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Projects


Movie: I recently made a short film about Andrew Filippone Jr.'s Happy Monday, a sculpture made of 16mm film footage from his failed movie Happy Monday, Mr. Krebs. The film includes interviews with Andrew, photographer Shaun Roberts, and artist and gallery owner Dolores Justus.

Writing: I'm writing an essay about jazz piano. This started when Walter Norris asked me to write liner notes for a new album. The recording was eventually shelved but my liner notes took on a life of their own. Read excerpts here (scroll down).Walter Norris practices in his home in Berlin, Germany.

Movies/music/art: Other recent or ongoing projects include producing a short film for the 2nd annual Arkansas Shorts Festival, hosting the 3 year anniversary of The Gallery@404B, producing a short movie for a symposium on the neurology of musical performance held in Graz, Austria, editing archival footage of Jim Gillihan, the late "keeper of Sitting Bull's pipe," gearing up for the world premier of From Another Star: the Life and Work of Walter Norris (May 09), and preparing for the launch of my new online shop, which will feature the artists of The Gallery@404B and other rare works of visual and musical art.

Movie: Over the last three years I've been compiling footage for a documentary about John Hilliard, the composer commissioned to complete a 222-year-old fragment of music left unfinished by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Dr. Hilliard, whose music was also performed at the 1st inauguration of President Clinton, is my 2nd cousin. That's John (left) and me in the photo below.

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[The following interview was done before the Riceboy Sleeps exhibit and Hammock live premier. I'm leaving it up because these events continue to spawn important art.]

Chuck talks about the Riceboy Sleeps party

Q: Why did Riceboy Sleeps decide to make their American debut in Hot Springs?

CD: Josh Varnedore, who owns Gallery 801, reached out to them and I think they intuited that he's for real, not an art-for-money person. Josh is a fan of their work and he had a very sincere desire to bring it to the states so people here could see it. But there was the problem of shipping the pieces here from Iceland. The frames were so heavy that it was going to cost quite a lot to ship them. So Josh goes out looking and finds these wonderful old pieces of wood and emails photos of them to Iceland and they liked them so much they decided to bring the work to the states without frames and use the frames Josh found. Also, I think they're interested in the hot water springs we have here.Q: How did Hammock get involved?

CD: Marc Byrd's an old friend. Josh and I were talking about ways to enhance the event and I told him that I thought Hammock would be perfect for the after party. I knew Marc was a big Sigur Rós fan. So I called him and he was immediately intrigued and he talked to Andrew and it came together very quickly.

Q: Hammock's never played live before. How does it feel to have Hammock playing their first gig in your house?

CD: Well it's a big honor. The whole idea is to make this a special night for Jonsi and Alex. Hammock's performance is a gift to them, so it's very personal. Keep in mind that they're playing in a room in my apartment for less than a hundred people. And, instead of just performing songs from the albums, they're actually composing new music for this. So we're going to hear new Hammock songs that haven't yet been recorded. This will probably be the only time it happens quite like this.

Q: Back to the subject of Hot Springs, it seems that the art scene here's beginning to attract a lot of attention.

CD: What's happening in Hot Springs is a cultural phenomenon. A generation of young people have grown up in an art community in a little southern town and now they're making art. To me it's like kids growing up in a fishing village deciding to fish for a living, or kids growing up in a factory town who end up working in the plant. Some of them have left to study in New York or wherever, but a lot of them have already come back here. The work they're doing is fresh and unique. The nice thing about a scene that's far removed from the big industry centers is that it has a chance to retain a purity that lets it be powerful. That's what's going on with this work here in Hot Springs.

Q: And your gallery shows this work.

CD: Right. I opened my gallery - The Gallery@404B - for the sole purpose of showing the work the younger Hot Springs artists are making. At first the other galleries here turned up their noses like those aren't real artists, they're just skateboard punks. But after a while, when people from New York and Los Angeles were coming here to see what we were doing, they had to start showing some respect. It's funny though because most of them are still scratching their heads trying to figure it all out.


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