Celebrating Bethlehem's Southside Culture
Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Artist Collective member Michelle Lee about her involvement with the Collective and her work. A dynamic group of artists from across the country comprise the ArtsQuest’s Artist Collective, a resource of creative, networking, professional development, and career opportunities for visual artists. A talented artist, Lee resides in…
A dynamic group of artists from across the country comprise the ArtsQuest’s Artist Collective, a resource of creative, networking, professional development, and career opportunities for visual artists. Katie Hovencamp is one of these multi-talented artists. An internationally recognized artist, Hovencamp explores the deconstruction of gender roles and interrogates social expectations of femininity through sculpture and…
The relatively small room was filling up quickly as myself and two friends arrived for the Stan Rogers Tribute show at the Godfrey Daniels Listening Room on Saturday night. Patrons mingled with one another, members of the band drifting among them. As fate would have it the second annual tribute show fell on the 150th…
As a cinema host and as a fan of the romantic comedy genre, I’d been looking forward to The Big Sick for months. The star and co-writer (with Emily V. Gordon) of the film, Kumail Nanjiani, has frequently remarked on his fondness for Hugh Grant’s romantic comedies. I hoped that Nanjiani’s clear passion for such…
David Sommers, a resident artist at the Banana Factory Arts Center, has known Bethlehem for many years. As an artist, Sommers started with just a black chalkboard: “I just drew and drew as a kid. I would draw out memories of films.” He tried to capture his surrounding environment while growing up in Guyana, South…
For Banana Factory Arts Center resident artist Stephanie Smith, Bethlehem ties run deep. Both sides of Smith’s family are from South Bethlehem, and steel workers dot her family tree. Arriving in the US in 1890, her paternal great grandfather was one of the South Bethlehem’s earliest Slovak immigrants and worked at Bethlehem Steel. He also…
Think Musikfest only offers live music? Think again! See a different side of Musikfest this year. New for 2017, the Spark Orthodontics Familienplatz boasts creative arts, workshops, rides, and more. Nestled in the colonial industrial quarter next to the Monocacy Creek on Bethlehem’s north side, Familienplatz has something for every Musikfester—from tots to adults, inexperienced…
On the nights of June 11 and 13, crowds of Beatles fans attended the limited showing of Scott Freiman’s film Deconstructing The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, as part of the “talkback series” at the SteelStacks Theater. Rubber Soul strikes me as the red-headed step child of “favorite Beatles albums.” Usually, the choices are Sgt Pepper or…
NOTE: The discussion of Colossal below contains some plot spoilers. Literature and film have always been, for me and for so many others, training in empathy. We learn to walk in the shoes of those we’ve never met, to feel as they might feel. But part of that training is to read the signs of human…
The Banana Factory Arts Center has been Kim Hogan’s home for ten years now. Years ago, she took over the summer programs of a departing resident artist and has stayed with us as a teaching artist since. Here at the Banana Factory, Hogan wears many hats: resident artist, summer camp teacher, outreach program facilitator, and…