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‘Project Lithium’ points the way
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“Art” was the keyword at “Project Lithium,” the third event of its sort presented by the Northwestern Liberal Arts Association on Jan. 25 and 26. Painting lined the walls; sculpture filled the spaces, films played continuously, and the air was shared by poets, fiction writers, DJ’s and bands. The event consisted of two six-hour stints of art-one Friday, one Saturday.
Because I work at the local copy-shop, I was able to witness the dedication of “Lithium’s” event staff. Several of them put in hours and hours of work just designing the advertising. When they weren’t running in and out, making copies aand printing fliers until all hours of the morning, they were organizing the artists, the bands, everyone and every thing. I dare anyone to try and get eight bands, six DJ’s, and dozens of painters, sculptors, photographers, performance artists, poets, and filmmakers to converge in a specific place at a specific time and do it in an organized manner. The event was months in preparation.
So, I have to tip my derby to the staff for their determination and insistence on providing a forum for local art (from hereon a blanket term).
Names I have never heard labeled paintings I have never seen and word combinations I may never hear again. It was like witnessing one giant, fleeting amalgamation of art assembled by a collaborative community of artists. No, it wasn’t like that. It was that.
Included, yet somehow separated from this mishmash of stuff was the back-and-forth between local DJ’s and bands. The order of sounds, for the most part, was band-DJ-spoken word-band-DJ-spoken word. So there was rarely a lull in visual or audio stimulation-for six hours.
But let’s be frank about this thing. Who usually comes to see these kinds of events? I would dare to say that the overwhelming majority of the goers were people who consider themselves some type of artist as well. Do non-artists come to these things? Did you yourself go? Would you go and participate in virtually unknown art instead of going to a movie or friendly bar or whatever? We might like to think so, but what’s the truth? Did this event make people who didn’t care before care? Does it exist only for the people who already care? So many questions.
Say you come from your terrible day job and unknowingly stumble into the event, dropping your $7 along the way. You look around you. People mill about, talking, looking at stuff, listening to stuff, and they are doing it all in the name of art. But you’re preoccupied with everyday troubles and you think, “Is this genuine, or is it just a masturbatory romp to satiate the egos of these artists and poets and bands?” I asked myself the question and for the sake of fairness toyed with a few different answers. But the only answer that I believe and was supported by evidence was this: “Project Lithium” was an honest forum for people to see what is being done in Boise.
It took guts for those artists to show their work, and some of the art and music just knocked me out. Of course, a tiny bit of it was also trite and pretentious, but most everything impressed me to the point of being happy I went.
So, “Project Lithium” was not just for artists, though many were there in support. It simply put up a good time and let us in on the piles of great stuff hiding under our fingertips.
Mark Hitz, The Arbiter
