Erin Austen Abbott (see below) is the creative force behind the One Night Stand art show coming up this weekend in Oxford, Mississippi. If you can get there, it is sure to be the highlight of your year! She shares with us today about the show. “The first motel show was created when I was out shooting pictures one day, back in 2007. I was taking pictures at an old travelodge style motel, the type that you drive up and park outside your room, set in a U shape. All the doors had these wooden red hearts on each door. I had heard rumors that the walls inside the rooms were brown wood paneling. I suddenly had visions of T. Model Ford sitting on the edge of the bed, playing his hill country blues while fine art leaned against the furniture or replaced the current art hanging in the rooms.
I immediately found ten artist friends that were having a hard time finding places to show their work locally. The first show was set. I did the show twice the first year. The second being bigger than the first. Then in 2008, I took the show on the road to Los Angeles. In a town where it could have been a bust, it proved to be just the opposite. The show made the front pages of City Search LA and Yelp as THE thing to do for the night. It was also featured in the LA Times. With that support, 1500+ people showed up to enjoy The One Night Stand at The Beverly Laurel Motel.
The show returned back to Oxford in 2009 and 2010. This year will mark the 5th Annual One Night Stand at The Ole Miss Motel.
Next year will begin a new formula for the One Night Stand. Presented by The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and The Motel Art Show Series, the show will be in Oxford every October and at an out of town location in the spring and fall.
In May of 2012, the show will travel to Brooklyn, NY, in September to Nashville, TN and again in Oxford to wrap up 2012. Then in the spring of 2013, the show will cross the country to Portland, OR and end up back in Oxford, MS in the fall.
For those interested in submitting work, please direct them to iheartmotelart.com.”
Erin Austen Abbott, born 1976, in Tupelo, Mississippi, studied photography at the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and at the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle, WA. She has had shows in Tampa, Seattle, Boston, Memphis, Los Angeles, Oxford, MS, Basel, Switzerland, Milan,Italy, Berlin,Germany and Water Valley, MS in the years 1999- 2010. Erin’s work is studied in the art curriculum at The University of Milan in Milan, Italy. She is also the creator of the “One Night Stand Motel Art Show Series”, started in 2007, a series of art shows transforming a motel and its rooms into a one night only art show, giving artists a chance to show their work in a non traditional setting. Erin has had work published in Esquire, Teen Vogue, Alternative Press, LA Times, Uppercase, and in Southern Spaces, an online journal for Emory University Press. Erinis currently living in Water Valley, Mississippi.
From Erin, “I opened my store, Amelia, in Oxford in August of 2009. Aside from running my store, I also travel nanny for the guitarist for the band The Flaming Lips, who has two children and for the band Mates of State. Several months ago, I also launched chARTer nannies, with three other friends, which is a travel nanny agency, pairing creative nannies with families that want to take their children on the road. Our clients are musicians, artists, writers, actors, directors. Families that don’t want to put their creative lives on hold yet don’t want to be away from their children.”
While you are here, check out Erin’s featured work, shop Amelia Presents, blog, and home. Good luck this weekend Erin!