Where you land, how you leave

Dec. 10 — Outgoing Atlanta City Council president Doug Shipman is moving into a new role, and he’s thinking about what it means to keep artists at home. As the incoming president and CEO of South Arts, Shipman is taking on a nine-state region where creative workers often start their careers, leave for visibility, and return only after building their names elsewhere. 

At Hartsfield-Jackson, movement is the medium. Georgia Tech’s yearlong art exhibition, “Transport | Transform | Transcend: Innovations in Materials and Movements,” turns the constant flow of 104 million annual travelers into art. The challenge isn’t getting people to slow down. It’s creating work that meets them where they are – mid-stride and mid-journey.

Two tales of creative movement. One about building systems of support, the other on what happens when movement itself is the material.

What’s moving you these days? 
—Sherri Daye Scott

Not an artist, but a catalyst

Doug Shipman takes over South Arts in January with a nine-state challenge: build funding and systems to keep creative workers rooted in the Southeast. 

 Read about Shipman’s priorities for the region. 

Discover what’s new in Chamblee!
SPONSORED BY DISCOVER DEKALB

Experience Chamblee’s vibrant culture through its expanding public art scene, where murals and sculptures showcase the city’s diversity, creativity, and global spirit.

Explore colorful pieces that bring neighborhoods to life and celebrate community connection.

And, with the unveiling of a new sculpture at the newly renovated Dresden Park, there’s never been a better time to discover Chamblee’s artistic heartbeat.

Art at airport speed

 Georgia Tech’s yearlong “Transport | Transform | Transcend” exhibition uses travelers’ movement as its material: walk past and your steps become petals on a digital flower; an AI system tracks your motion and dances back; sound installations are powered by bicycles, not fossil fuels. The exhibition runs through November 2026 at Hartsfield-Jackson. 

 See how Georgia Tech artists are turning motion into art.

Art Happenings

 “Know Hope” Screening & Artist Talk | 6:30 p.m., Dec. 11 | The Supermarket ATL. (pictured)

 Art After Hours: “Metamorphosis” | 6-8 p.m., Dec. 11 | The Arts Center.

 “Through Every Window, A Little Light Flows” Opening | 6-9 p.m., Dec. 12 | The Bakery Atlanta. 

 “A Vibrant Thang”: Opening & spirit-free Candy Cocktail Bar  | 6-9 p.m., Dec. 12 | Avondale Arts Alliance.

 Art of Street Wear | 12-7 p.m., Dec. 13 | WESTL STUDIOS.

Post of the Week

 A Print Born of Care

Printmaker Delita Martin shares a first look at “The Songkeepers: The Women of Ebon,” a varied edition created to support Atlanta artists who lost work in the recent South River Art Studio fire. Each pull carries its own voice and story – and each sale helps rebuild what was taken.

 See the post.

 Today’s Sketchbook was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.

The post 🌌 South Arts’ new ‘catalyst’ appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

South Arts, the nine-state regional arts organization, will enter a transitional year in 2026, and so will Atlanta civic leader Doug Shipman, who becomes the organization’s next president and CEO in January. In a conversation with Rough Draft Atlanta’s Sketchbook, Atlanta’s outgoing City Council President shared why this move represents a return to his roots — and what he believes the Southeast’s arts ecosystem needs most right now.

Here are five things to know as Shipman steps into the role.

1. He’s returning to arts leadership, but now with a regional lens

Shipman has led major Atlanta institutions — including the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) and the Woodruff Arts Center — but South Arts gives him something different: scale.

The organization funds artists and arts groups across disciplines, runs major awards and fellowships, and works directly with state arts agencies. For Shipman, the appeal was immediate. The job centers on building systems that help artists thrive, whether they’re part of a metropolitan arts scene or working in rural communities

2. His rural Southern upbringing shapes how he sees the work

Shipman grew up in rural Arkansas, and that background remains central to how he understands creative ecosystems. He talks about the Southeast as a region with “an incredible array of stories” — from coastal Geechee communities to Appalachian traditions to the Latino and immigrant communities reshaping cities like Atlanta. For Shipman, serving the Southest means recognizing that cultural richness is already here; the work is supporting and sustaining it.

3. He’s stepping in as public arts funding pulls back. 

A major thread in Shipman’s early thinking: the National Endowment for the Art’s reduction and refocusing of grant support, which can account for 20% or more of some organizations’ budgets. Shipman sees this as a defining challenge for the next decade. South Arts, he says, can help by:

• Funding artists and organizations directly
• Identifying new models to replace lost state and federal dollars
• Making a cohesive regional case to national philanthropy and private funders
• Creating a long-term roadmap for sustainable arts investment in the Southeast

4. He believes the South is a cultural leader — but the infrastructure hasn’t caught up.

Shipman notes that artists often begin their careers in the South, leave for national visibility, and return only after establishing their names elsewhere.

Read More:
• Doug Shipman will not run for re-election as Atlanta City Council president
• Paint Love pushes forward despite NEA cuts, thanks to emergency philanthropic support

For him, reversing that pattern requires:

• Policy that protects creative space
• Zoning and real estate strategies that keep arts districts viable
• Economic development models that treat arts and culture as an industry, not a side benefit
• Pipelines that support artists across the lifespan of their careers

He points to film and TV as proof that strong infrastructure can keep creative workers rooted here.

5. He’s not an artist; he’s a catalyst.

Shipman is clear about his role: he is not a maker of artworks but a builder of systems that allow artists to work more freely. He describes himself as someone who “tries to make things better for the arena.”

His first 90 days will focus on listening tours with stakeholders across all nine states, conversations with national funders, and collaboration with leaders of other regional arts organizations. A year from now, he hopes South Arts will be seen as indispensable — a place artists turn for strategy, support, and regional connection.

The post Doug Shipman named South Arts CEO: 5 key takeaways for Atlanta and the Southeast appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is a place defined by motion. This year, that constant movement becomes the foundation of a yearlong exhibition from Georgia Tech Arts.

“Transport | Transform | Transcend: Innovations in Materials and Movements” opened Nov. 25 in Terminal T North and runs through November 2026. Curated by Birney Robert, the installations by Georgia Tech researchers and artists turn movement — through bodies, wireless signals, sound, and recycled materials — into something you can see, hear, and interact with.

The challenge: create work that registers in seconds but still invites deeper engagement.

Here’s what travelers might encounter.

LuminAI: An AI system that dances with you

One installation centers on LuminAI, a system that learns from how you move and responds with movement of its own. Walk closer, and it recognizes your presence, tracking your motion and displaying it on a digital avatar.

Created by digital media professor Brian Magerko and research scientist Milka Trajkova, the project treats AI not as a tool but as a creative partner. Because airport visitors encounter art in passing, Trajkova said the system was designed for a “glance-based audience.” 

“The goal of my research in AI and creativity has always been to augment, not replace, the human experience,” Magerko said.

TechThrive turns travelers’ motion into live visuals

Walk past computer science professor Ashutosh Dhekne’s TechThrive installation and your movement becomes part of the art. Using ultra-wideband wireless signals, the system translates nearby motion into a shifting, flower-like form. The center incorporates arcs representing departing flights, drawn from publicly available aviation data.

Because the work operates entirely on-device — no cameras, no cloud processing — Dhekne emphasizes its sustainability. The project, he said, “makes science more accessible to everyone.”

BIKES brings mobile sound art to the concourse

Composer and researcher Henrik von Coler’s BIKES, developed with Edison Electric Bikes founder Ryan Hersh, turns bicycles into mobile sound installations. The project grew from von Coler’s experience riding in Atlanta and observing how sound already accompanies cyclists.

For the airport, the team displayed what von Coler calls a “Phase II prototype,” a sound system designed to work “everywhere inside the perimeter … without a generator that runs on fossil fuels.”

Nearby, Gil Weinberg’s installation features Haile, a robotic musician capable of listening and responding in real-time. The work was designed to give airport audiences multiple ways to engage — through the robot’s presence, images of related research, or a short video.

Installations made from recycled plastic and solar research

Architect Hyojin Kwon presents two projects that respond to the airport’s compressed attention span. “Plastic Reimagined” transforms locally collected high-density polyethylene and Polylactic Acid waste into sculptural forms. “Ephemeral Instruments” uses computational processing to generate shifting digital patterns. Both, Kwon said, use “recognizable forms or rhythmic digital motion to meet viewers moving at airport pace.”

Designer Lisa Marks contributes textile-based works that merge computational design with traditional handcraft, using structure and light to create sculptural forms that remain legible even to travelers moving quickly through the concourse.

Materials scientist Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena and artist Jeremy Bolen collaborate on work grounded in solar energy research, inviting what Correa-Baena calls “a deeper conversation about the scientific, ethical, and societal dimensions of harnessing and using photons from sunlight.”

Media artist Daniel Phelps‘s “Silicon and Soil” uses image processing and a hidden audio layer to explore how digital imagery shapes perception.

Read More:
• Georgia Tech and Goat Farm preview LOOP
• Atlanta airport expects more than 4 million travelers over Thanksgiving holiday period

A broader commitment to creative technologies

“Transport | Transform | Transcend” also reflects Georgia Tech’s broader commitment to creative technologies, including its Creative Quarter initiative and a forthcoming Bachelor of Science in Arts, Entertainment, and Creative Technologies. With installations drawing from engineering, dance, music technology, material science, and architecture, the exhibition brings emerging research into one of the world’s most heavily trafficked public spaces.

For Georgia Tech, the installation is both showcase and experiment: proof that art, science, and engineering can converge in a transit hub where millions of people who might never visit a gallery can stop, look, and move.

The exhibition runs through November 2026 and is free and accessible to all Hartsfield-Jackson travelers.

The post At Hartsfield-Jackson, Georgia Tech turns movement into art appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Two refusals

Dec. 3 — Resistance doesn’t always look the same.

At Emory’s Michael C. Carlos Museum, the show “Continuum” refuses to let Muscogee people disappear from Atlanta’s story. Curator Miranda Kyle and artists Johnnie Diacon and Hotvlkuce Harjo built an exhibition resisting the city’s historical erasure of Indigenous life. The show insists Muscogee people never left Georgia — that their presence is ongoing, simultaneous, permanent. 

Upcoming at the Plaza Theatre, Film Love brings a different kind of resistance: Anthony McCall’s “Line Describing a Cone,” a work that refuses permanence entirely. The 1973 film exists only in fog and projected light. Thirty minutes, then poof! Gone. No archive. No replay. A denial of the art world’s standard terms: collect, preserve, own.

One resists being forgotten. The other resists being kept.

What’s worth resisting in your life?
—Sherri Daye Scott

You can’t erase this

At the Michael C. Carlos Museum, curator Miranda Kyle brings Muscogee culture and creativity into sharp present tense with “Continuum,” a “re-presencing” of the Indigenous life in Georgia that refuses to fade from view.

 Explore the work of artists Johnnie Diacon and Hotvlkuce Harjo.

Discover what’s new in Chamblee!

SPONSORED BY DISCOVER DEKALB

Chamblee has become a destination for art lovers, thanks to the flourishing public art scene filled with bold murals and expressive sculptures.

Come and immerse yourself in creativity while strolling through the downtown entertainment district or taking a scenic drive around the city.

The excitement continues with the unveiling of a new sculpture at the newly renovated Dresden Park, adding another stunning piece to Chamblee’s growing cultural landscape.

You can’t stream this

 A film made of light and haze, meant to be walked into: Film Love brings Anthony McCall’s 1973 “Line Describing a Cone” to the Plaza Theatre, paired with works by Gordon Matta-Clark and Jamie Nares in a rare, one-night-only program on Dec. 11.

 Go inside the interactive screening. 

Art Happenings

 Georgia State Fall BFA ’25 Reception | 5-7 p.m., Dec. 4 | Welch Galleries.

Artist Talk & Closing Celebration: Shana Robbins, Laura Bell, Sabre Esler, and Serena Perrone | 3-5 p.m., Dec. 6 | Whitespace Gallery. (pictured)

 Atlanta Printmakers Studio Annual Open House | 2-5 p.m., Dec. 7 | Carol Pulin Gallery. 

 Holiday Small Works Show | 4-9 p.m., Dec. 10 | Art Studio ATL.

Post of the Week

 Poetry reframed
“Amethyst Rocks,” a new work by painter and street muralist @nCarlosJ reframes the Saul Williams poem, “Slam,” through rising figures, shifting skies, and the blur between the divine and the everyday.

 See the post.

 Today’s Sketchbook was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.

The post 👁️ Here – and gone appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.

Some films demand a room.

Not just a screen or a projector, but fog machines, open space, and an audience willing to stand up, move around, and look back toward the light. Anthony McCall’s “Line Describing a Cone” is one of those films. Made in 1973, it’s a 30-minute study in projected light that turns a cinema into a sculptural experience. You can’t stream it. You can’t approximate it at home. You have to be there.

On Dec. 11, Film Love brings “Line Describing a Cone” to the Plaza Theatre, alongside works by Gordon Matta-Clark and Jamie Nares.  We talked to Andy Ditzler, the founder and curator of Film Love, about what happens when you turn a neighborhood theater into an installation space, and why some cinematic experiences refuse to be archived.

Why does “Line Describing a Cone” keep pulling you back?

I rarely repeat a film program once I’ve shown it, but “Line Describing a Cone” is something I just have to show every so often. I love it so much: the elegance of it, the visual beauty, the complexity-through-simplicity that always signals a great work. I love how it’s high art (the projected light beam through fog is an interactive form of sculpture) but has no high-art baggage. It’s unashamedly spectacular, in its Zen kind of way. It’s a definitive statement on the nature of projected light, the passage of time, and the collective viewing experience that cinema can still offer us, and it’s as fundamental to cinema as Hitchcock or anyone else I could name. That’s why it’s important, but also why it’s fun.

You’re pairing it with films by Gordon Matta-Clark and Jamie Nares. How do these three works talk to each other?

All three artists do share the New York of the 1970s, and it’s always great to see Matta-Clark’s “Conical Intersect,” knowing he cut that conical hole through that Paris building after seeing “Line Describing a Cone”. Ultimately, though, as with any film program I put together, it’s about creating an evening at the cinema with an emotional trajectory that can also spark ideas. I know these three films together will do that really well, because, however experimental they are, these three artists know exactly what they’re doing.

What should people expect when they walk into the Plaza?

I’ll give a little introduction to the films as usual, to set a welcoming context for viewing, and then off we go. The events depicted in the Nares and Matta-Clark films are quite adventurous and … they’re not really available to see anywhere else in the quality they deserve, so we get to see them once, and maybe not again for a while. I’m sure, though, that the big screen at the Plaza will make up somewhat for the ephemerality; when you see a movie on a large screen, the feeling of it sticks around longer in the memory.

“Line Describing a Cone” requires a space free of fixed seating, so that viewers can interact with the projection beam and view the film from a number of different vantage points, including looking back toward the projector. So we’re projecting it in front of the front row, parallel to the big screen, where people can circulate. So people should expect not to be in their seats for that film!

All three works change how people experience physical space. What was the thinking behind treating the Plaza as an installation space?

It goes back to the idea of the connections between the films and between the audience and the films. We’ll start by seeing an artist, Jamie Nares, in the street manipulating the giant pendulum … the artist in the middle of the work, so to speak. Then we’ll see Matta-Clark cutting the giant cone through the building. Crucially, a sequence near the end when the work is complete and a few people are allowed inside … so those viewers are in the middle of the artwork, which is a giant hole through several stories, so it’s disorienting to even watch, much less imagine yourself inside. And then, with “Line Describing a Cone,” the audience at the Plaza will be inside the work, as viewers are encouraged to interact with the cone of light created by the haze machine and the projection beam. And the film looks great from the screen’s vantage point, looking back toward the projector! So we’ll go from seeing the artist in the middle of the work, to seeing viewers in the middle of a work, to being in the middle of the work.

You could call “Line Describing a Cone” an installation in the museum sense. Whenever it’s shown, there’s an aspect of that, and of course, it is often shown in museum exhibitions. But it was first shown in the context of film screenings in art spaces… not cinemas, exactly, but not museums either. It was a single screening where the audience watched it straight through, rather than the looping gallery installation it’s most often seen as now. I badly wanted to show it inside the Plaza, partly to get the work further away from “installation” and closer to “cinema.” And in turn, to somehow modify the Plaza, too – though just how will only become apparent at the screening.

For people unfamiliar with experimental film or artists’ cinema, where should they start when considering this work?

That’s a great question. “Line Describing a Cone” calmly defies and subverts all the boundaries we like to set up between high art and movies and cinemas and museums and sculpture and performance and sociality and contemplative experience, and more. I’d say approach this film from wherever you’re at in terms of your artistic or cinematic interests – guaranteed, it will find you there.

Film Love presents Classics of the Avant-Garde, part two  at 7 p.m., Dec. 11, at the Plaza Theatre.

Read More:
• Film Love brings hard-to-see movies to a big screen
• Film Love shows love for iconic underground filmmaker George Kuchar on Friday

The post Film Love brings Anthony McCall to Atlanta’s Plaza Theatre appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta.