Cathy Barry’s Connatural exhibit at the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens inspires the viewer to look at the natural world through a new lens. 

“Nature is the big umbrella of what inspires and has always informed my work,” the Ann Arbor painter writes in her artist’s statement. “My most recent work focuses on collecting and referencing biological sources and patterns found in nature.”

Some of those biological sources even provide colors for Barry's paintings as well as textures embedded into the works.

"I am extracting colors from local sources—in the backyard or the grocery store—including buckthorn, cattail, turmeric root, forsythia, beets, mulberry, yellow and purple onion skins," the Stamps lecturer writes in her artist's statement. "I then reference older practices by experimenting with inlay work of painted paper, traditionally used to create jewelry, furniture, mosaics and textiles. I am creating motifs and abstract compositions by cutting shapes from my plant-based paintings, fitting them together and assembling them. I am integrating materials with form and subject in my painting to evoke a peaceful wholeness that references the innate wisdom of nature."

Nature isn't the only thing referenced in Connatural, though only fans of one of the world's biggest pop stars might notice.

"For any Swifties out there, take a closer look at some of the titles in the exhibition," she said with a smile.

Barry answered a few questions about the exhibit, which runs through April 30.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features cosmic folk by Evan Haywood, art rock by XV, no wave by Lunch, folk-pop by Timothy Monger, and a compilation of mid-2000s Ypsilanti DIY artists.

When Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Patience opened on April 23, 1881, London’s Savoy Theatre had another hit from the popular duo. Patience had another witty and stinging libretto from W.S. Gilbert and a witty and lush score from Arthur Sullivan.

Gilbert and Sullivan once again tapped into the latest fad by lampooning the aesthetic movement of the 1880s and '90s. The art-for-arts-sake approach to the arts, including theater, was itself a critique of art with a message or political manifestos. Though the movement preceded Oscar Wilde, he is often cited as an example of the aesthetic approach.

Over time, Patience has not been performed as frequently as Gilbert and Sullivan’s other comic operas, HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. 

Cameron Graham is directing the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society production of Patience, which runs April 13-16 at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, and believes it has a lot to say about our own self-involved times as it did when it first wowed the London audiences.

In the late ‘80s, Jim Cain didn’t expect a Midwest tour with his friends’ punk band would lead to a love of acoustic music.

As the band’s roadie and road manager in college, he heard artists like Ralph Stanley, Lyle Lovett, and Bill Monroe while traveling in a crammed Oldsmobile Cutlass with his Michigan State University pals and became intrigued.

“My tastes growing up were more The Beatles, The Stones, and The Who,” said Cain, now the founder and curator of Saline’s Acoustic Routes concert series, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month.

“A couple of friends at the same time started exploring more traditional artists like The Louvin Brothers and really went deep into the mix, and that’s just grown over time. I first got exposed to artists like Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt when I got inspired to attempt to learn the guitar. All of these things just kinda dovetailed.”

By 2010, Cain’s passion for country, bluegrass, folk, and other traditional acoustic-based music resulted in curating a live show at The Ark with Bonnie Rideout, Duck Baker, Bill Bynum & Co., and Rev. Robert Jones and Sister Bernice Jones.

Is everything in life due to random chance or does everything really happen for a reason?

When it’s your time to leave this life, what do you hope to bring with you to the grave?

These are just a few of the introspective questions tackled in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Everybody, on stage at the Arthur Miller Theatre through April 9. The show is adapted from the play Everyman, which was first printed by an unknown playwright in 1530.

This semi-interactive show begins before you even enter the theater.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features vintage hardcore punk by Minus9, synth-pop by Same Eyes, electronic body music by zagc, black metal by Gossamer, and trip-hop by Benji Robot.

Garrett Schumann, executive director of the Ypsilanti-based ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, and mezzo-soprano Olivia Johnson (Detroit Opera House, Seattle Opera) talked about the life and music of African-American composer Julia Perry (1924-1979) on May 28, 2022, in a Zoom discussion sponsored by the Ann Arbor District Library. The event featured rare archival materials from Perry's career as well as the first public screening of ÆPEX's video recordings from June 2021 of two of Perry's compositions, in which Johnson participated as a vocal soloist: "Pastoral" (1959) and "Stabat Mater" (1951).

A Tanglewood fellow and graduate of the Juilliard School, Perry built an accomplished international career as a composer and conductor in the face of enormous obstacles. Despite receiving a commission from the New York Philharmonic and awards from both the American Academy of Arts & Letters and Guggenheim Foundation, Perry's music fell all but silent following her death.

This presentation explores the reasons behind Perry's muted posthumous legacy by diving into the constellation of documents that record her life and career, including archival audio of the composer describing her music at a Columbia University forum in 1954.

The era of landline phones, typewriters, and carbon copies returns for Eastern Michigan University’s Department of Communication, Media & Theatre Arts production of 9 to 5: The Musical at the Legacy Theatre, March 31 to April 16.

The 9 to 5: The Musical made its Broadway debut in 2009. It’s based on the 1980 comedy film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman, where the three women, fed up with their terrible boss, plot to take him down.

“A lot of those iconic moments that are in the movie,” such as the women’s revenge fantasies and taking their boss hostage, “we’re making sure that we represent them in the show, sort of how people of a certain age might remember them,” said Ryan Lewis, the production’s musical director and an EMU Department of Communication, Media & Theatre Arts lecturer and musical theater accompanist.

“It’s the vibe and feel of the movie, and the script is really great at paying homage to that. A lot of the characters are expanded and developed more, and I feel like the script is fantastic at doing that. We get to understand their frustration a little bit more than you do in the movie.

“Our set designer Jeromy Hopgood is great with those period pieces and so much of it is in an office in the ‘70s. What does that look like? What does that feel like?

“But then the office has to have a change when the ladies start taking over and start making those big changes. They’re subtle, but they’re significant changes. What are those and how do we make it a brighter place? And a more friendly workplace?”

In 9 to 5: The Musical, Violet Newstand (Leah Saunders), Doralee Rhodes (Brookelyn Hannah), and Judy Bernly (Abby Siegel) struggle with being women in a male-dominated workplace at Consolidated Industries. Newstand can’t get promoted, Rhodes has been objectified, and Bernly has been jilted.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features the Midwestern power-pop of The City Lines, a jazzy original by Juliette Freedman, indie-folk by Joanna Sterling, jazz-and-blues by The Missing Cats, and folk-pop by Big Chemical.

When watercolor paintings started turning up on Jeremy Wheeler's social media accounts, I initially thought he was promoting the work of a friend.

One piece in particular I remember was of Naru, the protagonist warrior in the Predator series prequel Prey. While Wheeler is known for paintings inspired by science fiction and horror films, his use of watercolors for Naru captured the ghostly mystery of her character, not just her strength.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

The cozy, creamy vibe of watercolors such as this is the polar opposite of the bold pop art that brought Wheeler acclaim.

The long-time Ann Arbor creative is best known for his loud, psychedelic concert-poster work and stark, powerful interpretations of movie scenes. Bold lines, hard edges, and kinetic energy were intrinsic to his style.

But Wheeler's move toward the (literally) more fluid and flowing medium of watercolors happened at a time when the whole world slowed down due to Covid-19. Calling his exploration of watercolors a "respite" during the pandemic, there's a quiet, meditative quality to his works in the medium. While Wheeler used the watercolors to continue exploring portraits and figures of film, music, and TV actors, actresses, and characters who inspire him—he was a critic for AllMovie for 12 years—the results were warmer, lighter, and more delicate than his previous work in other mediums.

Fittingly, the title of his first watercolors exhibit matches the sensibilities exuded in the paintings: Soft Collections runs at the Ann Arbor Art Center (A2AC) through March 28, and many works are still available for purchase. While Wheeler is a highly trained fine artist, he used the Art Resources videos made by A2AC, where he serves as the marketing manager, to help guide him in a medium that he hadn't previously worked in very much.

He was attracted by the speed of watercolors compared to the more laborious process of his more standard style, but Wheeler also loved the way he could keep re-wetting the paints until he could find the right balance. That process of trial and error is not afforded in ink washes, which can provide a similar look to watercolors but is more permanent and inflexible in comparison.

I spoke to Wheeler about watercolors and more, and you can see two recent videos he made discussing his work: one with the Detroit Institute of Arts and the other a live painting session he made for A2AC in conjunction with Soft Collections.