Rumpus Room Housewarming

Info:

w/ Bric-A-Brac, onono, & Small Awesome

Month:

Rumpus Room

Edition:

009

The Rumpus Room has been used as a recording studio since at least 2001. Even before Brian McNally moved in and modified the Rumpus to its current glory, Gwen Ihnat encouraged us to use the space as a recording studio. Portions of Bric-A-Brac’s “16 Luxury Units” and Danger Adventure’s “the Pomegranate” were tracked there, among dozens of other sessions. As the opening night concluded at Nomadic, three bands with members that all rehearsed/recorded/rumpused in the Rumpus Room played a Housewarming show at the center of the gallery.

In the attached image, from left to right, we had Bric-A-Brac [Mike Armstrong, Jason Monroe, John Connors, and Matt Cook], onono [Ellen Layton, Caroline Nutley, Orion Layton, and John Goodwin], and Small Awesome [Faiz Razi and Jim Macgregor]. Good turn out, good times. In the decade since, all of us have still played and recorded music together in overlapping bands.

<a href="https://stockyardinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/nomadic-audio-vol-1-rumpus-room-2010">Nomadic Audio vol. 1: Rumpus Room (2010) by Small Awesome</a>

I added some reference photos of the OG Rumpus at the bottom for both visual balance of the band shots, and beauty because I can’t get enough of that basement. Salut.

Faiz

Prototype Nomadic Studio

001 Faiz Razi and Beth Wiedner

Today marks the ten-year anniversary of Nomadic Studio! Beth Wiedner and I co-curated this interactive exhibit with Jim Duignan and Stockyard Institute at the DePaul Art Museum from July 8th-November 20th, 2010. It was roughly fiv ...

Nomadic Floorplan

002 Faiz Razi

The preparation for Nomadic Studio dates back all the way to December of 2009—about seven months before the opening. We learned that our exhibit was to be part of a larger citywide initiative about the artists’ studio and what that meant to us. And while we were a ...

Portable Nomadic Studio

003 Brian McNally, Faiz Razi, and Beth Wiedner

With Nomadic Studio set in stone on the calendar, and our booking acumen pushed to the max to wrangle and organize the dozens of individuals set to participate, Beth Wiedner, Brian McNally and I decided to make our prototype for the exhibit a reality. We couldn’t th ...

the Rumpus Room

004 Faiz Razi, Beth Wiedner, and Brian McNally

Welcome to the Rumpus Room! The Rumpus was both the first Studio and first monthly theme. It’s a hand-built recreation of Gwen Ihnat and Brian McNally’s beloved basement bar and recording studio. While the rec ...

Anode

005 Ian Bennett

In the space right behind the Rumpus Room, was a portal to Anode Gallery. I say portal, in that the installation straddled the line between Portable and Studio space. Functioning as foyer and lounge in the Studio, the actual Anode ...

Moving A Home Studio / Questions for Steve

008 w/ Steve Albini

This week, I’m taking a pause on the Studios and the Art to spend some time on the Events we held during the first month of Nomadic Studio. On opening night, it was our distinct pleasure to have Steve Albini come and spe ...

Protect Yr. Neck: Credit and Insurance for Artists

010 w/ Bob Farster and Alex Maiolo

Our first non-opening event at Nomadic Studio involved two super smart gentlemen providing practical advice. Bob Farster and Alex Maiolo presented a double-header on how artists can improve their credit, and sort their insurance, ...

Home Recording Panel

011 w/ Mark Greenberg, Greg Norman, and Brian McNally

This one’s fun! I had the privilege of moderating this fine “Home Recording Panel” featuring Mark Greenberg, Greg Norman, and Brian McNally.

Paint Wars

015 w/ bear.illa x Anode

Taking a quick detour from the mural tour to talk about a really cool mini exhibit we held within the walls of Nomadic Studio. Jim Duignan, Beth Wiedner and I are all educators by trade, and so the lens of our exhibit was almost a ...

ConfiDance & A Night at the Museum

016 w/ ConNatural Artists & the Arts of Life feat. David Krueger

Yesterday’s “Paint Wars” benefit post is directly tied to today’s art. As I had mentioned, planning for the exhibit had already been locked in and underway when Beth Wiedner and I received an exciting opportunity to try something new with Nomadic Studio. Ian B ...

Solar-Powered Theremin Workshop

017 w/ Kate Revitte

Nomadic Studio wasn’t just a snappy title, although it was that, too. We worked in the space near-daily and while the panels were fun and informative presentations with Q&A sessions, we also held some hands-on art workshops in the space, as well as in 0170, the ...

Workroom

034 Jim Duignan

The Workroom was between the Rumpus Room and the SITE Office and was where we usually sat to plot the coming installs and events in the exhibit. It had a lot of artifacts, new and old from Stockyard Institute.

Black Public Radio

035 Jim Duignan, Davion Matthews, and Brandon Hudson

Stockyard Institute has historically had a fascination with radio as an institution, and our showing at Nomadic Studio was no exception. Jim Duignan and Davion Matthews installed their low-wattage radio transmitter into the spot b ...

SITE Office

055 Beth Wiedner, Faiz Razi, and Stockyard Institute

I purposefully waited to present this Studio towards the end, even though it was technically the first Studio we constructed. The “SITE Office” was a production studio and hub for collecting and organizing all of the g ...

Main Gallery

061 Faiz Razi, Beth Wiedner, and Jim Duignan

The Main Gallery was a congregational space. It functioned as a classroom, a venue, a workshop, a staging area, and was host to the majority of the events at Nomadic Studio. The gallery was flanked by Jeff Zimmerm ...

Dayton Castleman

006 "Chicken"

While we’ve focused on the some of the more spatial aspects of Nomadic Studio, I’d like to spend today and tomorrow talking about a couple of the large-scale artworks that we had in the Main Gallery. Up first is artist and edu ...

Jeff Zimmermann

007 "Norf" & "Sowf"

The first thing anyone saw when visiting Nomadic Studio were Jeff Zimmermann’s gigantic twinned portraits “Norf” and “Sowf”< ...

Watie White

013 "Common Ground"

The next big-ticket item on our tour of the on-site murals is this enormous canvas by Nebraskan Watie White. We met Watie through our co-curator at St ...

Lavie Raven and Kat

014 "Resistance"

One of the fun things about hosting an exhibit covering the nomadic nature of artists is having their work move in and out of the space and be a part of other shows and exhibits. At the top of Nomadic Studio, were ...

Zebadiah Arrington

019A

"Self-Portrait"

Following up with another collaboration with the University of Hip Hop’s alum comes Lavie Raven’s protege, Zebadiah Arrington. Zeb’s a bit of a graffiti wizard and also a bit of a rascal. Jim Duignan introdu ...

Kevin Cyr

044 "Studio Bike"

Today, I’d like to start with one of the first inspirations for Nomadic Studio and a part of the exhibit. We we first discovered Kevin Cyr’s mobile marvels when doing our research and stumbled upon his epic camper bike in Beij ...

Musical Chairs: Cathode

018 Ian Bennett, Faiz Razi, Beth Wiedner, Kate Revitte

We're excited to share the end result of our Solar-Powered Theremin Workshop, which are the third set of Mu ...

Musical Chairs: Two

019B

Zebediah Arrington, Faiz Razi, Beth Wiedner, et al.

Mobile Silk Screening Cart

020A

Mike Slattery

Today’s entry came together for the opening reception of the Bird Sanctuary. Mike Slattery’s “Mobile Silk Screening Cart” is really something to behold. It’s a sizable, yet totally portable silk screening studio. ...

Community Garden Canoe

037 Eric Utech, et al.

Today’s lovely piece is by the late, great Eric Utech. Eric was an arts teacher who passed in November of 2009, just as our planning for Nomadic was in its infancy. Jim Duignan had been in contact with his colleague Anastasia Mi ...

Rumpus Room Housewarming