Gesso Magazine

12/06/2023

“Young at Sunset”. Photographic image by Str8Up / Gesso Feature Artist Henry Collins:

11/24/2023

11/23/2023

Thanksgiving - Norman Rockwell. Oil on canvas. 1943.
From the Permanent Collection of the St Louis Art Museum:

11/16/2023

From our Very Good Friend Str8Up / Gesso Feature Cover Artist Mark Polege (Photography of Mark Polege):
https://photographyofmarkpolege.com/see-my-photography-at-the-washington-mo-art-walk/?fbclid=IwAR3mG9ScFLCknya_8GEgGC2hg6yjgZhIkaI-oXtxKYezUJHrcWsshDfgb0I

After taking a four year break from showing my photographic artwork, I will now have my work featured in the Mid-Missouri Fine Art Society Art Walk happening Friday, Nov. 17th and Saturday Nov. 18th in Washington, Missouri. Many other wonderful local artists will also be participating in this event....

11/03/2023

Str8Up/Gesso Feature Cover Artist Mick O'Day (Art of Mick) live artist presentation tomorrow at Belleville Main Street Annual Art and Wine Walk at Bennie's Pizza Pub:

https://www.ticketsignup.io/TicketEvent/ArtandWineWalk/Page/Info
Make plans NOW ~ Come on out Saturday Nov. 4th 3:00-7:00pm
I will be at Bennie's Pizza Pub with framed originals and framed prints. 2024 AoM calendars will be available also.

11/02/2023

It's what's for dinner! Our Good Friend Mikey B - Musician returns to Papa Vito's Pizza:

10/28/2023

From our Friends at Kitz Row and Renew Audio:

Stream and Save Small Talk - Distributed by DistroKid

10/11/2023

From our Friends at Gateway East Artists Guild and the Schmidt Art Center :

10/04/2023

From our Dear Friends at Kirkwood Performing Arts Center and Gesso Feature Performing Artist Janet Evra:

10/03/2023

Str8Up / Gesso Magazine Feature Cover Artist Aunia Kahn is the October Artist of the Month at TheArtList.com:

October 2023 Artist of the Month Contest⁠
1st Place Winner: Aunia Kahn
Congratulations! See more of her work and read her AOM interview at https://www.theartlist.com/featured-artists/2023-aunia-kahn

We run a new contest every month! For your chance to have your own Featured Artist page on TheArtList.com and win a gift certificate from Jerry's Artarama, follow this link: https://woobox.com/4wk23u

10/03/2023

From our Good Friends David Carriel and the Gateway East Artists Guild:

GEAG member David Carriel at the Museum of Mid Century Architecture his show opening on Friday. 93 photos taken over the past year of mcm architecture including works by Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles King.
The museum will be open on Sunday afternoons 1-3 through the end of November.
Contact .historicalsociety for more info

09/29/2023

Chalk Talk from our Good Friends at Art Gecko Creative Studio:

🌈 Get Ready to Chalk It Up to Art - Our 3rd Annual Chalk Contest is TOMORROW! 🎨✨
Join us for a day of colorful creativity and friendly competition at our highly anticipated chalk contest. Whether you're an aspiring artist or simply love to doodle, this event is for you!
🖍️ Express yourself on the pavement canvas.
🏆 Win fantastic (CASH) prizes and bragging rights!
👨‍🎨 Meet fellow artists and chalk enthusiasts.
Don't miss out on the chalk-tastic fun! Sign up today and let your imagination run wild. 🌟
https://www.artgeckostudio.org/upcoming-events 👈

09/27/2023

From our Very Special Friends Rogers & Nienhaus and Kirkwood Performing Arts Center:

It's an Eventful year for us in 2023 including this Intimate Show @ Kirkwood Performing Arts Center for their Strauss Concert Series.
ROGERS & NIENHAUS with Bill Murphy ~ Songs & Stories
Friday October 6, 2023 7:30pm Showtime
https://www.metrotix.com/events/detail/rogers-nienhaus

09/27/2023

More words of wisdom:

09/24/2023

The completion of the first full day of Autumn 2023:

09/22/2023

Happening here tomorrow:

A daily update by email. Science news, great photos, sky alerts.

09/22/2023

http://www.gessomagazine.com/2023/09/kitz-row-to-release-full-ep-through-flyer-club-records-and-renew-audio/

Share This Post Featured / Music Kitz Row to Release Full EP through Flyer Club Records and Renew Audio By Gesso Magazine on September 22, 2023 No Comments / 7 views by Dylan Seibert Kitz Row, a local musical solo project, has a newly forthcoming album set to be released under co-labels: Flyer Club....

09/22/2023

Everything is Art and Music. And Science. And Math.

My friend and mathematician Alan Green made this beautiful video, "Quaternion Symmetry", of my recent work in a new paper titled "The Wave Number Theory". Yo...

09/21/2023

We love this story of "The Metro's Own'' George Harrison:

It Happened In The 60s
Before Beatlemania set in, George Harrison visited his sister in Illinois on 16 September 1963, becoming the first Beatle on American soil.

Beatle John has the story:
“When a young man with long dark hair and a thick British accent first told Dorothy Burkitt, a chaperone at the old West Frankfort Teen Town, that he played in a band called the Beatles, she laughed. ‘Why would you name a band after an insect?’ she asked. But other than that she didn’t give it much thought.

At the time, Burkitt and her husband, Fred, were both chaperones at the teen town, which was located above Van-Wood Electric in a two-story building on West Main Street. It was there that she had her brief encounter with George Harrison, although she doubted much of what he said. ‘He was so sweet,’ she recalls. ‘We must have talked for a good hour, but I’m sorry I didn’t even shake his hand.’ Burkitt said George told her he was visiting over here from England with his sister, and he came to the teen town to see the band and hear its vocalists. She remembers him sitting on an old red couch in the lobby.

The next time Burkitt saw George Harrison, he was on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ several months later. ‘Oh, my gosh, Fred, there’s that kid that came to our teen town,’ she said. ‘He was telling the truth.’”
- Before He Was Fab: George Harrison’s First American Visit (2000)

Additional background from George:
According to George, “I went to New York and St Louis in 1963, to look around, and to the countryside in Illinois, where my sister was living at the time. I went to record stores. I bought Booker T and the MGs’ first album, Green Onions, and I bought some Bobby Bland, all kind of things.” George also bought James Ray’s single “Got My Mind Set On You” that he later covered in 1987.

When the Harrisons arrived in Benton, George and Louise hitchhiked to radio station WFRX-AM in West Frankfort, Illinois taking a copy of “She Loves You” which had been released 3 weeks earlier in Britain and on the day of George’s arrival in America. “She Loves You” got a positive review in Billboard but very little radio play, although WFRX did play it. According to DJ Marcia Raubach: “He was unusual looking, he dressed differently than the guys here. He was very soft-spoken and polite.”

It’s often claimed that in June 1963 Louise took a British copy of “From Me To You” to WFRX that she had been sent by her mother and that Raubach played it. This is probably true but the claim that this was the first time The Beatles’ music was broadcast in America is not. “From Me To You” was released in Britain in late April and then topped the British singles’ chart for seven weeks’. With the Beatles at No. 1 in Britain, Vee Jay Records released their single of ‘From Me To You’ / ‘Thank You Girl” as VJ 522 on May 27, 1963. The single was made ‘Pick Of the Week’ by Cash Box magazine, but was not a success.

With the Beatles success in Britain in early 1963, Parlophone were anxious to take advantage of their new asset and so contacted their sister label in America, Capitol Records that was owned by EMI. Capitol was underwhelmed by the Beatles records and so decided against releasing any of their records. Instead, Parlophone turned to a small US label called Vee Jay, a company started by a husband and wife in Gary, Indiana that specialized in black R & B music.

It was an irony probably not lost on the Beatles who loved and had been influenced by exactly that kind of music. In February 1963, two days after “Please Please Me” made No. 1 in Britain, Vee Jay released it as a single in the US. VJ 498 did get some airplay from the major Chicago top 40 radio station WLS and it even made their own chart for a couple of weeks, but nothing happened nationally on the Billboard charts. Not helping the band was the fact that Vee Jay managed to miss-spell the band’s name on the record as “Beattles.”

Thanks to Richie Havers at www.udiscovermusic.com

09/21/2023

From all these wonderful Str8Up / Gesso Friends: Lonnie's Farm Recording Studio, Tapestry of Community Offerings - TOCO, Evangeline's Bistro & Music House, West End Junction, Jackson Pianos, Belleville Screen Printing Company, Belle Dorado House, The Hillside Barons, The Bone Docs, Big Finger Records:

Candlelight Concert Series presents The Copper Children from Denver, Colorado with special guests The Hillside Barons and The Bone Docs.
Saturday September 30
At Big Finger Records 907 West Main in the
Belleville Historic Brewery District
Sponsored by Lonnie's Farm Recording Studio, Tapestry of Community Offerings - TOCO, Evangeline's Bistro & Music House, West End Junction, Jackson Pianos, Belleville Screen Printing Company, Belle Dorado House

09/21/2023

Words of Wisdom sent to us by Str8Up / Gesso Feature Cover Artist Aunia Kahn:

🩵💜💛

09/20/2023

Our Friends at Hettenhausen Center for the Arts remind us that Gesso Feature Performing Artist Janet Evra returns this weekend. One night only!

Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. The Hettenhausen Center for the Arts Join us this Saturday for A Night in Rio Featuring International Jazz Vocalist and Bassist, Janet Evra Saturday, Septembe

09/14/2023

Kurt Vonnegut says so: "Do art and do it for the rest of your lives."

“In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response is magnificent:

“Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!"
Kurt Vonnegut