Can A Sista Rock A Mic? Grand Opening: Dionne Farris & more

Renaissance Reduxx : Solo works by Kelly Castillo

Kelly Castillo is an artist intertwined in the underground emerging artist scene in Southern California. Not only an urban contemporary artist, she is also a gallery owner & an arts Commissioner for the City of Anaheim, CA. The premier of her 2010 series, Renaissance Reduxx, is a feminist critique of the modern day Renaissance women submitting to and breaking out of societal confines. Renaissance Reduxx follows the pursuit of women out of the banality of the traditional roles that subjugate women, portraying them on the verge of their journey in finding more exotic pursuits by way of eastern religions and empowered sexuality. 


The opening night will be June 5, 2010 6pm - midnight 


This exhibit will be showing  June 5, 2010  - July 5, 2010
 
Location: Art Whino Gallery
173 Waterfront St.
National Harbor, MD 20745

Russell Simmons at Ferebee Hope Community Charter School

Many celebrities talk about giving back to the community but you never see them or the works they claim to do.
Well, Russell Simmons is really walking the walk.
He walked into Ferebee Hope Charter School in SE Washington DC with little to no security. He walked around stopping in class rooms to speak to students before settling into the library to speak to a group of parents and teachers about meditation & financial literacy.  Initially, I was like “Oookay, what in the heck do meditation and money have to do with each other?” but as soon as he begun to speak it made total sense. He started off saying how he would like to see meditation in schools and that he was on the advisory board for Community In Schools Charter Schools. He believes that teaching children abundance will enable then to achieve more in life and that if children “believe they have everything they will be able to get anything”. This really struck because we so often act from a place of not only lack but starvation. Our children see things on television and when they can’t get them they immediately whine and cry about how so and so has this toy and object and why can’t they have it?  But as Russell  was saying if we teach our children to be grateful for what we have and how blessed we really are then they will be happy and operating from a happy place is what brings wealth.
I know this all sounds a little kooky to some folks, but honestly what miserable unhappy person do you know that has achieved real success? I personally don’t know any.
Russell’s short but timely talk was very inspirational and motivating. It was good to see him reaching out to the community and promoting change in real, tangible ways.

Russell Simmons is a fashion and music icon and the author of the book; Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success

Bassey World LIVE

If you are on Twitter and you are not following Bassey Ikpi, you just aren't doing it right.period.
Bassey Ikpi is a 5 time Def Poetry Jam Poet, blogger, writer, and all around hilarious woman. Her live poetry is amazing...I saw her do a poem on Britteny Spears mental breakdown and it actually made me care about Brittney for like two seconds.  At Bassey World Live Bassey will be performing spoken word, discussing pop culture, current events and relationships whilst being live streamed and interacting with her 4618 followers on Twitter. Accompanying her will be Danielle Belton (www.BlackSnob.com); Yesha Callahan (ww.fungkeblakchik.com) and many others.  I know I say this a lot but you don't want to miss this...no, you can't miss this.  So go get your tickets here. 

Info:
Bassey World Live will be performed at Liv Lounge 2001 11th Street NW Washington DC
Tickets: $13 @ the door (but I think some are left on Event Brite)

Sustainability Lab May 1 - 8; June 3 -12, 2010

Transformer and Brooklyn-based cultural worker Jeff Hnilicka  explore emerging models of cultural production, the sustainability of these models, and their impact within communities though a series of workshops, talks, skill shares, potluck dinners, and artistic actions. Discoveries made during Sustainability Lab will be shared at the Open Engagement conference in Portland, Oregon (May 14 – 17) exploring similar themes. Hnilicka will then be back at Transformer further investigating and interpreting outcomes of Open Engagement.
 For more information click here

Friday Link Love

Pardon my laziness, but I have to clean out my office today in preparation to move, but these three links are pretty darn cool..so what this post lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.

Green Wedding Shoes 
Yes it's a wedding blog and before you ask..no I'm not getting married anytime soon. I just love the vintage images and inspiration on this site. It's not your typical big white dress, shiny things wedding blog.  They have very interesting, whimsical photography and fashion inspiration all through this blog. So, if you are planning a wedding or not check it out!

Flwrpt Brooklyn
Great music blog.  The writer makes amazing mixes and highlights hard to find recordings. A crate diggers dream!

Big Bad Bag
I like bags and I hate to sound stereotypical, but I am going to guess that most women do.  This a tumblr site filled with nothing but dope handbags of kinds. Oh yeah and I created the blog..so, uh...yeah go there now. Please and thank you!

Africa, Africa, Africa!

I have been listening to this  DJ Underdog mix all morning!  It's full of afro beat and heavy drum tracks. Trust me it will to get you in the mood to kick today's a$$.  Give it a listen and download it for free at Lunch Box Theory

C Love performing at Liv 4/30/10

I saw this brother do his thing in the Deez Nutz production. He is very talented, not only can he sing, and play the guitar he has a stage presence that can not be denied.  Catch him perform with Messiah, Tamika Love Jones and many others. Buy your tickets in advance..you don't want to miss this!

Info:
Liv Nightclub is located at 2001 11th Street NW Washington DC (on the corner of 11th and U Street)
The tickets are $12 in advance purchase them here:  http://clove.eventbrite.com/

I haven't blogged in months. I haven't written or submitted in months either. Since July (the last time I wrote on this blog) so much has happened a lot of good and some not so good, but I am still alive so that is all that counts.
To cut to the chase, the reason I haven't been updating this blog is because I'm not sure exactly where I want to go with this now. It's like when you reach that point in a relationship where you have "the talk". Yeah, well me and this blog are at that cross roads. When I first started Chocolate Milk DC it was all about arts and events, so I covered a lot of gallery openings, museum exhibits, etc. Then I started interviewing artist which was cool. I have a love/hate attitude towards interviewing people, though. I love talking to people and getting to know folks but I am not really the nosey journalist type, so it's hard for me to just sit and ask some random person a bunch of random questions.
Shortly after that I started publishing more of my writing in other places; web sites, anthologies and magazines which made me want to use this blog as a way to some how advertised my own work but that just felt like shameful self promotion.

Which brings me to the present.

I've thought about turning this into a fashion blog (since I majored in Fashion Design in college) but while I love fashion and textiles, sometimes it seems more label driven than arts driven. I am not a huge music head, so this couldn't be a music blog and I'm just not angry enough to have a "I'm angry, so I am going to complain about life" blog.
All that being said, the post from here on out are going to be pretty random until I find my niche, again.