buh-bye

Apparently the city has no need for Houston Media Source anymore, last week the city decided to not renew their franchise contract. Under Texas' two and a half year-old statewide video franchise law, Comcast will be allowed to apply for a statewide franchise certificate, but they are not obligated to give any funds to public access. Bill White's Chief of Staff, Mr. Terrance Fountain, says the City will cut off all funding for Houston Media Source effective April 2008.

$850,000 that was for public access TV may now go to HPD, where they will be able to more effectively waste the money with the rest of their $600,000,000 budget(lots of zeros, huh?). The mayor last tried to defund the station in 2005 over a obscenity scandal; this go around the station doesn't have as much of a rallying cry (counterintuitive, right?) and they may go quietly under.

Email the mayor if you have a moment.

this just in

Third place at the big show at the lawndale?

Matthew Sullivan

An avid printmaker, Sullivan won third prize with Barn at top, and a small watercolor in an intricate frame, kinda like the bottom one but different. Congrats, man!

Crazy

Someone is trying to cash in on recently deceased Houston artist Robin Utterback in this weird post on craigslist.

big props for the big show

I checked out the Lawndale's Big Show yesterday at the preview- looks great! Come by tonight for the announcement of the winner and the big show's big party. The show is curated quite evenly- enhanced by a bunch of temporary walls in the main gallery that break up the space and shrink the distance with which to see the show. Rita Gonzalez, by design or not, has chosen a large amount of black and yellow in works for the show, muting the punctuation of larger pieces with a calming scheme.

Who looked good? Robert Hodge's canvas, Jeanne Cassanova's glitter and pink people painting, Bexar's funny-ass installation and Jenny Schlief's single video, Girl Star.

Who's gonna win? My money is on Shane Tolbert- his awkward old-man-looking-at-art paintings are a standout and may have appealed to Rita's curatorial irony.

I'll skip it

Have 125 bucks to spend getting into the Diverseworks Luck of the Draw tonight? Naw, me neither. At least I won't have to listen to their auctioneer, Gilbert Perez, as “world famous Cuban drag queen” Venezuela Maria Concepcion de los Angeles Valdez Valejo Gonzales.

Weekender

There's a lot of stuff going around this weekend, and Friday the 13th is packed with goodies. See if you can wrangle a designated driver and a crew of rowdy misfits or get the bike out of garage if you can hack the heat!

Thursday's gem is 60's feminist-post-ab ex-proto-minimal icon Lynda Benglis, whose Wax Paintings & Ceramic Sculpture will be on view at Texas Gallery (behind River Oaks Theatre and next to The Blue Door) 6-8pm

If you have the time or you're driving down on Montrose check out Katherine Veneman in her first show in town at Art League Houston; if you haven't seen their new addition (the perversion of Inversion) it's worth popping by for a cuppa with the neighborhood technogeeks hooked up to their Wi-Fi. Friday 6-9pm

The Big Deal on Friday is the Big Show at the Lawndale. Out of nearly one thousand artworks juror Rita Gonzalez of LACMA has crafted an exhibit of wildly disparate photos, paintings, sculptures, installation, video and drawing. Music by Vic Vegas and Mr Bristle. Always a sweet party down there... 6:30-8:30 pm (they usually don't manage to kick everyone out until 9)

Squeeze in Give Up vs. YAR at Domy Books for sure... 6-9 pm

late night party? on the other side of downtown The Mexican Arsenal blows up Next with their Carnival...

...and then Saturday is the clusterfuck known as ArtHouston...

Best of the rest? Chinese artists at Barbara Davis, McClain and Deborah Colton on Saturday 6-9 pm.

Happy hunting!

Slow Down

a few pics from Notsuoh Photography...

What a jerk

The newly "former" director of the national hurricane center is from Fort Worth... When have they ever had a hurricane? ...and when have they ever been competent?

"I want you to know that he has not made a hurricane forecast since 1964," senior specialist Lixion Avila told reporters on Friday.

I'm sure I don't want anyone from Dallas in charge of the coast down here, and I bet they were even more pissed in Miami...

Ann Harithas collages

Up at Redbud in the Heights now- it was a good opening last Saturday!

Ann is the wife of Art Car Museum and The Station founder James Harithas, she is also credited with curating one of the first exhibits including art cars back in 1984, "Collision" at the Lawndale Art Annex; back when it used to be a punk rock warehouse and UH student dive- the Replacements played there the same year and almost had HPD shut the place down!