Outsider Artists at Space 7:10

New Exhibit: Jan. 15 through Feb. 10, 2007
Art For the People at Space 7:10 at Kefa Cafe
963 Bonifant Street
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-589-9337

Colorful collages by clients of Community Vision Day Shelter for the Homeless and students of local artist and teacher Karen Gallant (Art for the People), featuring sculptures (known by local collectors as "Alvin's Heads" plus new chunky, free-form vases with faces) from Alvin Lewis Thomas.

Reception: Friday, February 2 from 6:30 to 8:30.

Art For The People's classes at Community Vision and other shelters and alternative high school programs are made possible in part by a grant from Maryland State Arts Council.

Winter and Spring Art Events in Silver Spring

All events at Space 7:10 at Kefa Cafe, 963 Bonifant St. in downtown Silver Spring.

New Exhibit: January 15 through February 10, 2007
Exhibit of artwork by clients of Community Vision Day Shelter for the Homeless, who were students of Karen Gallant (Art for the People), featuring sculptures by locally-recognized outsider artist Alvin Lewis Thomas. Exhibit co-sponsored by Takoma Park-based Art for the People.

Photo by Melinda Jane White

Friday, February 2, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Art reception for Art for the People

Friday, February 9, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Live Music: Ocio Jazz, quartet led by Marty Hindel

February 13 through March 10
Exhibit of artwork by daughter and mother, Mame N’Diaye and Diana N’Diaye. Working mainly in pen and ink, Mame derives her themes from mystical, fantasy worlds. Mame, who has Asperger Syndrome and bipolar disorder, uses art as a place to share her dreams. Fiber artist and jewelry designer Dr. Diana Baird N'Diaye is a curator at the Smithsonian Institution Folklife Center. Exhibit is co-sponsored by Empowered Women International.

Friday, Feb. 16, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Women. Body. Love., poetry reading hosted by Anne Becker

Friday, Feb. 23, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Art reception for Mame and Diana

March 13 through Saturday, April 7, 2007
Exhibit titled "Mostly Burmese Mugs" featuring “mostly anonymous, ethnically ambiguous” portraits and ceramics by artist and poet Kyi May Kaung. Provocative captions written by historian Bijan Bayne accompany the artwork explore those questions about race that decorum forbids we ask strangers on the street.

March 16, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Reception for Kyi May Kaung

March 30, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Trunk show of wearable art jackets handmade with Asian fabrics by Kyi May Kaung and modeled by café neighbors and regulars.

April 6, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Dr. Kaung’s Salon: Who is it? Art as a Mirror of Pre-Judgment
With writer and historian Bijan C. Bayne

In our "rush" to judgment, and desire to have a "place" for everything, and for everything a place, we race to identify people. Definitions based on complexion, context, and conception fall apart before the reality that the myriad genes swimming in our respective pools express themselves in more ways than we ever could. Please join us for this discussion, in which our guesses answer as much about our perspectives as they do about the portraits in question.

April 10 through May 5, 2007
Exhibit of collages and mixed media paintings by award-winning artist and beloved local teacher Patricia Zannie

April 27, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Modern Dance and Live Music: 'placeDISplace' choreographed and danced by Gretchen Dunn, with music by contemporary Hungarian composer Balázs Temesvári. Kit Mason, cello.

Gretchen Dunn has been dancing intermittently all her life and wishes to thank Nancy Havlik, Naoko Maeshiba, Ed Tyler, Helen Rea, the Fieldwork, Rudolf Laban, Tzveta Kassabova and Zoltán Nagy.

May 8 through June 4, 2007
Exhibit of photographs of families and children by Emily Desiroth.

“I don’t find photographing the situation nearly as interesting as photographing the edges.”

May 18, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Dr. Kaung’s Salon: Novelist and playwright Leon Levenson to give a talk on the early music of Tin Pan Alley

May 25, 6:30 to 8:30pm
Reception for Emily Deisroth

Tom Block Exhibit at Heliport

" Convergences: Towards a Jewish/Muslim Renewal,"
Featuring the art and thought of Tunisian Muslim artist Karim Chaibi and American artist (and founder of Space 7:10) Tom Block.

Heliport Gallery
8001 Kennett St, Suite 3
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-562-1400
Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri., 4-7 PM

Other events in conjunction with the exhibit:

"An Evening with the Diplomats"
February 15, Thursday, 6:30-8:30 pm
State department officers who have served in and thought about the Middle
East over the past 50 years will hold a panel discussion.

"An Evening with the Artists"
March 8, Thursday, 6:30-8:30 pm

"An Evening of Cultural Convergence"
March 22, Thursday, 6:30-8:30 pm
Jewish and Muslim storytelling, dancing and music.

Note: these are Thursday night events at Heliport Gallery, not at Space 7:10

Poets Against War at Busboys and Poets

Date: January 27th
Time: 7-9 pm
Place: Busboys and Poets
DC Poets Against the War will host a reading in the Langston Room at Busboys and Poets with poets Reginald Dwayne Betts, Sarah Browning (who spoke recently at Space 7:10), Esther Iverem, Christi Kramer, Mike Maggio, and more. Join poets from across the country who are speaking out on this day of protest (melissa.dcpaw@gmail.com).

Kefa Cafe Cover Story in Voice

The current issue of Silver Spring Voice features beautiful photos of Lene and Abeba and the cafe in articles on "third spaces" in communities that help create cool places to live and work. Other local cool town places mentioned include the new Tiramisu Cafe, Mayorga, Tastee Diner, Quarry House Tavern. Space 7:10 is mentioned, too, as a way the owners "give back."

Hurricane Howie Events and Reflection

Tonight: Thurs. 1/11, 9:00 pm: Solo Keyboards @ KRAMERBOOKS CAFÉ
And then: Thurs. 1/18, 9:00 pm: Solo Keyboards @ KRAMERBOOKS CAFÉ

From "Mardi Gras Year Round" Howie Feinstein's year end-beginning letter:

Each year at this time, I like to take stock of how things are going in this rather crazy music business, and pay my respects to all of you, whom I am so dependent on in my quest to make a go of it... The local music community, and many friends and fans, came through very generously with donations of time and funds to aid those victimized by two devastating Louisiana hurricanes and neglected by government. My trip to Louisiana shortly afterward confirmed how desperately your help was needed...



Locally, it continues to be a tough time for live music...I am personally quite fortunate in this regard, because I play solo instruments, and have scrambled to add alternative outlets in place of the old club circuit...On the business side, much appreciation to friends like Dave Eisner (House of Musical Traditions), Amy Kincaid (Kefa Café),everyone at Kramerbooks and Afterwords, the various Sala Thai locations, and others who have supported live music and treated musicians fairly (believe me, the latter is not always the case!)...




I’m continuing to pound the keys and squeeze the accordion as much as possible. Most of my recent gigs have been solo, but I look forward to playing as much as I can this year with my richly-talented musical and personal friends, Rita and Richard Clarke. Rita is unmatched as a singer, stage performer, and song-writer, and Richard, veteran of tours with Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and many more, is a truly nonpareil drummer. The new solo album I aimed for in 2006 has been delayed, but I guarantee it will be out this year, featuring some of the area’s top musical talent.


A great deal of my creative energy has gone into the completion of my civil rights history/memoir, focusing on some of my more colorful cases from back in the day (featuring Ku Klux Klan prosecutions). The prologue and epilogue concern the true story of a local woman whose parents were murdered in a Klan bombing in 1951, and her 55-year effort to achieve justice. That remarkable tale is the subject of a screenplay I am working on as well. My artistic plate is indeed full for 2007!!

Thanks again; your suggestions are most welcome! Keep on fighting for peace, justice and freedom,
Best wishes, Howie

For more information (and full text of the letter), khfeinstein@us.net

Kefa Artists Quoted on Heliport Gallery

Salon director Kyi May Kaung and Space 7:10 founder Tom Block spoke to reporter Meredith Hooker (Silver Spring Gazette) about the Heliport Gallery. Here's the story.

Martha Wittman at Round House Theatre

Dancer, choreographer, and Kefa Cafe regular (and a Dr. Kaung's Salon guest last year) Martha Wittman directs a performance that explores historic material from the coal mining industry and moments of community life found in the artworks of her father, Michael J. Gallagher, a WPA artist. This Saturday and Sunday! Note: this event is not at the cafe, but up the street and around the corner at Round House Theater.

Liz Lerman Presents “Imprints on a Landscape: The Mining Project”
Round House Theatre Silver Spring, 8641 Colesville Road in Silver Spring

January 6 at 8 p.m. and January 7 at 3 p.m.

The performance cast reflects the multi-generational, close-knit culture of mining, and includes music and visual artists who are also family members. Audiotapes drawn from interviews with mining community members will accompany the score, as will videotape of Gallagher’s artwork and contemporary landscape images.

Tickets: Tickets may be purchased online or by phone.
Online: http://www.boxofficetickets.com/danceexchange
Phone: 1-800-494-8497. Hours of operation for phone orders are as follows: Mon-Fri, 10-6 Sat-Sun

Author Discusses New Book on POW Leader

Dr. Kaung's Salon
Melissa Robinson, journalist and author
Friday, January 12, 6;30-8:30 pm

The Search for Canasta 404: Love, Loss, and the POW+MIA Movement
by Melissa B. Robinson & Maureen Dunn

Kyi May Kaung will facilitate (so join us, also, to welcome her back from travel to Asia).

The whirlwind romance of Joe and Maureen Dunn began in the spring of 1963. Each the youngest child of a working-class Irish Boston family, they quickly fell in love and were married soon after they met. Joe subsequently enlisted in the Navy, attended flight school, and volunteered for Vietnam. On Valentine's Day 1968 — eleven days after his first tour of duty was extended — Joe was ferrying an unarmed plane, call sign "Canasta 404," when he drifted into Chinese airspace and was shot down.

That tragedy helped to ignite one of the most important social movements of recent decades. Eyewitness accounts suggested Joe might have survived the initial attack, but Maureen, determined to prove her husband was still alive, met with resistance rather than answers from a stonewalling U.S. government. In response, she organized the "Where is Lt. Joe Dunn?" committee, one of the first POW/MIA activist organizations in the country.

Part love story, part inside account of the growth of a movement, The Search for Canasta 404 is a deeply personal narrative of private tragedy and public activism.

Melissa B. Robinson is a reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., where she covers New England issues. Maureen Dunn is leading an effort to build a national POW/MIA memorial in Boston.