First Thursday: Modern art takes over Linen District

The Modern Hotel highlights a different artist in each room for First Thursday

BY Dana Oland - doland@idahostatesman.com

Edition Date: 05/01/08

This First Thursday, take a walk on the modern side as the Modern Hotel heats up the night with its first Modern Art event.

Hotel suites, hallways and the courtyard and parking lot will be transformed into studios, galleries and performances spaces - for one night only - by some of the city's best-known artists and performers.

The art event will have a different flavor, co-owner Elizabeth Tullis said. She and developer David Hale opened the hotel in June 2007 after a $4 million renovation of the old Boise TravelLodge.

The hotel quickly became a hot spot for artists, architects, filmmakers and hipsters, drawn by the modern aesthetic that is ingrained in every aspect of the hotel by architect Dwaine Carver and interior designer Kerry Tullis, Elizabeth's sister-in-law. They turned a mid-20th century motel into a slick, chic urban hot spot, with flat-screen televisions, platform beds and iPod docking stations in every room.

This Modern Art event is a reflection of that ideal, Elizabeth Tullis said.

"It's a real blend of art, dance, performance art, photography that is fabulous," she said. "There are a lot of very talented artists of all kinds here and we wanted to offer a place where they can come together and be creative."

The goal is to bring artists and visitors together to explore and interact. That's what you need to become a cultural center, Hale said.

It has all come together organically, Tullis said. "People have just come to us and wanted to be part of this."

Artist Charles Gill heard about the event and asked to sign up.

"It sounded like a good party," he said.

From 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday, artists will occupy 19 hotel rooms along the courtyard in interesting and esoteric ways.

You'll find out what Gill, one of Idaho's most lauded painters, has had lying around his studio for years. He came up with 10 small-scale paintings that fit right in with the streamlined, minimalist design of the rooms.

You can participate in Kirsten Furlong's Drawing 101 project, in Room 101, of course. It is her exploration of the renewed interest of good, old-fashioned drawing as a medium for contemporary artists, she said. Furlong will display 101 small-scale drawings - some created before, some created during, the event. Participants can join in a draw-in for a large-scale project.

Choreographer Trey McIntyre will be all over the place. His dance project will perform in the parking lot at 7:15 p.m., and he created a dance installation in Room 118. "I like that this is such an innovative way to use space," he said. "It was a real challenge to think about how to use the space." McIntyre recently has become fascinated by photography and video. He's been experimenting with filming his dancers, creating podcasts and integrating it with live performance.

"You can't transplant what happens on stage onto video. So I've had to reinvent it for myself," he said. McIntyre shot footage of dancers in the room and has spent most of the last week playing and experimenting with the images in an editing studio. "The idea is you're in the space watching what's happening in the space," he said. Throughout the evening, two artists known as "The Jokers" for the night will tease the idea for their intriguing project "The Deal," a series of trading cards about and created by area artists that will be revealed later this month.

A series of collaborations and performance art events will happen during the evening.

Designer Kerry Tullis, dancer Amy O'Brien, actor Matthew Cameron Clark and filmmaker and photographer Andy Lawless will offer a performance that explores the relationship people have to hotel rooms, Tullis said. "It started when I was designing the rooms. I began to think about who was going with use them and the kinds of things that happen in hotel rooms. You get glimpses of someone and you have a moment of flight of fancy, trying to figure out what's up with that person," she said. Tullis has collaborated with O'Brien on several dance performances in the past few years. O'Brien also helped Tullis finish the rooms. Clark is the performer who has been given a structure to work with but will improvise a series of what Tullis calls "sculptural events" in Room 239. Lawless' photography and video will become the collective voyeur.

In Room 234, artists Surel Mitchell, costume designer Star Moxley and theater designer and artist Michael Baltzell will collaborate on a scenario where you can only peek into the room but not see clearly what is there.

The goal is to take art from for a passive to an interactive experience, Tullis said.

The idea for the Modern Art event at the hotel was sparked before they tore down the first wall for the renovation. "It started when we chose the name The Modern," Hale said. "We had this idea that would cater to all kinds of arts and artists."

They came up with an idea for a series of events such as Modern Music (which they kicked off with outdoor concerts last summer), Modern Readings, Modern Dance and now, Modern Art.

It came together for the First Thursday in May to coincide with the Boise State University Graphic Arts Department's senior graduate show, "Cre8" at the Linen Building, 1402 Grove St. in Boise, across from the Modern.

Dana Oland: 377-6442