A convergence of artists from all disciplines promoting passionate, engaged cultural labor. We actively invent and bring to the public games, interactive works, performances, objects and printed matter. CMG is a non-profit arts collective.

BLUE HAMMER: A Trans-Historical-Post-Colonial-Dinner-Theatre-Burlesque: Whitney Art Works 2009.

Portland Pheonix article here.

[We return with a new dinner theatre production in January 2010 + A One-Night-Stand @ ISSUE PROJECT ROOM! January 15th]

Supported by a Maine Arts Commission Grant, the launch of Nomadic Convivial Operation #7! Creative Material Group intends this premier performance to seed the beginning of a long-term dinner theater, incubating and presenting new convergent-media performance works in collaboration designers, chefs, bakers and farmers.

This performance project unfolds in a late-night cable television studio, between two live broadcasts: a cooking show, HOT POT, and BLUE HAMMER, presented by a host who professes to have toured Africa during the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya and the Belgian occupation of the Congo. His name is Vin Pays and he believes there is a vivid connection between the Jacobean play he performed, The White Devil, and colonial Africa. A guest joins him, the former leading-lady of the African tour [and of Hammer Horror films] named Tabula Rasa, who appears only to disrupt and dispel, an angel of death whose memories of Africa are harder to maintain than Vin's nostalgia. We feature three live video feeds, including GP S analysis, a prototype portable kitchen, and custom porcelain bowls.

Each night, post-performance, a dinner will be served to the 20 members of the audience in custom produced porcelain bowls. In addition, throughout the run of the show, we will operate a graphic-arts production workshop in the gallery issuing press-releases, posters, pamphlets and contemporary propaganda.

BLUE HAMMER MENU / 2009:

The Sublime Surface of Gins + Tonic
(Breached with splashes of the red-stuff.)

Ticket To Interzone

Vin Pays Jasmine Wine

Cape Town to Cairo
Elvethea's District Six Lamb Stew

From This Place:
Lamb Crystal Spring Farm
Onions, Shallots and Celeriac Fish Bowl Farm
Potatoes Gorranson Farm
Madeleine's Zu Bakery

Please Remember / Please Forget
Tabula Rasa Orange Blossom Madeleine's

Finders Keepers
Blue Hammer Garam Masala Takeaway

Look for us in Port City Life, April Issue.

Blue Hammer Company 2009:

Kristopher Logan
Odelle Bowman
Michael Chestnutt, SPOT Architecture
ZU bakery/Barak Olins
Megan O'Connell/The Dead Skin Press
John Schmor
Ksenya Samarskaya
Chris Archer Studio
Scott Fuller Studio
Cole Caswell
Jessica George
Adam Gutgsell
Justin Taylor
Iain Kerr
Luke Bertus/supaflu studio
Leander Johnson
Joey Bargsten
Raphael DiLuzio
Ten Apple Farm

MOTELHAUS

We conceived of this event as an opportunity to examine issues of personal and national identity, transience and place through artist/ audience interaction. 10 artists were invited to design and install projects in the rooms of a downtown motel for two nights. Nothing could be removed from the rooms, and they were not to be used as traditional gallery spaces. Check- in time was 12 noon. The group consisted of artists originating from China, Romania, Vietnam, Iran, North America and South Africa, most of them temporary, some permanent, residents in the Pacific Northwest. Over 1100 people attended the Eugene and Portland events combined.

Read a cached local article here and here.