Be part of musical history

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 7:30p at the FAC

The Gazette’s recent interview with Preservation Hall Jazz Band creative director Ben Jaffe really got to the heart of what’s so special about this musical treasure from New Orleans. Here’s a portion of the article:

Preservation Hall was originally an art gallery in the 1950s, Jaffe said. Its owner started holding jam sessions, though he called them "rehearsals" as a way to circumvent the Jim Crow laws that prevented blacks and whites from socializing or interacting in certain ways. Jaffe's parents discovered the gallery in 1961, and were handpicked by the owner to own and operate it as a new music hall.

"My parents gravitated here," he said, "and became part of a group of people interested in New Orleans jazz and aging African-American musicians, many of which were pioneers of jazz. They were giving them a home, a place to perform where they received the respect that their art deserved. That was a revolutionary idea. That's what my parents walked into."

His father died when Jaffe was 16; Jaffe assumed duties of the hall in 1995 after graduating from Oberlin College's Conservatory of Music in 1993.

Read the rest of the story.

Add dinner and a hotel stay for the complete Night in New Orleans experience!

So, how do you get your work in a museum without dying?

The provocative title "Aside from death, how do I get my work in a museum?" drew several local artists who see museums as not only credential builders that can increase the value of their work, but also a safe archival storage places that could rescue their works from ending up at Goodwill.

Our panel of experts included: (Blake Milteer, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center's curator and museum director; local artist Pard Morrison; Liz Szabo, interim curator at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center; and Michael Howell, the FAC's collections manager and registrar.)

Among their recommendations:
- Get out there. Get your work in commercial galleries. Get attention from the media.
- Get your work in private collections.
- Network with your friends and former artists.
- Get a formal art education.
- Before you pitch to a museum, know their focus and how your work might fit into their collections. Never show up without an appointment.
- Create art that's beautiful and/or provocative.
- Get a collector to donate your work to the museum.

FAC's Education Director Tara Thomas moderated the Saturday morning event, which has been part of a series of art-related panels produced jointly with the FAC and the Mantiou Arts Center.