This summer, CAMH and the Aurora Picture Show co-present monthly events in which featured local artists will show and discuss recent film/video work, talk about their creative practices, and field questions from the audience. An extension of CAMH’s long-running Slide Jam series, Video Jams explore the ideas and inspirations of a range of film/video artists in Houston’s diverse and ever-changing arts community.
On Thursday, August 18th at 6:30PM Aurora invites Ford Gunter & Carlton Aherns and John Carrithers to the Video Jam. This will take place in the Cullen Resource Room on the lower level of the Museum. Admission is free. Seating is limited.
Carlton Ahrens and Ford Gunter made their first film together in the 7th grade, then took 18 years off. They teamed up again in 2008 to form del monte films LLC, and began rolling on their first feature-length project a year later, Art Car: The Movie, which followed a handful of artists as they prepared their entries for the 2010 Houston Art Car Parade. With 250-plus hours of footage of more than 50 artists, experts, politicians and celebrities, including 2010 Grand Marshal Dan Akyroyd, 2010 participant Larry the Cable Guy and past Grand Marshal George Clinton, Art Car: The Movie tells the classic American story of the quintessential form of public art.
With over fourteen years experience as a filmmaker, John Carrithers has produced, filmed and edited a wide range of short and feature length documentaries, commercials and television programs for diverse audiences. Some of these projects include: Beyond Traditional Borders, a short piece that followed Rice University students as they travel to pediatric AIDS clinics in Swaziland and Lesotho to test new technologies developed to address global health issues; and Harvesting the Wind, a film that explored the impacts and benefits of the growing wind industry on Iowa farmers and their communities. Recently, Carrithers has completed a film that documented the creation of a large-scale gunpowder painting by world renowned Chinese artst, Cai Guo-Qiang. In addition to editing the piece, he also served as director of photography and co-producer. Currently, he is in the middle of production on two documentary projects: Mothers at War, a multi-media oral history that explores the unique challenges of soldiers who are also mothers; and a not-yet-titled feature documentary about Earl Browder, the former General Secretary of the American Communist Party from 1934-1945.
