Our Event Committee has been busy planning our major events for 2010. Here’s what you can expect from Primary Colours this year:

Installation Nation The buzz was tremendous last year from our inaugural event featuring installation art pieces assembled within the confines of large, metal shipping containers, all on a vacant, donated lot in Lockerbie. Installation Nation returns in June exhibiting innovative art accompanied by music, food, drink, and frivolity.
Professional Development Series We’re teaming up once again with the Arts Council of Indianapolis to conduct a series of free workshops designed specifically for the emerging career artist. We have a preliminary slate set up to start the middle of June and run through the end of July. This year’s workshops will include time for networking after each session.
Art vs. Art® Infamous from coast to coast, the winner-take-all painting competition with a twist returns with a vengeance in September. For those of you unfamiliar with this unique event, here’s the gist: Artists have four hours to paint with provided materials. Paintings making the finals square off side-by-side with audience vote determining the winner. Losing paintings face the “Wheel of Death” unless someone’s purchase saves the painting from a ruinous fate. Artists receive 70% from the sale of their art. Last year’s Main Event was a barn burner at the Vogue. Don’t miss it this year!
TOYS Last year saw the return of our holiday invitational art exhibition with chutzpah! Our artists proved that you never know just what to expect when they fashion their pieces around the theme of toys. TOYS will arrive just in time for the holidays in December.

Stay Tuned…

Interspersed with these events, look for Primary Colours out and about in the community. Watch this space for updates and happenings.

Primary Colours is pleased to announce a partnership with the Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellowship and their annual holiday fundraiser, Tree Luggers.
In an effort to raise money for the Fellowship, local churches, and local charitable organizations–including Primary Colours–current Orr Fellows will be picking up Christmas trees from houses and transporting them to nearby Indy [...]

As an artist, you go by the name “Mamus.” How and why did you come up with that name?
I’ve had that nickname for a while. When a friend’s child was learning to speak, he wasn’t able to say James…thus Mamus [maym-uhs] was born. When I started showing my work I wanted to use something that [...]

Dear Friends of Primary Colours,
As the sole employee of an amazing arts organization, I may just have the best job in Indianapolis. But it is all of us who help make our city a thriving environment that showcases and develops professional visual artists and educates, entertains, and engages audiences. With your support as an audience [...]

Some of our TOYS artists are showing their pieces created for last week’s show at the Indypendent Holiday Art Sale on Friday, Dec. 11 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Indianapolis Artsgarden in Circle Center Mall.
Dan Thompson and Ryan Alvis will definitely be showcasing their pieces. William Denton Ray, who also painted up [...]

For all of our shows, we strive to put on something beyond the usual art opening, which stereotypically is often replete with “Three Buck Chuck” wine and crudités with ranch dressing.
Nope. For TOYS, we wanted to make it special, dammit.
So thanks go out to Martha Gilchrist for her imaginative and creative spread of goodies. Thanks [...]

It was a simple request. “When you’re coming out to our TOYS event, bring some dry pasta.” Well, you came through. Boy, did you come through!

You contributed 144 pounds of dry pasta for our friends at Second Helpings.

We’re fond of saying that “It’s about the art,” but this time of year, in these tough times, it’s about so much more. Your small gesture made a big difference.

Thank you.

It’s the return of our invitational holiday art exhibit, TOYS. This year’s art showcase will take place at ArtBox in the Stutz II Building – 217 West 10th St. Suite 125 (map) on Friday, December 4, 2009 from 5 to 10 p.m. This seventh installment will exhibit art fashioned around the theme of toys, and invited artists are free to interpret the theme however they see fit.

Just ask Alyssa Star, a grad student at IUPUI. She attended Art vs. Art, bought a painting, had a blast, and filled out our audience survey.

We randomly chose her out of all the completed surveys to win dinner for two at Brugge Brasserie in Broad Ripple.

Congratulations, Alyssa!

How did you feel about winning Art vs. Art?

I was super-crazy exited and surprised! I really didn’t think I was going to win. I don’t really have any friends in the Art Community, so the only people I had there with me were my fiancée, Mom, Dad, little sister, and my Fed-ex guy! I guess they’re all real loud-mouths.
It seemed like an easy decision for you to put the winning painting up for auction and face the Wheel of Death. Why?

I painted the Bride of Frankenstein, and I really kinda wanted to see her die. I adore poetic irony in art. I mean, I didn’t want her to get beaten by another painting, but if I had taken her home with me that night, I probably would have had to cut her to pieces. It was irresistibly perfect.
So, you met your fiancée at a previous Art vs. Art?

Ya. One year ago. There was a lot of celebrating for us that night. Prize money = us eloping.
What’s your day job?

I work for Kids Ink, a local independent bookstore, in their school and library division. I mostly work on bringing authors and illustrators into the state and getting them into schools to encourage creative writing and drawing.