Learn how two Roanoke artists and educators approach creativity in this moment
Join an online conversation with two accomplished Roanoke-based artists and educators as they discuss balancing personal and professional creative work, arts education, and the creative challenges and opportunities presented in the current climate.
The Moss Arts Center presents a discussion with Brian Counihan and Olchar Lindsann on Friday, Dec. 4, at noon. During this 45-minute Zoom session, which is free and open to the public, the artists participate in a moderated discussion with Meggin Hicklin, Moss Arts Center exhibitions program manager, in the latest installment of the center’s online series, “In the Moment: Artists and Their Work.”
This talk is free, but registration is required. Find registration information on the Moss Arts Center website.
“In the Moment: Artists and Their Work” provides an opportunity to meet notable creators of Southwest Virginia — from visual artists to theater-makers to choreographers — and learn more about their creative processes in this unusual time. This series of 45-minute chats gives an exclusive look inside the homes and studios of the artists, providing a chance to experience their work, ask questions, and discuss how creative luminaries are approaching art in this moment.
Brian Counihan
Irish artist Counihan was one of the first faculty hired to develop pedagogic programming for Community High School of Arts and Academics in Roanoke and remains on faculty with an occasional title of chair of the Visual Arts Department and also serves as a senior professor of humanities.
Trained as a painter and printmaker at Crawford College of Art, Counihan received the top prize in Ireland's first National Portrait Competition. Counihan has had numerous solo exhibitions in the region, most recently at Alexander Heath Gallery in Roanoke. He is an active advocate for the advancement of locally relevant, contemporary art. Community High students also exhibited works at the Moss Arts Center in December 2014.
Counihan was the director of Roanoke's Marginal Arts Festival, which he co-founded in 2008. The Marginal Arts Festival was an annual festival held during Mardi Gras each year until 2015. The festival was a Community High School program that involved the students, parents, and faculty, and presented art as critical thinking and socially engaged. He has served on the Chicago-Galway Sister Cities Culture Committee and is currently co-chair of the Wonju-Roanoke Sister City Committee.
Counihan currently produces work that spans a wide variety of art media and methodologies, from silverpoint portraiture to large papier mâché interactive projects.
Olchar Lindsann
At Community High School in Roanoke, Lindsann teaches interdisciplinary humanities and creative writing courses, oversees the library, and advises the Zine Club. Lindsann was on the board of the Marginal Arts Festival in Roanoke for many years, and now organizes the AfterMAF Festival.
Lindsann has published more than 40 books of avant-garde poetry, theory, translation, and cultural history, as well as “King Jaundice,” a horror novel set in 1890s Roanoke. He is the editor of mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, which publishes more than 150 print publications of the contemporary and historical avant-garde, as well as the periodicals “Rêvenance,” “The in-Appropriated Press,” and “Synapse.” He maintains extensive archives of books, artwork, and other material from countercultural communities from the early 19th century to the present and has performed and lectured extensively in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Lindsann studied at the utopian educational community at Dartington in the United Kingdom, where he received a master’s degree in performance writing shortly before the school closed after 80 years in operation.
