{"id":370,"date":"2014-07-27T14:34:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T14:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/?p=370"},"modified":"2014-07-27T14:34:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-27T14:34:15","slug":"the-instrumental-role-of-artomatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/2014\/07\/27\/the-instrumental-role-of-artomatic\/","title":{"rendered":"The Instrumental Role of Artomatic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Artomatic Chair Emeritus and founder George Koch speaking at the opening of Artomatic Takes Flight on July 25, 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the opening reception for Artomatic Takes Flight, the 2014 iteration of Washington’s\u00a0non-juried free arts event at The Gallery Walk at Reagan National Airport<\/span>, Artomatic founder George Koch spoke eloquently about the simple goals of Artomatic: first\u00a0and foremost,\u00a0to build community among artists. Photographer DJ Choupin and author\/librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, both long-time volunteers, were there. \u00a0After George spoke, Stephan caught up with him and told him this:<\/p>\n

A Roadkill Opera<\/strong><\/em> was workshopped in Crystal City, Virginia, at Artomatic 2012. The workshop concert\u00a0was so well received (“sprawling room only” as every seat was filled and people were sprawled on the carpet) that Parker and conductor\/music director Jeffrey Dokken co-produced a studio recording with Blue House Productions’s Jeff Gruber in Kensington, Maryland, in 2013. In the do-it-yourself spirit of Artomatic, when\u00a0Parker released the recording in 2013, he\u00a0also published all the sheet music for the score and parts, so anyone can put on the 59-minute opera. The support, encouragement, and facilities provided by Artomatic were instrumental\u00a0and go back to the second Art-O-Matic.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Artomatic is always interactive. At the opening for Artomatic Takes Flight, markers and rolls of paper were provided and used by artists to mark the occasion.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parker exhibited at\u00a0Art-O-Matic 2000 in Tenleytown, in the District of Columbia, highlighting the one-act plays that featured the character Eddie, Parker’s comedy partner in Wyoming. \u00a0“Loose Lips,” a one-act that is set in Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson, Wyoming, has Eddie spinning a yarn about his involvement in the French commando attack on Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior II.<\/p>\n

Talk about a small world: Jay Marx, who was also at Art-O-Matic 2000, read “Loose Lips” at Parker’s exhibit. He emailed Parker:<\/p>\n

Sat, Oct 21, 2000 4:08 pm<\/span>\r\n\r\nDude, I wish you had put a phone number on your installation somewhere and we could've been in touch days ago, because my email access is way sporadic, but suffice to say that I spent 9 summers of my youth in Jackson Hole and I knew Nora, before she ran the Fish Creek Inn, from running the JH Rodeo's concession stand, and now I'm acting, some, here in DC and helping to book the Literary Stage at A-O-M, and I will consider this whole artomatic venture a personal failure if we fail to arrange a staged reading of your plays, either on the lit. stage or upstairs on the Rhinocerous stage, and \r\nPlease Call Me, at your earliest convenience, if such a proposition \r\ninterests you--\r\nJay Marx @\r\nXXX-XXX-XXXX - home\r\nXXX-XXX-XXXX - mobile\r\nYes, DC needs a dose of the west real, real bad.  Hoping to speak to you \r\nsoon. . .\r\n--Jay<\/tt><\/pre>\n
Jay went on to recruit actors and an audience. Since the formal slots on the Literary Stage were all booked up for the final week, the actors gathered on the roof of the garage, outside the temporary stage where Wooly Mammoth was presenting Rhinocerous. Based on the reading, Parker refined his play. On Groundhog Day\u00a02013, with the first recording session for A Roadkill Opera<\/strong><\/em> under his belt, Parker published his first book, If You See Roadkill, Think Opera<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0As described on the back cover:<\/p>\n
“Parker opens with his 25-year quest to identify music he recorded off a classical radio station in Chicago. He closes with the true-ish story of whitewater rafting guides from rival firms on the Snake River teaming up during the Yellowstone fires of 1988 to create an original, improvisational comedy sketch show, in the underground opera sensation Opening Night: A Roadkill Opera<\/strong><\/em>. In between are one-act plays with art entrepreneurs, kitchen characters, and boat saboteurs. Stephan Alexander Parker guided whitewater raft trips, drove buses, and worked at the Jackson Hole Cinema during his years in Wyoming. He is working on his show business memoir, I Rode With Ben Johnson.”<\/span><\/p>\n
Thanks to Artomatic for the community, support, and encouragement. Here’s hoping we get a production at\u00a0International Artomatic 2015: as announced this week, “Artomatic is collaborating again with our Sister City Sunderland England, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Solas Nua and others in advance of an International Artomatic in the 3rd quarter of 2015 on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC).”<\/p>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Four-time Artomatic exhibitor, photographer DJ Choupin, at the reception for Artomatic Takes Flight. George Koch is in the background at far right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"PHoto<\/a>
Singer Nanda Srinivasan stopped by the opening reception of Artomatic Takes Flight to chat with Stephan Alexander Parker and DJ Choupin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Brian Jerome Murphy models his vintage chop shop shirt. Murphy’s Spirit sculpture is one of the highlights of the show.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Brian Jerome Murphy’s Spirit sculpture is on display at Artomatic Takes Flight through January 9, 2015. More information is available at www.airport.artomatic.org.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the opening reception for Artomatic Takes Flight, the 2014 iteration of Washington’s\u00a0non-juried free arts event at The Gallery Walk at Reagan National Airport, Artomatic founder George Koch spoke eloquently about the simple goals of Artomatic: first\u00a0and foremost,\u00a0to build community among artists. Photographer DJ Choupin and author\/librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, both long-time volunteers, were there. … Continue reading The Instrumental Role of Artomatic<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroadkillopera.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}