Articulations

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Go East, Young Man

As I Turned east on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard last Thursday, the hairs on my arm began to stand on end. See, I was blocks from my first visit to Flatbed World Headquarters, the new home for Flatbed Press, which is in a renovated warehouse, and I guess getting near one of those sparked in me a kind of kinesthetic response. See, Austin has a long and noble tradition of reclaiming big old drafty buildings for the creative types in town, and in addition to converting commercial facilities into cultural spaces, it's converted me into a big fan of these kinds of facilities. I mean, this is what gave us the Armadillo World Headquarters in the Seventies, the Arts Warehouse in the Eighties, and the West Third Street galleries and The Vortex in the Nineties. Put the right artists inside the right old warehouse and sometimes you get magic.

And it's clearly happened with the Flatbed folks and this squat blue block of a building at 2832 E. MLK. Katherine Brimberry and Mark L. Smith, founders of this 10-year-old printmaking workshop, co-owner Gerald Manson, and architect Samantha Randall have transformed the interior of this vast structure into a spacious, elegant, and, despite the omnipresent concrete, warm artspace. Roomy hallways wend past cozy offices that have a separateness to them and yet, by virtue of the large glass windows fronting them, also feel a part of the center as a whole. And that's important here, for as you move through the facility, you're able to pick up on the activity in the various artists' studios and administrative centers for performing arts groups such as Frontera, The Public Domain, and New Texas Music Works, not to mention the great open space with Flatbed's intaglio printers, and it feeds your sense that this is more than an office park for arts types, it's a cultural community.

Alas, the retrospective of Flatbed's first decade has just been taken down, else I'd add my voice to those who praised this show and called for art lovers to drop what they're doing and race over to the FWHQ. It was a delightful and even awe-inspiring collection of work, a testament to the impressive caliber of artists who have created prints through Flatbed and to the Press' impeccable craftsmanship. I regret that I delayed my initial visit so long that I was able to take in only one viewing of this masterful show. However, I trust that the future shows in this enticing new space will enjoy a like quality and that any trip to this latest in the long and honorable line of Austin arts warehouses will reward any visit. For information, call 477-9328.

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New Texas New Space

One of the key components of the new Flatbed space is a performance area which has been claimed by New Texas Music Works. The vocal arts organization -- you know them from the New Texas Festival every spring -- hasn't yet succeeded in renovating the part of the warehouse which will serve as its new recital hall (as well as a studio for artistic director Craig Hella Johnson and the New Texas offices), but it has succeeded in landing a $20,000 matching grant toward that goal. Any gift to the organization dedicated to this new FWHQ performance space will be matched up to $20,000 by an anonymous donor. But time is running out: The deadline for matching grant donations is this Sunday, Halloween. So make that gift now and help build the cultural community on East MLK. Call 476-5775 for more information.