The Visual Art Exchange produced the video for the competition, and if SPARKcon wins they will receive a $5,000 award to use in the 2010 SPARKcon festivities.

SPARKcon

SPARKcon is a “creative potluck” of SPARKs or creative themes such as art, music, film, fashion, etc. Each SPARK is put together by individuals who are deeply embedded in that specific local scene. SPARKcon is a program of Visual Art Exchange, a Raleigh non-profit whose mission is to support emerging artists and connect the community to the arts.

SPARKcon is a showcase of creativity, talent and ideas of “The Creative Hub of the South,” the North Carolina Triangle region.

Gamil + SPARKcon

Gamil has been one of the driving forces in SPARKcon since its beginning in 2006. We have worked with the organizational, marketing, & branding efforts of the festival. We will be posting more about Gamil’s 2010 efforts soon.

What Matters Innovation Award

The What Matters Innovation Award is presented by the Triangle Community Foundation. This year’s What Matters Innovation Award will go to a cutting-edge organization using innovation to address our region’s growth and diversity. More about the Award.

We Joined the WP train a couple years ago when we started blog Gamil, and have since learned how powerful it can be as a CMS system. Congratulations WP we agree, you’re awesome!

Below are a few sites we designed with WordPress CMS.

ABOVE: Our portfolio site is powered by WordPress

ABOVE: With WordPress SPARKcon  festival website was able to organize 50+ events & details leading up to and during the festival

ABOVE: WordPress was chosen for Triange Technology Executives Council website, because it is a great Open Source CMS

ABOVE: We chose WordPress for Blue Flame Tattoo’s website because of the ease to update the artists galleries

]]> http://www.gamil.com/2009/11/23/wordpress-open-source-cms-award/feed/ 5 http://www.gamil.com/2009/09/09/where-have-we-been/ http://www.gamil.com/2009/09/09/where-have-we-been/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:00:14 +0000 britt http://www.gamil.com/?p=1753 We have had a very busy summer, and can’t believe that the long days of light are basically over! Currently we are in the middle of SPARKcon* Frenzy… This year the event will bring together over 1150 performers/artists/craftspeople/designers for the annual 4 day festival! If you are in the Triangle area, you don’t want to miss SPARKcon 2009, click here to check out the schedule of events

*SPARKcon showcases local creative talent in the NC Triangle. For four days, Raleigh’s Fayetteville St, public spaces, clubs and stages will be filled with art, music, dance, film, fashion, design, proposals, and more. Celebrating local cultural richness and empowering action through an open-source approach to collaboration and cross-pollination, SPARKcon is not a funded city program or an economic development stunt. It’s completely grassroots and by the people for the people! Join us as we explore the creative spirit of the Triangle!

fashionSPARK photo by NewRaleigh.com

WOW! NewRaleigh.com has fantastic and thorough documentation of SPARKcon’s fashionSPARK runway show September 19, 2008. If you didn’t get to the show, or couldn’t see it cause somebody’s big head was in your way, check it here!

SPARKcon 08 featured some of the best graffiti artists I’ve seen at graffitiSPARK…AND they just happen to be local! 8 local artists showed all sorts of painting and stencil techniques, designing 8′x8′ walls, all to the DJ beats of Joe Giampino.

Victor Knight, III, graffitSPARK 08

Ben Tuttle, graffitiSPARK 08

Garrett Scales, graffitSPARK 08

Derek Toomes, graffitiSPARK 08

Matt Scofield, graffitiSPARK 08

Matthew Curran, graffiitiSPARK 08

Joseph Giampino, graffitiSPARK 08

Sean Kernick, graffitiSPARK 08

First, a primer: SPARKcon is a festival celebrating and nurturing the local creativity of Raleigh and the Triangle region of NC. It’s 100% volunteer… everyone involved runs entirely on enthusiasm, passion and talent, with a bit of support from some wonderful sponsors! This past weekend was the third year for SPARKcon, and it showcased all sorts of talent communities, including breakdancers, yogis, craftspeople, spoken word artists, hoola hoopers, music of all kinds, art, film, fashion and more.

FashionSPARK is an outdoor runway show which featured 13 local fashion designers’ work, as well as fabulous hair and makeup by local stylists. The show was beautifully directed by Allison Beale.

fabulous hair by Jesse and Carla of Marigold Parlour, makeup also by Marigold, fashion by Domino

woodland nymph fashion by Domino

doggy designs by Montage

fashion by Lllavender, hair by Salon Blu

fashion by Metallic Spiral, styled by Marigold Parlour

fashion by Marie Cordella, styled by Atomic Salon

The SPARKcon website is in a constant state of being updated. Check it for more pictures, designer info and links.

Organized by CEOs for Cities and NOLA YURP (The New Orleans Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals Initiative). The Urban Next Summit was a gathering of emerging urban leaders along with established leaders to discuss a number of questions around cities including: “What creates a culture of opportunity? How do you draw ambitious people to a city? And how do you engage them on the issues that matter most?”

Leading a discussion with Carol Coletta and Diana Lind, Aly Khalifa of Gamil presented the theoretical and technical basis for SparkCon as a catalyst for energizing local talent within a city. A great discussion ensued with leaders from around the country including Portland, OR, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans.

More impressive was to hear the first hand experiences of New Orleans leaders Nolan Marshall III of Common Good and Young Leadership Council, Robbie Vitrano of Trumpet, Vera Triplett of UNO and Capital One Charter Schools, and Mai Tang of Mary Queen of VietNam Church CDC. These four community leaders presented the struggles of post Katrina NOLA, but were all optimistic of the future. In particular they seemed to say that Katrina did make long-established “cultural silos” disappear, and that the new cooperaion across these cultural divides has made the improvement of New Orleans much more doable. Vitrano called these opportunities “gems within the tragedy” and thought these lessons could apply to other cities as well.

Here is an article on that discussion.

Similar to the SparkCon concept in Raleigh, this event in Charleston looks like it, too, combines the fringe scenes of art to redefine creative culture. This was created by local artist Scott Debus, Gustavo Serrano of B’Zar, Olivia Pool of ART Magazine, and Ambergre Sloan of Charleston’s Most Unique. Very inspirational. Check out the video. It’s so cross-pollenatin’ … Thanks to graffiti artist Bart Cusick for the heads up.

 Kulture Klash

As some of you may know, Gamil puts a lot of resources into creating SparkCon. It’s a conference and showcase of local talent, and one of our biggest distractions! The conference goes out of its way to help let the world know the wide variety of artists, musicians, technologists, and thinkers in the Triangle area. One of the special parts of SparkCon is the FashionSpark component, which has jeans designers share the runway with piercing artists and doggy couture. 

Now you can see these videos on Youtube in the SparkCon group. Each video clip is split for each design group, so you can skip to your favorite design studio, and even embed them in your own page. Above is a clip of AHPeele’s show, a favorite local fashion screenprinter. This footage is courtesy of Alex Mengle and NufacesNC. 

Peder points to three obvious signs of the community embracing its creative talent in Raleigh:
1. First Friday Art Walk (with which Designbox participates)
2. Raleigh Quarterly (which is working with SparkCon to create StorySpark)
3. SparkCon (which Designbox helped to found)