The Hambidge Creative HiVE, an innovative artist enclave project that transformed empty retail spaces at Colony Square into collaborative and experimental artists’ studios, has been a stunning success for all involved. With almost only one week left, the HiVE Projects continue to offer free public programming, including workshops, dance performances, art exhibitions, and public studio hours.

On Saturday, June 3, the Creative HiVE and presenting sponsors North American Properties, PNC, and SKYY Vodka, will celebrate the closing of this unique partnership with a Creative HiVE Blowout featuring special performances, presentations, and art installations from each HiVE, a dance party with DJ Santiago, and popping the balloons of the Jason Hackenwerth sculpture in the Atrium.

DETAILS:

WHAT: Hambidge Creative HiVE Blowout

WHEN: Saturday, June 3 from 6 to 10 p.m.

WHERE: Colony Square, 1197 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30361

Admission: FREE

Hambidge Creative Hive Artists

World Wide Art Federation

Taking a cue from the theatrical performances of the wrestling world, this group will hold World Wide Art Federation Art Battles. The live figure-drawing battles are promoted by artists trash-talking each other as their costumed alter egos. A crowd member is chosen to be the subject, and the battle commences. Afterward, the audience judges the winner. The WWAF was developed to bring attention to the multiple dimensions of the fine artists’ personae and abilities. Its mission is to inspire all art patrons, giving them an unforgettable, interactive, multimedia experience through creative competition and performance, setting the standard for a new and exciting art viewing experience.

Artists: Fabian Williams, Kimberly Binns, Horace Williams, Grace Kisa, Maurice Evans

Queen of the Field

Through the creation a conceptual landscape, Zipporah Thompson will use giant looms to weave together objects foraged in Midtown with objects donated by the public to produce multiple, ongoing, and ever-changing sculptures and installations, with the underlying goal of fusing together our personal histories and collective contemporary experiences.

Artist: Zipporah Thompson

Breath of the Compassionate

With a sense of playful, yet reverent {re}cycle of creation, all artwork in this project originates in and then departs from the classic Breath of the Compassionate pattern of Islamic sacred geometry and art. The artists will transform their space repeatedly, including turning it into a deconstructed Islamic Garden that will feature a musical performance by prominent Pakistani musician Ahsan Bari. The artists will also offer multiple workshops for both adults and children including embroidery, miniature painting, and mosaic paper lanterns.

Artists: Erin Sledd, Ahsan Bari, Shannon Frye, Will Griffin, Amir S. Hamer, Michael Garvey, and Evan Carter

Midtown Players Club

Including rotating gallery shows, performance art exhibitions, music, immersive theatre, workshops, and discussions, the Midtown Player’s Club have transformed a former gym into a gathering and incubation space for numerous young and mid-career artists, activists, and entrepreneurs to explore their craft and share their experiments and results. Each day will manifest a new experience in which the public is invited to participate.

Artists: Kris Pilcher, Elizabeth Jarrett, Miranda Kyle, Priscilla Smith, and other invited artists

The Rivalry of Your Elements

In an ongoing performance and installation that focuses on a life philosophy supported by raw elements including air, water, fire, and earth, the artists will use potter’s wheels to create vessels from 1,000 pounds of locally sourced black and white clay. When a vessel is complete, it will be smashed by the artist into a pile in the center of the room. The public will be invited to create vessels and contribute to the clay pile by using the same process.

Artists: Katie Troisi, Olivia Rado

Studio 515

Creating immersive installations of light, fiber and sound, the Ginns embrace technology in their work. This project will combine light drawings on the walls created by the public, collaborative sound performances, moving image environments and a sculptural island of natural fiber.

Artists: Bojana Ginn, Brian Ginn

The Untamed Parlor

Beginning as an orderly Victorian-style sitting parlor, The Untamed Parlor will slowly be invaded by wild things, giving way to disarray and the unexpected as the artists cultivate an infiltration of nature into an urban world.

Artists: Matt Haffner, Laura Bell

You are Welcome, You’re Welcome

Taking over a former doctor’s office, MINT Gallery will curate 15 artists to each create a room installation using light as their primary medium. This will culminate intoan installation of a slowly shifting spectrum of light, bathing the space in an otherworldly glow. This newly transformed ‘artist’s office’ will offer regular office hours to the public with performances and ‘artist’s visits’.

Artists: Erica Jamison, Sarah Nathaniel, Jessica Caldas, Danielle Deadwyler, Shae Edman, Natalie Escobar, Jane Foley, Kaye Lee Patton, Lauren Peterson, Amanda Grae Platner, Hasani Sahlele and Terp Vairin

Hive Mind Arise

Through workshops, meditations, yoga classes, and creative interactive installations including dance, sound, and painting, Hive Mind Arise seeks to activate positive social change through an emphasis on meditation and self-care.

Artists: Charlie Watts, Emma Alley, Kelly Blackmon, MaryGrace Phillips, Jared Kelly, Erin Palovick, Flight of Swallows, and invited artists

FREE ART!

Forest McMullin will take photographs of overlooked spaces in Colony Square, portraits of visitors, and the transformations wrought by the Creative Hive artists. He will then post the photos outside his space and encourage everyone to take a print with them.

Artist: Forest McMullin

Scenes

A fantastical, life-sized living room scene, constructed and transformed over a three-month period, culminating with tableaus featuring a live model and a flying flock of paper red-winged blackbirds.

Artist: Dorothy O'Conner

Fly On A Wall

Embracing experiments with technology and structures within dance, Fly On A Wall will concentrate on two main projects: Hz, centered around binaural beats and the states of mind these frequencies inspire; and Prism 2, featuring a platform suspended by harp strings, which both supports the movement of the dancers and is played as a gigantic instrument. Dance and movement classes will also be offered to the public.

Artists: Nathan Griswold, Nicole Johnson, Sean Nguyen-Hilton, Jesse Tyler