Visuals Speak Volumes

Visuals Speak Volumes:
an interactive music and visual art double night event

conceptualized by Adam Rauf

August 20 and 21, 8pm
Future Tenant
819 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222

$5 suggested donation
with part of the proceeds to benefit BRICKS for Young Adults


On August 20 and 21, 2010, at 8pm Adam Rauf leads a collaborative two-night event as part of Future Tenant’s Trespass Performance Residency. Bring paint, magazine clippings, chalk, noisemaking instruments, and found objects and participate in this interactive installation that will benefit a great cause and be a fantastic networking opportunity for artists & musicians alike. Entry is $5, with 50% of the ticket sales going toward BRICKS for Young Adults.

Visuals Speak Volumes was conceived by Rauf during a symposium dubbed Mobile Art&Code at Carnegie Mellon University in the Fall of '09. According to Rauf, “I was able to hear the words of the talented artist and technology guru Julian Bleecker, who
gave the phrase of "Wouldn't it be cool if..." Julian had invented things that people often dream about, but with his passions, he made them happen.”

Visuals Speak Volumes asks: "Wouldn't it be cool if we could combine art, music, and technology together for an amazing interactive performance that anyone could be a part of?"”

A group of musicians selected from the Pittsburgh music scene will improvise "soundscapes & textures" each evening. While this collaboration is happening, a group of artists, hand-picked by Rauf, will put visuals to the music. To add to the excitement, members of the audience will participate in the making of the art as the musicians slowly blend their soundscapes in with one another.

Half of the proceeds will be donated to BRICKS for Young Adults, an organization founded to raise awareness of young adult cancer. Rauf was inspired to donate to this cause by someone who had tremendous ties to the art and music scene in Pittsburgh, the late Rick Gribenas, a former CMU professor.

Future Tenant, a non-profit visual and performance art space, is located at 819 Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh’s cultural district. Future Tenant’s Trespass Performance Residency occurs twice a year, in the early spring and summer. Artists can apply for the
Residency through futuretenant.org.

Parent & Kid Zine read at CLP

Tonight my son and I got to participate in a Parent/Kid zine reading at the Carnegie Library. Jude Vachon, creator of the amazing local resource Be Well! Pghorganized tonight's event, and invited us to come and read. I took along copies of the BRICKS booklet to hand out, but chose not to read my submission. I let my 12 year old son do the reading- hes been making a zine called "Swirling Vortex of Terror" since 2005, when he was only 7.

While we were there, we had our first opportunity to see the bookshelves we bought and donated to the library in honor of my husband, to house his very large zine collection which he had intended to donate to the library. After his death, we took the MANY boxes of zines to the library, where theyve all been catalogued and are currently available to be read by the public. Many of the zines are from Rick's own private collection, the rest were part of a project he helped curate called Comic Release. There are literally HUNDREDS of zines on every topic from art, GLBTQ issues, music, health/illness, comics, and so many more. It was amazing to see all of it in one place, available to the world, exactly how Rick wanted it. It also made me very proud to know that my son and I continue to make contributions to zine culture, a culture thats alive and well in Pittsburgh, and that Rick's contribution lives on in such an amazing local institution.

Egress Press

"BMX"
2001, Hand Drawn Photo Lithograph
by Rick Gribenas

Today I wanted to give a little shout out to my friends at Egress Press & Research, a fine art publishing and research component of the Printmaking Area of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania’s Art Department. When Rick attending Edinboro, he had the pleasure of working with John Lysak, master printmaker and a director of Egress Press.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a link to this here blog on my husband's little profile on the Egress Press website, though I suppose I shouldnt have been. EPR and several of its artists, including the likes of John Lysak, Jay Ryan and Mike Budai, have not only been amazing friends to both my husband and I, but have been great supporters of our efforts. From donating items to the Blood & Cupcakes donor raffles the last two years, sharing a meal or cup of coffee, or a thoughtful email just to see how we're doing, these folks not only make amazing art, but are all around amazing people.

So big thanks to our friends at EPR, for every little thing. You inspired and influenced Rick in both his work and life, and our gratitude is immeasurable.

He no longer lives entirely among us

And yet, he lives.

The title of this blog is also the title of a song by Antennacle, the sound ensemble Rick was in with Nathan Martin and Eric Wood. For Rick, a lot of what he did in Antennacle was about participating in an ensemble setting, while ensuring that each contributor had a clear voice. The goal was to create something beautiful, to listen, to force the listeners to go somewhere new. Rick took each sound so seriously- every note, drone, buzz and blip had to mean something. I never necessarily understood every single part, but always felt moved by what he created.

In a similar spirit of cooperation and creation, a dear friend of ours, Emily Hope Price has embarked on a journey of her own- to create 365 pieces of music in 365 days. Emily is an accomplished cellist and was a student in one of Rick's sound art classes at Carnegie Mellon University many moons ago. She is also a first class lady and a joy to be around. To launch her ambitious project, she revived an old collaboration with my departed husband, and created a new beautiful piece of work that you can listen to on her blog, The 365 Project.

The piece itself is short and perfect, it does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. At the very end, you can hear Rick's voice. When Emily shared this clip with me over the weekend, it was the first time I had heard my husband's voice since he died. It brought tears to my eyes. Not only at the sound of it, but at the simple beauty of the words he says. “I get you. I guess I was just trying to listen.” A reminder, a lesson, from a young man so wise beyond his years.

If you listen, he lives among us. Not entirely, but he is here, as he knew he would be.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette article

Recently the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran an article updating folks on the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Emerging Artist of the Year award recipients. My husband, pictured above, was the first young artist given this title, and was mentioned in the article. To read it in its entirety, click here.

Its been a little while....

...since Ive written anything. Not so much for lack of things to say, but rather, lack of wanting to say it.

Last Thursday I sat down at my (well, Rick's) laptop, prepared to write about how that day marked exactly six months since his passing. I held my fingers over the keys, and nothing came. I couldnt do it. It just wasnt the thing to do, wasnt the time. It doesnt mean the event wasnt very much on my mind.

At our wedding, Rick chose a reading from a John Cage lecture, which has become more and more important to me over time. I chose a few lines from it to have printed on his 'prayer card' at his funeral. I want to share part of it with you, dear readers, because theyre the only words I have right now:

But now there are silences and the words make help make
the silences. I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry
as I need it. This space of time is organized. We need not fear
these silences we may love them.

Save the date- November 7, 2009

Blood & Cupcakes 2
2nd annual replenishing blood drive to benefit
Central Blood Bank
in memory of Rick Gribenas
Saturday, November 7, 2009
9am-3pm

at

Modern Formations Gallery
4919 Penn Ave
Pittsburgh PA 15224

More information coming soon, but I wanted to get this out there so those of you planning to donate again (or for the first time) this year could mark your calendars!

What now, not what if

Its an inevitable temptation, to ask questions-

What if Rick had health insurance?

What if he had a stem cell transplant last summer?

What if he was still alive?

We can ponder the answers and never come to any real conclusion, which truly, now, doesnt even matter. I've found in the last several weeks that I have to avoid the lure of thinking about these things, and focus more on a bigger question- What now?

This blog is the first step in answering that question.

There are many reasons why young adult cancer has lower survival rates than other demographic groups, one of which being that young adults are more often un- or underinsured. I can not say with any certainty that our family's outcome would have been different had Rick had health insurance (his doctor was amazing and made every option possible available to us), but we did learn how difficult it is to find health insurance or help paying for medications. Beyond that, lack of insurance coverage contributes to late diagnosis, which also impacts outcomes for young adults with cancer. 

So, now, it is our responsibility to advocate on behalf of those young adults for better health care options and access to care, to raise awareness of young adult cancers and the unique needs of those affected by it. The challenge is access- access to care, access to resources, access to each other.  As opportunities to get involved arise, I will post them here, so please check back often.