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Athletes of The Spirit


JavaJane
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I am looking for any connections anyone has to ex TWI folks who were performers in AOTS for a project being worked on by an artist in the Houston area.  Looking for stories and experiences.  Please message me if you aren't comfortable posting someone else's info here.

Thanks much.

 

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11 hours ago, JavaJane said:

I am looking for any connections anyone has to ex TWI folks who were performers in AOTS for a project being worked on by an artist in the Houston area.  Looking for stories and experiences.  Please message me if you aren't comfortable posting someone else's info here.

Thanks much.

 

Whats up JJ!!! One of my in rez corps fellow detainees witnessed to the seed lady in Colorado. She declined to come to fellowship....born of the wrong seed n all.

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They live in Black Forrest, CO, and run their own cult. I “witnessed” to one of their members in an Old Chicago in CO Springs. She got all excited because I knew all about Bullinger and BG. So that tells you what their doctrine is. Apparently, Seed-girl lives with her brother-in-law and her sister, Terry and Melanie Wilson. The gal I witnessed to was all excited about me meeting The Wilson’s. Gave  her my number and name, she gave me her’s and said she would call me back about going to their “fellowship”. Well she never called, so I called her. She said that Terry and Melanie did NOT want me anywhere near their house and that she would prefer to never hear from me again. LOL! So, that’s where seed-girl and family are at as of 2015! Look em up in Black Forrest, CO. Ask her if she’ll help you in your project. Let us know what she says. Thanks OldSkool, and good luck. Very nice to see you JavaJane!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Complex 3 by Seth Schwaiger

Public · Event · by Art League Houston
Seth Orion Schwaiger invited you

 

 
Friday at 6 PM - 9 PM
3 days from now · 73–93° Mostly Sunny
 
 
Art League Houston
1953 Montrose Blvd, Houston, Texas 77006
 
 
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COMPLEX 3
Seth Orion Schwaiger
Opening Reception: 6 – 9 PM Friday, June 8, 2018
Artist Talk: 6:30 PM Friday, June 8, 2018 
Exhibition Dates: June 8 – July 21, 2018
Main Gallery

Art League Houston presents Complex 3, an exhibition by Austin-based artist, curator, and writer Seth Orion Schwaiger. This exhibition is part of an ongoing series of projects exploring ideas of intrinsic and assigned value, with an increasing focus on the value and quality of non-linear thought. The works in the exhibition include architectural intervention, labyrinthine installation, and doubling of imagery and symbols as a strategy to pull the implied line of traditional exhibition viewing back in on itself. The looping or spiraling of information produces a unique environment that challenges the viewer’s proclivity to process information in a way that speaks to a more outcome-driven, practical, algebraic, cause and effect way of thinking. 

Complex 3 is Schwaiger’s first solo exhibition in Houston and his most transparently autobiographical exhibition to date. Here, Schwaiger transforms the gallery space into a spiritual quarantine, a space isolated through sonic and architectural means, in which a dark, yet comical image from the artist’s past can be processed in relative psychological safety. The centerpiece of the exhibition is an obscure video of an interpretive dance produced by the Midwestern Christian cult The Way International in 1986 in which their unique spiritual mythology is articulated through nylon clad performers — including the now disgraced former Way President the Reverend L. Craig Martindale who stars as the protagonist of this baffling film.

By opening this sensitive memory, reexamining the absurdity of his own past, and presenting the imagery of it in a physical way analogous to the mental structures and processes that surround trauma, Schwaiger invites the viewer to consider absurdity and pointlessness — to consider elements that add up to nothing, or to less than the sum of their parts. It is an invitation to take in existence without the overwhelming desire for it to make sense, to consider one’s own past without making every moment integral or necessary, and, in the end, to undo these very same conclusions by putting such pointlessness at the center of thought. It is an invitation into the artists own private mental space.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Seth Orion Schwaiger is a lecturer at the University of Texas. He earned a BFA from the University of Wyoming in 2007 and an MFA from the Glasgow School of art in 2013. Since that time he has published 100+ articles and exhibition essays through museums, galleries, and publications including art ltd., Artsy, Arts + Culture Texas, The Austin Chronicle, Glasstire, New American Painting, Sculpture Magazine, and Sightlines. His work has been shown and collected in Europe and North America including exhibitions in London, Zurich, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Austin, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Recent projects include several collaborations with Elizabeth McDonald Schwaiger: you i i i everything else at De Stijl Gallery, Austin; Arch , part of Good Mourning Tis of Thee at Co-Lab’s Demo Space, Austin; and Unheimlich at Anthem Gallery in San Antonio.
Edited by JavaJane
None of your business
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How very cool is that!

 

3 hours ago, JavaJane said:

By opening this sensitive memory, reexamining the absurdity of his own past, and presenting the imagery of it in a physical way analogous to the mental structures and processes that surround trauma, Schwaiger invites the viewer to consider absurdity and pointlessness — to consider elements that add up to nothing, or to less than the sum of their parts. It is an invitation to take in existence without the overwhelming desire for it to make sense, to consider one’s own past without making every moment integral or necessary, and, in the end, to undo these very same conclusions by putting such pointlessness at the center of thought.

:beer:

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15 hours ago, JavaJane said:

By opening this sensitive memory, reexamining the absurdity of his own past, and presenting the imagery of it in a physical way analogous to the mental structures and processes that surround trauma, Schwaiger invites the viewer to consider absurdity and pointlessness — to consider elements that add up to nothing, or to less than the sum of their parts. It is an invitation to take in existence without the overwhelming desire for it to make sense, to consider one’s own past without making every moment integral or necessary, and, in the end, to undo these very same conclusions by putting such pointlessness at the center of thought. It is an invitation into the artists own private mental space.

Holy sh1t javajane.  An artists depiction of recovering from a cult all with a central piece of Athletes of the Spirit?  I would love to see pictures of Complex 3 if anyone in Texas is going to see the exhibit.

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6 hours ago, chockfull said:

Holy sh1t javajane.  An artists depiction of recovering from a cult all with a central piece of Athletes of the Spirit?  I would love to see pictures of Complex 3 if anyone in Texas is going to see the exhibit.

Yep.  You can check out some of his work for the project on Instagram.  Search Seth Orion Schwaiger.

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4 hours ago, Watered Garden said:

I think the artist's parents may have been in family way corps when we were. 

They were in the family corps.  Mother Pat, father Dave.

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That needs a WARNING, Rejoice.

On 6/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, chockfull said:

...an obscure video of an interpretive dance produced by the Midwestern Christian cult The Way International in 1986 in which their unique spiritual mythology ...

 

On 6/6/2018 at 2:25 PM, chockfull said:

Schwaiger invites the viewer to consider absurdity and pointlessness...

 

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!

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8 hours ago, JavaJane said:

For that last one, please use the sound.

Yeah, yeah!  Considerable improvement on the original.

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I remember the first time I watched this video in my fellowship, the branch coordinator thought it was so magnificent.  The version I watched had Don Weirwille narrating at the front or back - can't remember which - describing God and His magnificence.  That narration was fantastic!  The rest of the video seemed like just so much nonsense to me, I really didn't understand why it was receiving so much admiration. 

I just chalked it up to my being so new, but now I know my perspective was correct.

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19 hours ago, JavaJane said:

For that last one, please use the sound.

Love it.  The last video clip was mesmerizing with the back beat.   A track from when twerking was popular a few years ago.  I was watching it over and over LOL.

The video action can be broken down into 3 segments.

  1. The worst karate kata you've ever seen performed
  2. The ending presentation of a gymnast's open floor exercise
  3. Some kind of hybrid multi-sport movement.  Like baseball, basketball, sitting on the bench in football.  Something like that.

The last segment looks kind of like some form of twerking.  I can see the artist thought patterns LOL.

 

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14 minutes ago, Rejoice said:

An example of What Not to Create????

Exactly!

On 6/5/2018 at 6:12 PM, JavaJane said:

Schwaiger invites the viewer to consider absurdity and pointlessness — to consider elements that add up to nothing, or to less than the sum of their parts.

 

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Java Jane, thanks for sharing about Seth - and I am blown away how his project deals with “the nonsense” ! I think it will be awesome!!!

I looked around on his website - and all his work is very interesting...what talent ! an artist, a curator and a writer - I thought one of his articles really does a great job of expressing the desire of an artist to get his work out there - 

Confessions of a Wayward Artist

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On 6/13/2018 at 9:04 AM, Taxidev said:

I remember the first time I watched this video in my fellowship, the branch coordinator thought it was so magnificent.  The version I watched had Don Weirwille narrating at the front or back - can't remember which - describing God and His magnificence.  That narration was fantastic!  The rest of the video seemed like just so much nonsense to me, I really didn't understand why it was receiving so much admiration. 

I just chalked it up to my being so new, but now I know my perspective was correct.

Taxi, yes your perspective was correct.  I remember all the attention that AOTS received in TWI.  LCM was very proud of "his baby."  Personally, I thought it odd that Craig, a non-dancer, was the star of it.  But, then I throught the whole production was boring, and a huge waste of resources.  But, if you were in a leadership position, you were expected to talk it up, and get excited about it.  And if you were in TWI, you were expected to watch it, and get all giddy about it.  Nuts!!

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6 hours ago, Grace Valerie Claire said:

Taxi, yes your perspective was correct.  I remember all the attention that AOTS received in TWI.  LCM was very proud of "his baby."  Personally, I thought it odd that Craig, a non-dancer, was the star of it.  But, then I throught the whole production was boring, and a huge waste of resources.  But, if you were in a leadership position, you were expected to talk it up, and get excited about it.  And if you were in TWI, you were expected to watch it, and get all giddy about it.  Nuts!!

lcm was NOT the star of the 1.0 presentation.  However, when it was expanded, it was during lcm's "I have to be the center of everything" narcissism swing. He was on High Country Caravan, he appeared at the beginning of the "Many Ways" music album explaining what it was about, and so on, If something went on in public, he had to be in the photo OR ELSE. So, lcm kept being around until some suck-up wondered aloud why he wasn't in the front of THAT as well- and lcm found the excuse he was waiting for and pushed Haywood down and took his role.  I liked the thing at the time. But, at the time, I was young and stupid.

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11 minutes ago, WordWolf said:

lcm was NOT the star of the 1.0 presentation.  However, when it was expanded, it was during lcm's "I have to be the center of everything" narcissism swing. He was on High Country Caravan, he appeared at the beginning of the "Many Ways" music album explaining what it was about, and so on, If something went on in public, he had to be in the photo OR ELSE. So, lcm kept being around until some suck-up wondered aloud why he wasn't in the front of THAT as well- and lcm found the excuse he was waiting for and pushed Haywood down and took his role.  I liked the thing at the time. But, at the time, I was young and stupid.

WW, I did not know there was a first AOTS, without LCM.  Thanks for the information.

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