101-year old artist, Carmen Herrera, featured at Wexner Center

Many of us first learned about 101-year-old artist Carmen Herrera when “CBS Sunday Morning” featured a segment on her solo exhibit at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.

If you didn’t get to New York for the special exhibit — by an artist who sold her first painting at the age of 89 — you can still catch it at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, the only other museum in the nation that will be hosting the show. “Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight” will be on display through April 16.

“Straight lines, I like angles, I like order,” Herrera is quoted as saying. “In the chaos that we live in, I like to put some order. So that I guess is why I’m a hard-edge painter.”

The career of the Cuban-born New York artist spans over seven decades. As a woman and an immigrant, she was marginalized in the art world for decades but continued to produce and evolve as an artist. She showed them all and by the late 1990s, started receiving attention. Known for her hard-edged geometric abstract style, Herrera is still producing work and one of her paintings sold not long ago for $970,000.

If you can’t get to Columbus, you can check out the documentary about Herrera on Netflix. “The 100 Years Show” is by film director Alison Klayman and is also being shown as part of the show at the Wex. “When I was younger, nobody knew I was a painter, now they’re beginning to know I’m a painter,” the artist says in the film. “I waited a long time. There is a saying, if you wait for the bus, the bus will come. I say, yeah, I wait almost a century for the bus to come and it came.”

Wexner Center for the Arts is at 1871 N. High St. (at 15th Avenue) on the campus of Ohio State University. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. Admission is $8; free from 4-8 p.m. on Thursdays and the first Sunday of the month. For more information: http://wexarts.org/visit/location-and-directions or (614) 292-35335.

“Big Read” discussion at Books & Co.

Here’s your chance to discuss “The Wright Brothers” by noted author David McCullough. The book, our community’s “Big Read” for 2017, is currently being discussed in libraries, schools, homes and places of business.

This particular discussion will take place at 7 p. m.on Wednesday, April 5, at Books & Co. at The Greene, 4453 Walnut St., Beavercreek. It will be led by my former colleague, aviation author Tim Gaffney and by Dawne Dewey, Wright Brothers archivist at Wright State University Library.

No reservations are necessary. For more information, contact Sharon Kelly Roth at (937) 429-2169.

RELATED: Learn more about David McCullough and The Big Read.

GeekFest at the Boonshoft

The Boonshoft Museum of Discovery will host GeekFest from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, April 28. Museum folks say the popular event, now in its third year, attracts gamers, Trekkies, steampunkers, cosplayers, and nerds. Activities range from costume contests, board games, hands-on experiments, and trivia in the Planetarium and there are prizes and activities for the whole family.

This year’s new events include “Beat the Geek!,” a reverse trivia experience and a costume parade through the entire museum. There will be a Star Wars Room and themed items from the museum’s collection. The “Monster Attack!” is designed for the kids.

Admission to this event is $10 for geeks of all ages, and tickets can be purchased online or at the door. All proceeds from general admission support year-round astronomy education at the Museum. Doors open at 6 p.m. for those who purchase tickets online and 6:30 p.m. for day-of-ticket sales. Vendors will be on-site and food will be available for purchase. All ages welcome; under 17 cannot be admitted without a parent.

The museum is located at 2600 DeWeese Parkway in Dayton.

Learn to act!

A theater workshop for students ages 10-14 is being planned by the Human Race Theatre Company in Tipp City. John-Michael Lander, who has been involved in theater, television and film, will be leading the five-week workshop entitled “’To be or not to be’ an Actor.”

Lander, who taught for seven years at Stivers High School, is a musical theater graduate of Wright State University and was a teaching artist for “Autism and Shakespeare” at the Human Race.

He says the upcoming workshop, slated from 10 a.m. until noon on Saturdays from April 22-May 20, will explore the skills of acting through creative visualization, imagination, improvisation, character development, movement and speech. It promises to be a safe way for students to explore their desires to act, build confidence, learn to speak in public and solve problems. A performance will be held on the final day.

Cost is $125 and the classes will be held on the third floor of Studio 14 Gallery in Tipp City, 115 W. Main St. To register, go to the Ticket Center Stage website, www.ticketcenterstage.com and click on the “tickets and events” tab.

MORE ARTS NEWS: Dine and view — local artists love to show their work in restaurants.

Youth Audition Class

The folks at Dare to Defy Productions are offering an audition class for young people ages 8 to 18. The seven week class is intended to help young auditioners prepare for and master an audition.

Instructors will include Jessica Eggleston for dance, Alan Bomar Jones for monologues and Jessi Stark who will cover vocals. Students can sign up for one or all of the special sections and there will be a mock audition class on June 17 where each participant will prepare a monologue, song and dance in front of a panel and receive feedback.

The location is 427 Washington St., Unit B, Dayton. Registration is $75 for all seven sessions or $25 for any two. To register, go to https://signupforms.com/registrations/10173

“Matilda” on stage in Cincy

The first national tour of “Matilda The Musical” will be at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center April 4-16. The show is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Dodgers.

Winner of 70 international awards including four Tony Awards, the plot is based on the novel by best-selling author Roald Dahl and tells the story of an extraordinary girl who dreams of a better life. Armed with a vivid imagination and a sharp mind, Matilda dares to take a stand and change her destiny.

Tickets are on sale now and available at the Aronoff Center Box Office downtown at 650 Walnut St., online at CincinnatiArts.org or by phone at (513) 621-ARTS.

World premiere at Cincinnati Playhous

Jen Silverman — one of the country’s most exciting up-and-coming playwrights — is the author of a new play having its world premiere at Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park. The show runs through April 23 in the Shelterhouse Theatre.

Silverman’s work has been produced off-Broadway, as part of the Humana Festival for New American Plays, and at regional theatres across the country. This story revolves around three generations of women and the legacies they inherit. Original music with lyrics by Silverman connects each woman’s generation as their lives weave together.

“I think each woman comes up against a moment where they either have to choose to sort of step outside of expectation and possibly destroy a life that has been built up for them or they have to choose to let go of it and step back into their lives,” Silverman told Playbill. “The play is examining that whichever choice you make, that is how you hand to your children your unfulfilled longings and your unfulfilled dreams, and I think those things just imprint themselves in your DNA.”

For more information and tickets, check out www. cincyplay.com


Each week arts writer Meredith Moss shares information about the people and events making arts news in our region.

If you have news you’d like to share, contact Meredith: MMoss@ coxohio.com

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