Over at the Bowman Arts Centre,  March 5, Sonis McAllister and the Barracuda Orchestre showed a bit of their history and entertained the crowd with wild experimentation and a touch of blues and jazz.

 One of the exhibitions opening upstairs featured a few “artifacts” from the band including samples of their tour diary, an unusual sculpture, a gold record, old tour posters and a lot more.

 Downstairs in the dance studio, the band  dressed in white,  rapped out cacophonic  rhythms on an array of pipes, wheels, television sets and a lot more, backdropped  by three pillars featuring coloured rubber balls on the top of them.

Their second song had more of a New Orleans jazz feel as McAllister got the audience moving  and chanting along with them.

The Penny building downtown is going to be a regular gallery for University of Lethbridge professors and students. They held their first big opening, March 5 which drew a good sized crowd. 

There were a variety of works from a sauna which incorporated a video display. Other  works included  paintings, photographs, a video of a fully dressed man  sitting in a ice- cold tup of water, spaceship sculptures made of found items, drawings and several other sculptures.

The Parlour gallery is opening up their doors to up and coming artists to exhibit in their brand new space.
 Local artist David Hoffos has reopened “The Parlour Gallery” at its new location  at 407B Second Ave. South. Arianna Richardson’s latest exhibit opens this Saturday.

The Parlour is exactly what it sounds like — a Parlour window downtown which  allows up and coming artists to exhibit their works — primarilly sculpture or multi-media works.

“We’ve  had another space in Chinatown since 2007,”  said Lethbridge based, world renown artist David Hoffas, adding a 2009 fire  at the former location and an eviction some time later forced artists Hoffos,   Mary-Anne McTrowe, Dan Wong and Sonis McAllister and the Barracuda Orchchestre to find a new studio space to work in.

Once they found this one, like in the previous space, they decided to use the streetside window as a new place to exhbit works.

“It’s not a vanity gallery, it is open to any artist,” Hoffos emphasized.
“It’s to give these emerging artist  and up and coming artists  an opportunity to have their first exhibition,” he continued adding he isn’t a curator and doesn’t fund the artists.

“It is a challenge for first time artists to find  a place to display their works or to even  find a space to work, though there are a lot of abandoned buildings dpwntown that could be used,” Hoffos observed.

There are several art exhbits opening this weekend.
 The Mueller Gallery features a suite of drawings and paintings from Scott Cumberland. Prairie artist Cumberland is “ Saskatchewan bred and modernist fed.”

His works feature cascading ribbons of colour and he works in a variety of mixed media granular backgrounds.  The opening reception is at the mueller Gallery , March 12 at 8 p.m.

The Parlour Gallery also features a new exhibit from local artist Arianna Richardson opening on Saturday. As well she is displaying some of her works at the Univrsity of Lethbridge,  niche gallery  on level 8 of  the Fine Arts Building. The reception for that is today, March 8 at 4:30 p.m.

 The Southern Alberta Art Gallery celebrates the  life and contribution to the community of  artist and retired University of Lethbridge professor and former University of Lethbridge art collection curator, Billy McCarroll, March 12 with a new exhibition  providing an overview of his distinguished artistic career.

 McCarroll and curator Ryan Doherty whittled  down  about 130 images going back to 1971 when he moved from California to Lethbridge to teach at the university down to  the 60-70 which will be on display throughout the SAAG, on both levels and even in the halls.

“We wanted to choose three or four works to represent all of the stages  from my career,” McCarroll said.