Records, Cats, Pop Art & More | Arts Update with Carrie Saldo

Join the First Take crew each Thursday at 8:35 a.m. as they talk about Colorado’s cultural scene with Arts District host Carrie Saldo. Below is the summary from August 27, 2015. 

What’s a Record?

In music, the number of records sold was once the ultimate indicator of success. The internet, with its’ abundant access to free music and individual song purchases, helped bring the needle on that business model to a screeching halt.

Industry standards may have changed but Alan Cogen noted that recorded work is an imperative tool of the trade for musicians. That’s one of the reasons he founded Pathways to Jazz, according to Sarah Goodroad its administrative director. The small Boulder-based non-profit awards grants to musicians interested in creating albums. 

“Recording can help to further artistic, educational and career goals of the musician, but it also serves as a way to document the art form [and build new audiences]”, Goodroad said via e-mail.

While new audiences are a focus, Pathways to Jazz isn’t fixated on novelty. Its artistic support is available to both emerging and established artists working in Colorado.

In its second year, the program more than doubled its impact. A total of 11 grants were awarded, ranging from $1,000 to $4,500. That’s up from five award winners last year. Each artist has 16 months to complete their albums, which can include new or existing tunes.

Denver-based 2014 award winner and KUVO 30 Under 30 artist Annie Booth took the grant as an opportunity to create nine new tracks compiled on the album Wanderlust. The work of this year’s grantees is set to be completed by December 2016.

The Cat’s Are Back

Art can be challenging. It can call you to question what you think about social issues – and it can also inspire pure, unadulterated, joy.

That’s the idea behind the Internet Cat Video Festival being screened at Denver’s Sie Film Center for the second consecutive year. Curated by the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, the event includes about 100 internet videos staring furry felines.

Full disclosure, I, a loving cat owner, had never watched an internet cat video prior to learning about this festival. Z-E-R-O interest in the genre. I couldn’t very well report on something I knew nothing about. So began my initiation.

Similar to the Academy Awards, the festival has categories, including comedy, documentary, lifetime achievement and even foreign film, each creator clawing, er, vying, for a “Golden Kitty” statuette.

Given the festivals’ unabashed honors, the cat video shame spiral viewers may once have experienced can now be reserved for something else. Perhaps, dogs.

https://youtu.be/OUtn3pvWmpg

This Week on Arts District

Tune in for an encore presentation of the Arvada Center’s Pop Art exhibit, RePOPulated. Fifteen ontemporary Colorado artists shared gallery space with pioneering Pop Artists Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and others.

The Pop Art movement first emerged in the 50s and 60s and was inspired by popular culture and mass media. 

Don’t miss an interview with Steve McQueen. The British-born McQueen is widely known in the United States as a filmmaker but he is also an established visual artist.

See this and more on Arts District, Aug 25^th at 7:30 PM on Rocky Mountain PBS.