At last month’s Champaign on the Park, the annual fundraiser for the Lark Street Business Improvement District, Michael Weidrich did something of a runway turn on the stage. First, he was presented with an award for his work as founder of First Fridays, the successful gallery night based primarily in the Center Square neighborhood.  Moments later he returned to the stage having just been re-introduced as the new executive...

Every month Harold Lohner flips through the new issue of Art Calendar, a magazine that provides copious listings of exhibitions and other opportunities for artists. He regularly finds calls for submissions to shows of female artists and occasionally of gay artists. “I’m gay and an artist, but I don’t want to be a practitioner of gay art. It’s like you don’t have to be very good,” says Lohner,...

With typical brevity and wit, Joseph Fennimore has already composed his own epitaph: “Often wrong. Never in doubt.” It speaks well to the contradictions and apparent folly of Fennimore’s livelihood. In a society where high art is little valued, he’s a driven and earnest composer who refers to his pieces as “ditties.” Also a virtuoso pianist who studied with the legendary teacher Rosina Lhevinne – as did...

“You’ve decided what you’re going to do, and it’s all you can think about. Everything else is a bother. Going to work is a bother. Going out to get something to eat is a bother.” Albany artist Kevin Bruce is describing his feelings when in the midst of creating. “You can spend a whole day painting and not eat and suddenly feel really faint and nauseous and dizzy and sick,” he says. “And you’ll...