Breakin’ in the Ballroom

Word on the street is you’ve got some mad dance moves. From the MCs who brought you Bingo in the Ballroom comes the next episode of hot, cheap fun: a one-night hip-hop house dance party so def, it’ll unlace your high tops. Beats so minty fresh they’ll make you wanna shoop. All the fly booty shakers will be Breakin’ in the Ballroom on Friday, April 3 at the Emerson. $10 gets you all in to the all-you-can dance buffet. No-host bar featuring wine coolers, tall boys and soda pop. It’s gonna be a wild night of rump bumpin’ fun and a dance off – winner takes home prizes and glory. But only if you show up on the dance floor. 18 and up. 8 – 11 p.m. Tickets at the door until they sell out, starting at 7 p.m. IDs checked at the door. Dress to impress.

You’ll have so much fun, you won’t even notice you’re supporting the Emerson.

Call for Special Ed./Art Teacher and Aide – Fall 2009

Emerson Art Education
Special Ed. Artist-Educator & Special Ed Art Aide
Job Application 2009

The Emerson’s offers community-based art education for teens, adults and children. Emerson Art Education classes and workshops are fun and build artistic skills and creative courage for all students in an inclusive community setting. Our teachers are high-quality educators and artists.

Beginning Fall of 2009, the Emerson will pilot a Special Education art class for grades 6-12 and recent high school graduates. Artist-Educators must have expertise in the media they teach, enthusiasm about working with youth and adults with a range of artistic abilities, an exceptional ability to communicate with parents, students, Emerson staff and the community at large, and a flexible attitude about working in a community-based arts organization. In addition, the Artist-Educator for this position will be certified to teach Special Education and Art, or have demonstrated success and enjoyment with this population. We seek inspiring candidates who are great art teachers and are sensitive to the wide range of issues and talents of students with special needs.

The Frances Senska Pottery Studio has large working tables, slab roller, fully stocked glaze area and glaze making material area, 10 wheels, an electric kiln, a variety of tools, extruder, clay mixer, slide projector and trays, and buckets. It is a community space shared by several teachers and thirty students at any given time. Proactive communication and willingness to pitch in to improve this popular and growing program are imperative.

Emerson’s art classroom, the Green Room, is a multi-use space shared by the Crawford Theater and the Art Education program. There may be times when classes must be moved to accommodate concerts or other community events. While we do our best to provide a consistent location for art classes, you may be asked to relocate your class. Please take this into account when applying for this position.

We currently have funding for a five-week class for 8-10 students that meets for two hours after school once a week during Fall 2009. We are also hiring a classroom aide with demonstrated enjoyment and success in working with students with special needs. We hope to continue the program throughout 2009-2010 and beyond, pending funding.

Your application packet should include the following:
• Cover letter, including: your specific interest in teaching, class ideas
• Resumé or narrative describing related training, teaching and community-based art experience
• Artist’s statement, if applicable
• CD with five – ten images of your current work (jpeg files, 1 – 3 megabyte), if applicable
Please send your packet to: Visual Arts Director Ellen Ornitz
The Emerson 111 South Grand, Bozeman, MT 59715
Please do not email your application.

Deadline for receipt of materials – June 1, 2009 or until position filled
Notification of acceptance – July 1, 2009 or until position filled
Fall Session – September – December 2009 (first class no earlier than September 14, 2009)

Call for submissions: Native American traditional beadwork

The Emerson is looking for a Native American traditional beadwork artist with a body of work to exhibit with the contemporary beadwork of Molly Murphy (Oglala, Lakota), who specializes in contemporary native beadwork and printmaking.

Exhibit opens June 2009 – to be considered, please download an application form here and submit as soon as possible.

Call for contemporary visual artists

The Emerson is now accepting applications for contemporary visual art exhibits for our Lobby, Weaver Room, and Jessie Wilber galleries for 2009 – 2011.

The Jessie Wilber Gallery exhibits the artwork of professional contemporary artists showing painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, crafts, mixed media, film, new genre, and installations.

The Emerson Lobby Gallery exhibits the drawings, paintings, prints, photography, and mixed media work of regional contemporary artists. The show often relates specifically to the current exhibit in the Jessie Wilber Gallery.

The Weaver Room Gallery displays two-dimensional and wall hung sculpture highlighting topics of regional significance including community concerns, travel, and artwork by students and faculty of Montana State University and our local schools.

Click here for more information and to download an application form.

Bingo = Fun

Last night, 200 people came to play Bingo together in the ballroom, raised $2,500 for the Emerson…and had a ball doing it!  Winners got some great prizes, including two “Dinner for Two” gift certificates to the Emerson Grill, an hour massage from Emerson tenant Mandy Schroeder, earrings by Emerson tenant Linda Banning, and three cash prizes! Many thanks to our sponsors: Olivera Cafe; Club 320 at Museum of the Rockies; tart; Garrity, Avignone & Banick; and Refuge Sustainable Building Center. We hope everyone had so much fun, and by the looks of things, they did!

(One of our favorite things about the evening was that so many ages came together to play. Two young men with dreadlocks shared a table with three white-haired ladies…and they were having so much fun together!)

Little bird sale raises $880 for the Emerson’s Pottery!

Once upon a time there was a little community arts center that had a lot of big ideas.

One of them was that kids and teenagers needed the chance to get their hands dirty, and learn how to work clay from a living, breathing artist.

So we hired Ryan Mitchell. You should come to the Emerson and meet him; his students think he’s the bees’ knees. (He usually has clay stuck in his arm hairs, too.)

A bunch of other artist-types saw what we were up to, and wanted to help out. So 30 of them came to the Emerson one night and made 80 clay birds. They thought maybe folks would want to buy a bird – even a goofy one – and help keep kids’ hands in clay.

We sold the birds at the Emerson’s Holiday Bazaar back in November, and HeyDay and Indulgence on Main Street were kind enough to sell some for us, too. And we raised $880 for the Emerson’s Frances Senska Pottery Studio!

Thanks for being a part of a big idea.

Making clay birds to raise money for the Emerson's Pottery

two birds from the pottery fundraiser