From now until the end of June we will post at least once a day with details on what you can experience at home during this pandemic year for Charleston’s annual festival of all arts. For 2020, FestivALL is when The Internet Becomes A Work Of Art. Every day we will bring you up to date on this year’s VirtuALL FestivALL, plus we will flash back to some of our video coverage from previous years, and I will dig into the archives for one post in the Monday Morning Art Exhibit, collecting some of my favorite pieces from the nearly fifteen years that I’ve been posting my original work here in PopCult.

Today’s big events include:

Readings by David Selby Join stage and screen actor, author, and WV native David Selby (right) for readings from several books and books of poetry…several of which, David has authored himself! His upbringing and life in WV continues to provide inspiration with his work.

David Selby was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia. He received B.S. and M.A. degrees from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University. He is an honorary member of the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center’s Advisory Board, has worked with the Governor’s Honor Academy, and has made many guest appearances around the state of West Virginia. David is a member of the Cleveland Play House Hall of Fame, and, in 1999, he received the Millennium Recognition Award from The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. David and his wife, Chip, fund a guest artist series at West Virginia University. In 1989, he was honored as a distinguished alumnus of West Virginia University, and, in May 1992, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Communications and Fine Arts at Southern Illinois University. He was given the first Life Achievement Award from the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts in 1998, and he received an honorary doctorate from West Virginia University in 2004. David and Chip ran a summer children’s musical theatre in New York for ten years before moving to Los Angeles. He has directed numerous programs with youth and has volunteered with scouting and youth sports programs. David serves on several nonprofit boards in Los Angeles and is very active in his local church. Watch the premiere HERE.

Tiny Dancer Young dancers from the Academy of the Arts at January’s improv in and around their homes while they’re at home. Members of JADCO Contemporary Dance Company mirror the young dancers movements in a video about place, time, and movement. Video will premiere on Tuesday, June 23rd at 3PM and remain on the FestivALL YouTube channel for the duration of the 15 days of FestivALL. Check the premiere HERE.

At 6 PM tonight, The Art of Venice’s Carnevale and Italian Commedia dell’Arte by Melora Cann, The city of Venice, known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice, or, in Italian as La Serenissima Repubblica de Venezia, has a long a fascinating history which includes its relationship with the Christian religion. The focus of this class will be the Christian pre-Lenten celebrations in Venice as depicted in art and the history of its Carnevale costumes and masks. Join the class HERE. About the Instructor: Melora Cann is a former art educator with a specialty in art history. She lived and taught in Vicenza, Italy (less than 50 km from Venice) for 24 years.

Other FestivALL events for today include being able to vote on The Artbus, check out the Art-for-ALL Kids’ Juried Art Exhibition look into the “Faces of First Responders” Tribute Mural and teens can participate in Life: Unedited. FestivALL is off to a strong VirtuALL start.  You can also participate in the CAMC “Run For Your Life” virtual run/walk. The Virtual Art Fair will open on June 14th on the FestivALL website – check it regularly for the gallery and links to shop your favorite WV artisans this summer.

The FestivALL Flashback

In 2012, instead of killing ourselves by trying to produce a daily recap show of FestivALL, I did two, weekly one-hour-plus shows that attempted to cover as much FestivALL goodness as possible. Today we’ll bring you the second of those.

Radio Free Charleston’s coverage of FestivALL 2012 continues with another bonus length episode.  This show is packed with music from Bob Thompson, The Boatmen, Richie Collins Three-O, Todd, Sophie, and Will Burge, Duo Divertido, Bare Bones, Katzendrummers, The Leon Waters Blues Band and more, plus tons of art, dance and theater.

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The Monday Morning Art Exhibit

This entry goes back to September, 2007. It’s a photo taken at Appalachian Power Park during the Oktoberfest fundraiser for the Clay Center that year. I was using the “color accent” function on my then-new camera so that the only color that came through was blue. Everything else is in black and white. You can get some really neat photos of the sky this way. Like this one, in which you can see some of Whistlepunk playing at the bottom of the picture, but the star of the photo is the bright blue sky peeking under the canopy and over the buildings and mountains.