By Nick Dekker
Wait, when did it get to be February already?! If time flies when you’re having fun, Columbus must have been having a blast in January. And if the calendar on ColumbusMakesArt.com is any indication, February is going to whiz by, too.
First, a couple concerts! This Saturday night the Salty Caramels are playing with Wake the Trees and Kristen Peters at King Avenue Five. On Friday Early Music Columbus brings in The Rose Ensemble to perform a concert of old Italian hymns. The Columbus Jazz Orchestra celebrates the Rat Pack with Sammy, Dean and a Little Bit of Frank this weekend.
There are some great new performance pieces opening. Available Light Theatre’s next show, a “stand-up existential comedy” called Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) opens at the Vanderelli Room. Short North Stage opens the comedy Die, Mommy, Die! And BalletMet’s latest piece, Carmen.maquia, runs this weekend and next. It’s sure to be stunning.
Lacey detailed a new round of exhibits that opened last week, and even more are joining the ranks this week. The Ohio Art League opens Perceptions on Black Lives at their new X Space gallery at 400 West Rich. And Wild Goose Creative opens a really special exhibition, The Curiosity of Valerie Starr. Valerie passed away last summer, and the exhibition is a retrospective of three of her artwork series.
PM Gallery just launched a new exhibition called Little Brother Dan Dougan Presents the Art Stache. It’s a collection of artwork that hung at Stache’s/Little Brother’s, the beloved but now-gone music venue. If you were a regular there, you can take home a little piece of nostalgia. (I only saw one show there in 2006, Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine, before the venue closed.)
One item that often flies under the radar is the special exhibitions happening around Ohio State’s campus. With so many special libraries and collections, there are all sorts of items on display, like American Aesthetics from the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection. Or stay tuned for the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s upcoming pieces, opening in later February and March.
Okay, one plug for outside Columbus: a couple weekends ago we took our boys to The Art of the Brick at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Artist Nathan Sawaya uses Lego bricks to create sculptures, recreations of famous paintings, even costumes. It’s fantastic, and runs through early May.
If you’ve got kiddos, there are still plenty of Lego exhibits happening at COSI, the Ohio History Center and the Columbus Museum of Art. And there’s Disney On Ice this weekend!
To find more to do, search through ColumbusMakesArt.com, and let us know what you find by using the hashtag #artmakescbus.
Nick helps with marketing and events for GCAC. He also leads culinary tours and blogs about breakfast at breakfastwithnick.com. His current Force Awakens viewing count is still six, so it’s probably time for a seventh.
