Wednesday Night Salons

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Coordinator:Erin Wilcox

A note from the coordinator: As Salon coordinator, I look forward to each monthly gathering with anticipation. I work at home, and I write at home. After a while, I start to feel a little like I did during the winter when I lived in Alaska—cooped up. Other people and their work inspire me, and when I moved to Tucson from Anchorage a year ago, I looked for a place where I could go to meet local writers. I found Casa Libre and the Wednesday Night Salons. After earning my MFA, I am interested in being at a community writing center that attracts artists from all walks of life. I am excited to announce that the Salons are back after a brief dormancy, and we are opening them up to artists of all genres. Who knows what will happen at the next salon: photographers photographing painters painting portraits of performance poets, composers teaching novelists sonata-allegro form. For me, the Salons are an opportunity to share my poems and stories in progress, to get a feel for reading them out loud, to talk about the story of their making, to inspire others, and to be inspired.

Wednesdays

July 29
September 23
October 28
November 25
January 27
February 24
March 28 (Sunday)
April 28
May 26
June 23
July 28

6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
In the courtyard


There will not be a salon during the months of June or August 2009.

The Wednesday Night Salons at Casa Libre are designed to be a forum for artistic discussion. As artists and writers, our creative processes often keep us isolated while we are in the process of creation. There are lots of opportunities for us to workshop our creations in an academic setting, but fewer opportunities to simply share our works in progress with fellow artists in a casual environment. The Salons give local writers and artists an opportunity to interact, discuss, network, and banter. They are an opportunity to share work with peers, and learn a little bit about an invited speaker’s creative process.

The Salons start with a fifteen-minute introduction by an invited speaker. The speakers are writers, painters, and other artists. They begin the conversation and help to stimulate discussion by talking about some aspect of their creative process, or a theme evident in their work. The rest of the Salon is free-form. Participants are invited to bring samples of their work to share.

Artists of all genres are welcome at the monthly Wednesday Night Salons. We all dip from the same well, be we writers, painters, poets, sculptors, dancers, photographers, playwrights, or filmmakers. The Salons at Casa Libre are a place to explore the connections, the parallels, and the differences among various media. What writer has not been inspired by a painting, a symphony, or a rock group? What composer has not drawn inspiration from great poetry? What spoken word artist has not found inspiration in a still, silent image? We let art happen at the Salons. We promote an artist’s freedom to breathe, learn, discover, and play throughout the dynamic process of art making.

Artists of all levels, from all walks of life are invited: community writers, composers, MFA candidates, poets, rappers, performance artists, genre and erotica writers, pointillists, screenwriters, dada sculptors, spoken-word artists, slammers—any creator who is devoted to their art. This is not an exclusive club, nor is it a place to enter lightly. When you cross the threshold at Casa Libre for the Wednesday Night Salons, be ready to be treated like a professional and a fellow devotee of the lifelong pursuit that is art.

For more information or to be a presenter at an upcoming salon email:
Erin Wilcox, ewilcox@casalibre.org