April 6 - May 26, 2018
VAE is excited to present FEMININE SPECTRUM, a project that includes the work of 16 artists and a suite of 9 programs created in collaboration with guest curator Stacey L. Kirby.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
FEMININE SPECTRUM is the first curatorial project by artist Stacey L. Kirby that celebrates works by the creative community who identify as being on the feminine spectrum. Kirby takes a personal approach to the exhibition by selecting artists that have inspired her gender identity journey as a queer cis white female artist during her time in and outside of the South.
...teachers - artists - mentors - activists - educators - parents - musicians - siblings -partners - researchers - dancers - explorers…
Visitors are invited to reflect on connections between gender identity and creative expression as they experience painting, sculpture, performance, installation, works on paper, video, movement-based workshops with live music. Parenthood, familial roles, social justice, erotic love, questioning of personal and public histories and the evolution of gender identities are topics within FEMININE SPECTRUM. Kirby invites visitors to contemplate their own gender identity and influences as she acknowledges her limited representation of an ever-evolving spectrum.
THE ARTISTS
Daniel B. Coleman
Carson Efird
Ellie Ga
Marie Garlock
Heather Gordon
Beth Grabowski
Harriet Hoover
Katie Johnson
Ann Kalmbach
FEMININE SPECTRUM PROGRAM SCHEDULE
VIP Preview Party
APRIL 5, 7-9PM
FIRST FRIDAY RECEPTION
APRIL 6, 6-10PM
Join us for the public opening reception of FEMININE SPECTRUM along with two other exhibitions in VAE's Warehouse District galleries.
FEMININE SPECTRUM Comedy Night at VAE
APRIL 14, Doors Open at 7PM, Show Starts at 8PM
VAE is hosting six hilarious female comedians in conjunction with the exhibition. Our goal is to showcase talented comedy performers while creating deeper experiences of our exhibitions, encouraging new community connections, and giving you a chance to laugh your head off for 90 minutes.
Cost: $10 | Ages 18+
Get tickets while they last!
FIRST FRIDAY RECEPTION with Live Music by Christy Jean Smith
MAY 4, 6-10PM
Join us for the public opening reception of FEMININE SPECTRUM along with two other exhibitions in VAE's Warehouse District galleries. Writer, artist and musician, Christy Jean Smith, will be performing music from her new project LIVE in the gallery at 7 pm.
Yoga + Live Music Workshop Honoring the Feminine with Carson and Joe
MAY 7, 6:30-8:30PM
What is your relationship to your intuition? Do you hear it? Do you feel it? Do you trust it? Do you act on it? In non-dual Tantric philosophy from which the practice of Hatha yoga emerges, intuition, is an aspect of the divine feminine, Shakti, creative energy, that resides within every living being. In this FEMININE SPECTRUM workshop, dancing yogini Carson Efird + Percussionist Joe Westerlund will share creative practices for tuning into your intuitive nature through music and movement. Please, bring your own mat.
Suggested donation: $15 - $20
Performance Evening: Harriet Hoover, Marie Garlock, Daniel B. Coleman and Susan Harbage Page
MAY 10, 6-8PM
An evening of performance with artists from FEMININE SPECTRUM. Harriet Hoover, Marie Garlock, Daniel B. Coleman and Susan Harbage Page will share new performative works. Q&A to follow.
RALEIGH gets LUEWWD
MAY 18, Doors Open, 6 PM, Show Starts 6:30PM
VAE is proud to host the League of Upper Extremity Wrestling Women of Durham (LUEWWD) for a night of theatrical and competitive women's arm wrestling, in conjunction with FEMININE SPECTRUM! Four contestants will compete for the coveted title of LUEWWD champion. Arm wrestling bouts will be punctuated by comics from Eyes Up Here Comedy, and funds will be raised to support the LGBT Center of Raleigh. Join us for a drink, some fun, laughs, and arm wrestling, all for a great cause!
Free, with a pass-the-hat donation for the LGBT Center of Raleigh.
Drag Brunch
MAY 24
Embracing the Mother in Us All: Shakti Prana Flow Yoga® with Katie McDonald Johnson
MAY 26, 10:00AM-12:00PM
Join Katie McDonald Johnson as she honors the FEMININE SPECTRUM through a yoga workshop celebrating the divine feminine - the great mother of this world and the moon queen - who arises energetically in many forms: fierce, tender, abundant, nurturing. Through shared movement, meditation, and breath, you will have space to connect with the Mother within and in all the ways this supreme energy shows up on life's great spectrum. Please bring your own mat.
Suggested donation: $10-15
THE CURATOR
Stacey L. Kirby is an artist from the American South currently based in Durham, NC. Kirby’s 'performative interactions' and collaborative projects combine installation and performance in both alternative, private and public spaces. Fueled by the current political climate and issues of citizenship, Kirby invites visitors to become active participants in her work to empower the voice within all of us.
Kirby is a recipient of the ArtPrize Eight Juried Grand Prize (2016), the NC Arts Council Artist Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014-15), an ArtPrize Pitch Night Grant (2016) for North Carolina and an Indies Arts Award from the Independent Weekly (Durham, NC) for her participation in the BAIN Project (2009). She is nominee for the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2017) a finalist for the 1858 Prize by the Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, SC) for contemporary southern art. Kirby has also been awarded artist residencies throughout the U.S. including the Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), the Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL) and Artspace (Raleigh, NC). She is also a recipient of grants from the Durham Arts Council and the United Arts Council of Wake County.
Kirby's performances take place in various environments such as vacant historic buildings, protests, festivals as well as traditional art spaces. Kirby has performed and exhibited at ArtPrize Eight (Grand Rapids, MI), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC), the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (Durham, NC), Contemporary Art Museum (Raleigh, NC), North Carolina Museum of Art, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (Charlotte, NC), Bard College, Flux Factory (Queens, NY), Fraction Workspace, (Chicago, IL), California State University in Fresno, Wellesley College (MA) and District Fine Arts, (Washington, DC). Her work is represented in the Duke University Rare Book Collection and other private collections. Kirby has a dual degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Studio Art and in Visual Communications in School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
