Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/891238
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 139 THE ARTS Room to Create Louisville Visual Art's Open Studio Weekend showcases roughly 100 artists' spaces. By Jenny Kiefer / Photos by Chris Witzke Lindy Casebier, the executive director of Louisville Visual Art, is taking me on a tour of the Portland warehouse that the non- profit purchased in 2015, its first permanent headquarters since its 1909 founding as the Louisville Art Association. Past the office space of carpeted floors, clean white walls and desks cluttered with event fliers and business cards, 33,000 square feet opens like a wide concrete meadow. Casebier, a Louisville native who worked with artists while in the state's Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet, joined LVA about two years ago, around the time its lease ran up at the Water Tower. Today, on a table near a large bay door at LVA, there is a rendering of the planned renovation, to be performed once the $3.5-5 million needed is raised. ere will be lots of windows for natural light, and the parking lot will become green space with red umbrellas and tables. On this fall day, the center of the room contains the remnants of the past weekend's event, the Portland Art and Heritage Fair. Two tem- porary walls create a small hallway, bright lights acting like a beacon in the otherwise dim warehouse. A smattering of various works line the interior: a hyper-realistic painting of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee, a layered stack of neon-pink plastic squares and an oversized painting of an orange-and-white striped fish, head cocked and grinning at the viewer. "I just wish I could take this one home," Casebier says, passing the fish. "It just makes me happy every time I look at it." is display will be dismantled soon enough because LVA hosts many events. "Our heads are swimming there's so much going on," Casebier says. Over the first weekend in November, for instance, LVA will have its annual Open Studio Weekend, which has artists across the city open their studios for public viewings and tours. Casbier says there will be more than 100 participating artists. (A catalog that maps the studios costs $20 and serves as an entry ticket. Clustered dots in the catalog usually mean a "I never paint at night. I prefer in the morning (in my home studio in the South End). I like the light. To me, it's important, the light. I don't like artificial light. I also like looking around me. It depends on how I feel, but I listen to New Age music or something instrumental. And I always close the door. I love to concentrate. Everything I put into the canvas is around me, around my life: pictures, family, poetry." — Julio Cesar Rodriguez, painter