Photographs by Kevin A. Roberts
Ten years ago, the Pulitzer was brand-new; the Forum for Contemporary Art was morphing into the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; and Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, White Flag Projects, and Tom Huck’s Evil Prints Studio didn’t exist. The Regional Arts Commission was about five years away from moving into its new digs on Delmar Boulevard. And though there were fewer mainstream spots to hear music, audiences more reliably turned out for touring bands than for locals. Things were kind of threadbare and fragmented, but the pieces were in place for what’s happening now—which, if you’ve been to Cherokee Street’s Cinco de Mayo, Dancing in the Street, or an art opening in Grand Center, you know is not a small thing.
Cherokee Street, actually, has been one of the hot spots for all of this new arts activity, including shows curated by the newish St. Louis Secret Sound Society, which threw a multiple-day music fest last year. True to the name, members are anonymous; they show up in newspaper articles with faces obscured by cutouts of the group’s distinctive bull’s-eye logo, and gigs are advertised with time and place, but not the lineup—you have to show up to see who’s playing. SSS is one of the prime movers behind the brand-new St. Louis Arts Project (SLAP), formed in January. “It’s not anonymous at all,” laughs music promoter Liz Deichmann, a member of both SSS and SLAP (as well as the founder of The Billiken Club). “It’s just very new.”
SLAP organizers meet every Monday at The Mud House on Cherokee Street. The group’s first big project is a four-day independent music and arts conference, running June 16 through 19, that is only the first of what organizers anticipate to be many events engaging with the same ideas and themes. The aim, Deichmann says, is to bring together as diverse of a group as possible; right now, that includes Cherokee Street artists like Emily Hemeyer and the folks behind the music venue Pig Slop, as well as the Luminary Center for the Arts, hip-hop collective Made Monarchs, media and design groups Tangent Mind and WORK/PLAY, and arts/music collectives Civil Ape and Lane 4.
“We’ve been building everything from the ground up, so it’s everything from the entire conference schedule to panels and workshops to different tangential projects like arts banners, and different projects leading up to the conference,” Deichmann says. The Thursday kickoff, which takes place at the Contemporary Art Museum, is free, and includes a performance by the St. Louis Complaint Choir, which will sing complaints submitted through Facebook (ranging from “The cops who lie in hiding like spiders givin’ out speeding tickets in 35 mph zones: don’t like!” to “I hate how Lindbergh becomes Kirkwood and then goes back to Lindbergh”), followed by a show curated by SSS—the lineup, of course, is secret.
On Friday, musicians and DJs gather at the Regional Arts Commission for “Electronic St. Louis,” a round-robin performance, followed by a question-and-answer session where artists will talk about everything from technique to equipment. Meanwhile, in the next room, participants can learn to screen-print and stencil in a DIY art workshop. The night is capped with a group performance, including So Many Dynamos and 18andCounting.
Saturday’s programming, also at RAC, includes a full day of panels and workshops; admission is $10. It is an all-day affair, with topics ranging from “DIY Pioneers” to “A How-To Guide: Advice for Local Bands” and “Found Art/Reworked STL,” which looks at how St. Louis artists are shaped and inspired by St. Louis’ urban landscape. There will also be an art/music resource fair, visual artists’ and musicians’ talks, and an open forum on how art and music can contribute to community-building. Then, at 7 p.m., a gallery crawl and open studio stroll will be held Cherokee Street. Sunday wraps up at the Contemporary, with a community discussion exploring the ideas and themes brought up during the first three days of the conference, with an emphasis on community engagement. This is far from being art for art’s sake.
“I think we really consciously tried to involve the most diverse group of people we can get,” Deichmann says. “And this is just the first of many things we’ll be doing. What we would really like to do after this is monthly, or regularly scheduled programming, so we can continue to talk about these topics. This isn’t just the opportunity to have one discussion...it’s the start of many discussions. Our hope is to build up the creative infrastructure of St. Louis and become a resource, and as we do that, gather more people to engage in all these different conversations that we plan on having.”
The Players
We stopped by SLAP’s Monday night planning meeting at Mississippi Mud House and passed the tape recorder up and down the table, asking members to introduce themselves, just to give people an idea not only of the sheer number of people involved, but the diversity of backgrounds and skills. Not everyone was there: MIA was Made Monarchs, Stan Chisholm (18andcounting), and James McAnally of the Luminary Center for the Arts. You can read more about them on the SLAP Conference website which also has a full schedule of the weekend’s activities. You can also check their Facebook page for updates.
Aaron Stovall: “I play keyboards and sing in a band called So Many Dynamos here in St. Louis. I’m also a member of the Secret Sound Society.”
Alison Arida: “I’m a member of the Secret Sound Society. And I’m also an archivist in SLAP.”
Liz Deichman: “I am part of Secret Sound Sound Society as well. I do a lot of different things with the conference.”
Lesley Rottsolk: “I’m part of Secret Sound Society and SLAP. I do marketing and PR, the social media stuff.”
Jane Nagel: “I am part of Secret Sound Society; I’m doing design for SLAP.”
Danielle McCoy: “I am with WORK/PLAY, and we are doing the print materials for the SLAP conference.”
Kevin McCoy: “I am a member of WORK/PLAY; I’m also a member of SLAP, and we’re doing the print materials.”
Clayton Kunstel: “I’m a member of the Secret Sound Society, and So Many Dynamos.”
Damon Davis: “I am a member of Civil Ape Arts Collective, and also Scripts N Screwz, a local hip-hop group.”
Kaveh Razlani: “I work for Lane Four. We do event design. We just launched our Facebook page today [Crowd at table: “WHOOOOOO!”] and I’m a few minutes late.”
Veto (“Black Spade”): “I’m a contributor to Lane Four, and a contributor to Flying Fish.”
John Ryan: “I’m with Tangent Mind. I do video stuff.”
Emily Hemeyer: “I’m with Spore Mobile Gallery, and the Chautauqua Art Lab. And I’m helping plan things.”
