PREVIEW: Arts Letters and Numbers’ Inaugural Long Tone Semester Reaches Its Finale
12/05-12/06 @ Arts Letters and Numbers, Averill Park
Fall is coming to an end, as is the first Long Tone semester at Arts Letters and Numbers - the nonprofit arts, education, and publishing organization. Located in Averill Park, the organization promotes creativity through a wide range of disciplines, focusing on an ever-transforming world that requires new ways of approaching the ever evolving question of ‘why?’
Long Tone takes that approach through the practices of listening, deep attention, and cross-disciplinary exploration and the program is wrapping up with two separate events. On Friday, December 5 there will be a Listening Non Critique and on Saturday, December 6, the opening of the Long Tone Fall Exhibition, both taking place in the main gallery.
Long Tone, led by David Gersten, has itself evolved throughout the semester, through weekly gatherings, studio visits, seminars, shared readings, improvisational sessions, research presentations, and a focus on creating. With the participants developing their own curriculum and experiencing shifting ideas and reconfigured thoughts throughout the term, their journeys unfolded through the lost art of listening. Some of them were helped along by outside thinkers and practitioners, further shaping their perspectives. This goes in theme with the celebratory events.
The first event is the Listening Non Critique, which will occur in two sessions. The first session is from 12-2pm, and the other from 2-4pm on Friday in the main gallery. The idea behind this event is to allow works to be appreciated through presence and conversation, instead of a formal critique. This goes with the overarching idea of the program - listening being a mode of relation to each other and to each other's work. It is a fitting way to appreciate works that were never about the finished product, but the journey of getting there.
That will be followed by the opening of the exhibit itself the following day. The exhibit will be a collective presentation of the final works that were created during the semester - a reflection of the studies, attention, and creative investigation of the participating individuals. The individual and collective inquiries that shaped the first edition of the Long Tone Studio came from Cory Bertelsen, Undine Brod, Meztli Castro Asmussen, Camille Coleman, Elias DIlls, Sovereign Strickland, and Paria Shahverdi. This will no doubt be a unique experience that you don’t want to miss.
For more information, visit Arts Letters and Numbers’ website here.