moghaddam, Gallery 201 coordinator. “This show is about collaboration. It mixes media, people, and ideas. At the final show of the year, we will pay tribute to the undeniable talent and culture of the arts throughout Central Florida.”
Among those works featured will be a dynamic origami dragon; one that symbolizes a divine collab between the mother and son artist team of Christine and Journey Weeks. “Christine’s son is an origami wizard,” said Moghaddam. “She is collaborating with him and making a painting where he will show some origami.”
Christine Weeks, a veteran, award-winning Hernando County muralist and sculptor, saw this as an ideal opportunity to share the stage, and the gallery wall, with her talented son.
“When the ‘Call for Artists’ was announced for the upcoming ‘Meeting of the Minds’ exhibit at the Brooksville Gallery at 201, I immediately thought of working on a piece with my son Journey who is an origami artist. Myself and Journey have had work on display, separately, in the past two exhibitions that Pedram has coordinated and we were both excited to be asked to submit to the current show. I asked Journey what he thought of the expression “meeting of the minds” and his reply was collaboration, brainstorming and teamwork. I told him that’s a perfect description and exactly what I need from him,” she said.
Weeks looks forward to revealing the results of this creative family project. “We brainstormed and came up with the idea of attaching his origami to a canvas that will become the backdrop to his creations. It’s going to be wonderful seeing his absolutely amazing craftsmanship and attention to detail on display in a totally new and unique platform. Visitors will want to check out all of the tiny details such as the scales then when you realize this was created from one single sheet of paper with no cuts you’ll understand what it takes to accomplish such a feat.”
Journey Weeks shares his mother’s pride and enthusiasm for their joint artistic effort. “The idea behind this piece is to showcase me and my mother’s combined effort with each other. She had asked me one day to tell her what “meeting of the minds” meant. I had said “teamwork, collaboration, and brainstorming”. The main piece showcased is the ‘Ryu Jin’ 2.1 dragon which is the piece I’m most proud of to date,” he said. “I thought it was a wonderful way to display this work with a beautiful background painted by my mother. I am excited to partner with her and thankful to have Pedram offer this amazing opportunity he has presented me, to put my art out there for the public to admire as well.”
“This dragon was both a nightmare and a dream to make simultaneously,” he continued. “Over a week of work and nearly a decade of dreaming of this day… a model once thought to be a hope for the distant future has been achieved! This model was brought to life, with an accumulative total time of 30+ hours of intricate work. This model was created from one single, uncut 100×100 cm square piece of paper This is known as purist origami.”
Some exquisite media forms the backbone of another collaborative artwork set to debut at ‘Meeting of the Minds.’
“Artist Deda Nicol worked with a friend to collaborate using Cyanotype and leaves. This was done using a black room and sunlight. This process is similar to developing photos. The purpose for this piece is to try and fully use nature to its full potential in connection with art,” said Moghaddam.
Nicol sees the artwork as the lovely product of a lifetime collaboration. “My friend Briana Malagreca and I have been collaborating for 13 years,” Nicol explained. “We like to try different techniques and experiment with new mediums and ideas. We saw this opportunity with Meeting of the Minds as a great way to meet the art community of Brooksville and put out some of our best pieces we have done in unison.”
Nicol sees this work as an artistic extension of nature. “We share a love of nature and the earth which is why we decided to use leaves and different foliage from the land to bring out these pieces which helped us also bring oneness with nature,” she said. “The process was done using cyanotype and leaf. Cyanotype is a camera-less form of photography. In this case, we used sunlight to develop the leaves and flowers onto a blank canvas. Using nature added a unique texture and its own value to our artwork. This was a collaboration with two friends but Mother Nature also had a strong impact on this piece.”
Other “Meeting of the Minds” pieces, according to Moghaddam, will include a collab between the husband and wife team of a metal sculptor and an oil painter, as well as several between poets and sculptors. And true to this spirit, the Meeting of the Minds reception will feature poetic readings from the Just Poets group and live music and dance performances from Janelle Ferber and Bob Webb.
“I’m curating a Ring Leader visual performance for the ‘Meeting of the Minds’ exhibit incorporating visual illusions, aerial lyra arts, LED hoop dance, silk veils, and ending with flame dances (hoop and contact staff)!” said Ferber, a creative dancer. “It will have spooky undertones for Friday the 13th and the month of Halloween! I’ll be starting the festivities at 6 p.m. and the fire dance performance will start at 7:45 p.m. to end the exhibit! I’m excited to enthrall the artist masses and display my visual and performance art!”
Musician and Music Teacher Bob Webb will be performing his signature brand of exotic music at “Meeting of the Minds.” “I will be playing Flamenco, classical, fingerstyle jazz and original guitar compositions,” he said.
Light refreshments will be provided at the “Meeting of the Minds” exhibit reception. This event is free and open to the public.
