What light reveals
Wednesday, June 3 — Most of us encounter art at the surface. The finished mural. The hung canvas. The staged performance. Rarely do we get inside the making of it.
This week’s Sketchbook takes you inside – twice.
Atlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper spent years building the first feature-length documentary about Romare Bearden, one of the most important American artists of the 20th century. Her film, “Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage,” moves the way he worked: through fragments, memory, and accumulated meaning. She shares what it took to bring it all to life.
On the opera stage, lighting designer Robert Wierzel has spent four years painting emotion into Wagner’s Ring Cycle with light. “Twilight of the Gods,” the cycle’s finale, opened May 30 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. In our Q&A, he pulls back the curtain on his process.
How much of what moves you was never meant to be noticed?
—Sherri Daye Scott
Constructed from life
🎞️ Romare Bearden spent his life insisting Black people should tell their own stories. Atlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper spent years making sure someone finally told his. The first feature-length documentary about Bearden screened at Cannes this spring. Here’s what it took.
➡️ Learn how Draper brought Bearden to the screen.
Come For the Museum. Stay for the Shop.
SPONSORED BY MUSEUM OF DESIGN ATLANTA
🎨 MODA’s Design Shop is one of Atlanta’s best-kept secrets. Visitors say it again and again: best shop in town. It’s easy to see why. Every object here was chosen because it’s well-designed, whether elegantly simple or delightfully whimsical. Books, housewares, stationery, and objects that make daily life a bit more delightful.
Skip the algorithm. Come browse in person.
→ Located in the lobby of the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) at 1315 Peachtree St NE, Midtown Atlanta.
Painted in light
💡 Robert Wierzel has spent four years lighting the Atlanta Opera’s Ring Cycle tetralogy – 14 hours of Wagner, one opera at a time. Most of what he does, audiences will never consciously register. In our Q&A, he explains exactly how that works.
Art Happenings
🎨 Brookhaven City Centre Art Mural Unveiling | 5-7 p.m., June 4 | Brookhaven City Center Atrium. (Pictured)
🔥 Opening Reception: Light My Fire, Chris Beck and Matthew Gunn | 5:30-7 p.m., June 5 | Gallery One 11.
⚽ LINES OF PLAY Group Exhibition Opening | 6-10 p.m., June 6 | ABV Gallery.
🛍️ Spruill Makers’ Market | 11 a.m.- 5 p.m., June 7 | Spruill Center for the Arts.
🥠 Flux Projects: Good Fortune Community Workshop | 2-5 p.m., June 7 | Be Nice House.
Post of the Week
🧶 Artist @zipporahcamille sits down with @whitespace814 for a video conversation about world building, liminal spaces, and what it means to invite someone into your work.
➡️ See the post.
🖋️ Today’s Sketchbook was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.
