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:

A glimpse into the world of Air Play With spectacular flying air sculptures and hilarious silent comedy, Air Play has thrilled packed audiences around the globe. Now, in this FestivALL exclusive, be the first to look behind the scenes and see how this inventive show was created.  Then, on Sunday, June 28 join the world-cavorting artists Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone (temporarily at home in New York City) for a live Q&A. Click here to reserve your spot! See the premiere of this exclusive video on the FestivALL YouTube channel on Thursday, June 25th. The video will be available for the duration of FestivALL (June 28th). But in the meantime, click here to learn more about Air Play, the breathtaking homage to the power of air.

AIA West Virginia Presents “20×20 Architecture of WV.” This virtual event will be a fast-paced pecha kucha (Japanese for chit chat) style event: 20 slides of an interesting building narrated for 20 seconds each slide. Join us for an hour of educational fun as we look at the interesting buildings in WV, designed and narrated by the architects who designed them! Premieres on ThursdayJune 25th on the AIA WV YouTube Channel.

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

I have to be honest, after cranking out nearly ten hours of FestivALL video over the previous three years, and sacrificing myannual trip to Wheeling for the Marx Toy Convention, I was burnt out, and announced a year in advance that I would be skipping most of FestivALL in 2013. I returned in 2014, working in a scaled-down manner, and popped out a half-hour FestivALL episode of Radio Free Charleston and a few additional RFC MINI SHOWs.

In today’s video, Radio Free Charleston looks at FestivALL 2014 with music from Todd Burge, The Bark O Loungers, QiET and The Company Stores, plus dance from Susan Angela Hughart and The Trillium Performance Arts Collective. Sprinkled throughout are many sights and sounds of FestivALL. The show also includes a brief look back at an IWA East Coast wrestling show, held at Skateland in Campbell’s Creek. Following the FestivALL format we’d established in previous years, this show is a stream-of-conciousness collection of music and art. Along the way you’ll see The River Queen Sternwheeler, Jude Binder, The stilt-walkers, Ian Bode’s painting, the horse-drawn carriage, Apartment Earth’s “Pop Goes The Weasel” show, the FestivALl Catfish and more.

The Monday Morning Art Exhibit

From March, 2016, we have the first piece of art I did after my doctor suggested I may have Myasthenia Gravis, but a few weeks before I was officially diagnosed. That has nothing to do with this piece, “Bent Perspective On Eighth Avenue,” which was hand-drawn using a mouse, on a new layer over a digitally-manipulated photograph of Eighth Avenue in NYC. I cheated and added the tones with digital effects, because crosshatching that intricate was not possible with a mouse, or with my then-paralyzed fingers.

Click to enlarge.