ARTS & SURVIVAL: A VIRTUAL TALK WITH LONNIE POTTER

This talk occurred on October 14th, 2020.

Watch the Video

​What are the arts for?  Why do we need them and how do they help us?  How do music, movies, tv shows, novels, paintings, sculptures, plays, ballets, and all the rest of our arts contribute to human survival? 

Lonnie Potter discusses the practical, social, and evolutionary function of the arts—how they help each one of us survive and thrive by growing the core skills we need to adapt and improve ourselves and the world around us.  

Lonnie Potter is a multidisciplinary artist who has worked in music, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, video, and poetry.  Lonnie began his art talks in 2018, with Other Wise: The Practical, Social and Evolutionary Purpose of the Arts, a series of four talks over the course of the year.  In 2020 he started his most recent project: a podcast based on a book from those talks called Arts & Survival. He lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska.

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​Music Performance: The Space Lady Returns to Alchemy Art Center!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12TH, 7PM
ALCHEMY ART CENTER DOME
1255 WOLD ROAD

$10 DONATION AT DOORFollowing overwhelming community response to last year's performance at Alchemy Art Center, the Space Lady is back for more!

Last July, Susan Dietrich lived up to her 20-year musical legacy with a truly magical performance in the Dome.  Her versions of “Strawberry Fields," “Ghost Riders in the Sky," and “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night” brought an otherworldly quality to the beloved songs.  On one original, she lamented the state of humanity and, with a crying theremin, passionately animated a prayer for Mother Earth.  On “Oh, Brave New World” the whole room sang along with the chorus, with many audience members in tears by the end.  

Please join us as we welcome The Space Lady back on Sunday, January 12, at 7pm, in the Alchemy Art Center Dome. 
$10 Donation at the door.
Local musicians John Bellows/Glenn Hendrick will open.

Alchemy Art Center is located at 1255 Wold Road, just before the Lavender Farm.  Parking is very limited, please carpool!  Also, please be aware that the rainy weather has left Alchemy's driveway and parking areas quite muddy- appropriate vehicles are recommended.  If you have limited mobility, please let us know and we will reserve a parking space close to the Dome for you.

​Art Show/Reception: Vivien Tapsoba

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22ND, 5PM-8PM
ALCHEMY ART CENTER DOME
1255 WOLD RD

Vivien Tapsoba is originally from Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, but currently resides in the United States. He is a self-trained artist who has been a guest of residencies and workshops in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Italy, and France.  His work reflects the influence of American artist Jean Michel Basquiat, reclaiming the same line of contemporary artists and genres.  Through the harmony of colors, and the erasure and reconstruction of figures, characters, animals, and symbols on his canvases, Vivien weaves magical and powerful visual stories.

​Vivien has exhibited his work widely in Burkina Faso, France, Italy, and the United States.  This will be his first exhibition on San Juan Island. The reception will take place in the Dome at Alchemy Art Center located at 1255 Wold Rd, Friday Harbor. 

​Adapt-Able Foundation

October 18th, 6pm-10pm
San Juan Island Grange
152 First St N, Friday Harbor, WA 98250


JOIN US TO CELEBRATE ALL THAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR WITH YOUR HELP, AND SUPPORT US ON OUR JOURNEY FORWARD.

A fantastic dinner and hors d'oeuvres will be provided by our island’s finest chefs and farms, along with an open bar, live and silent auctions, and live music. Our partners in providing this wonderful dinner are Duck Soup, Backdoor Kitchen, Market Chef, Cynthia’s, Cafe Demeter, Aurora Farm, New Hannah Farm, Baker San Juan, Mama Bird Farm, and the Shephards.
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• Single tickets are available for $100 each.
• Three tickets purchased together are $275.

​Fountainsun

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24TH, 8PM
THE DOME AT ALCHEMY

$10 dollar donation

Poetic, theatric, chaotic, humorous... all of these things joyfully spill out of Fountainsun's composed vessels of song.  Their performance is a celebration of this life's beauty, but also it's absurdity.  Very weird and quite enlightening! 
Fountainsun is the duo of Daniel Higgs and Fumie Ishii performing with a variety of instruments, singing, and reciting of verse.  Their hand-made music is offered in the spirit of community & friendship as a tool for peaceful obliteration of corporate mass-media mind (body, soul) control, and its relentless program to pollute & pervert even the human imagination with the spores of its insane GREED.

Dance to the words. Interpret the beat. Vanish into melody. Reappear in gladness. All are welcome in the Fountainsound. https://fountainsun.com/

​Lori Goldston

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1ST, 8PM
THE DOME AT ALCHEMY

$10 dollar donation

Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit, Lori Goldston is a cellist, composer, improvisor, producer, writer and teacher from Seattle. Her voice as a cellist, amplified or acoustic, is full, textured, committed and original. A relentless inquirer, she wanders recklessly across borders that separate genre, discipline, time and geography.

Current and former collaborators and/or bosses include Earth, Nirvana, Mirah, Jessika Kenney, Ilan Volkov, Eyvind Kang, Stuart Dempster, David Byrne, Terry Riley, Jherek Bischoff, Malcom Goldstein, Matana Roberts, Dana Reason, Lonnie Holley, Cat Power, Ellen Fullman, Mike Gamble, Mik Quantius, Embryo, Secret Chiefs 3, Marisa Anderson, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto, Ô Paon, Tara Jane O’Neil, Natacha Atlas, Broken Water, Ed Pias, Byron Au Young, Christian Rizzo, Threnody Ensemble, Cynthia Hopkins, 33 Fainting Spells, Vanessa Renwick, Kimya Dawson, Mark Mitchell and Lynn Shelton.
http://lorigoldston.com
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Opening for Lori Goldston is John Bellows featuring Glenn Hendrick- heady lyrics and melancholic musings with high and low feels.
https://johnbellows.bandcamp.com/

Talk with Lama Lena

​MONDAY, JULY 8TH, 7PM
THE DOME AT ALCHEMY

Everyone is welcome to an evening of storytelling and teachings from the ancient traditions of India and Tibet. Lama Lena returns to our island to share the nature of mind to mind transmissions, so alive today, always for the sake of all beings. Lama Lena now travels and teaches at the request of her lineage enlightening ones. She has completed many years of meditation retreat in holy caves of India and beyond. Having translated these teachings into the English language for over 40 years; the wisdom, humor and blessings can be known for our world, our minds, our way of life and for the continuation of realizing greater loving kindness.

​The Space Lady

TUESDAY, JULY 16TH, 8PM
THE DOME AT ALCHEMY

$10 - $15 dollar donation

Alchemy Art Center is thrilled to host living outsider music legend, Susan Dietrich, AKA The Space Lady! 
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"Transcendentally beautiful, The Space Lady's music is returning to Earth. Transmitting messages of peace and harmony, The Space Lady began her odyssey on the streets of Boston in the late 70s, then San Francisco ten years later, playing versions of contemporary pop music with an accordion and dressed flamboyantly. Following the theft and destruction of her accordion, The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, complete with a phase shifter and headset mic, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its leading exponents ever since." -Bandcamp

This rare musical treat is not to be missed!

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