Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
You slap your sticky name tag onto the breast of your leather jacket and shoulder you way into Echo Mountain Studios, and the youthful beauty and fuschia cocktails come at your in waves. You’re at a HATCHfest party, after all.
You navigate the maze that is this church-turned-recording studio. The narrow passage at your left, jammed with bodies, doesn’t invite. You head down a staircase. Sean greets you at the landing, gives you a brief introduction to the mystique of Moog, and introduces you to Jay. Suddenly you’re thrusting your hands in the air like a musical puppeteer. You make quavering music.
A techno beat calls. Into the next room, you pass an old-school pinball machine and find the Hatch-tini factory in the back kitchenette. Bottles of pomegranate juice and liquor line a counter. For the whatevereth time, you pass.
Little cliques of cat-eye glasses and scraggly beards group together on the couches, in the corners. Digital cameras flash bright light, strobing to the techno beat. Everybody, it seems, has a digital camera. A damn fine digital camera.
You chat with Jonathan. You try not to stare at Brooke’s models. Now a part of the party milieu, the general specifics begin to merge. Two words keep repeating themselves in your mind: “Earnest pretension.”
Back upstairs, you return to brave the narrow passage and find that it opens into the grand sanctuary of cool. Arching beams and stained glass and bright-eyed beautiful people abound. Gymnasts in leotards writhe, hanging from the rafters like alien hatchlings. Party-goers are buzzed. Everybody’s getting drunk. There’s an open bar.
There, amid it all, you try to remember what the heck the party’s all about. It was billed as a networking and pre-planning party. You’d come in hopes of meeting some of the Ashvegas artworld illuminati. Now you realize this isn’t really the place for that.
This is a cool party held by cool people planning a cool event. You’ve heard that HATCHfest 2009 will bring hot-shot experts in film, music, architecture, technology, design, journalism, photography and fashion to Asheville, all with the promise of helping you with your project. What could be cooler?
But right now, your body vibes with the techno jive. Thin models with no underpants sidle by, and cold parts warm. You realize that really, this is just Asheville coming to grips with its coolness. That you’re just like them.
A little earnest. A little pretentious. You’ve never been cool, never knew cool, so your wear it somewhat uncomfortably. But here it is. All around. Asheville.
Wow…Is that the melody joy? modeling? moonlighting on us? epitome maui misses their #1 you look amazing as always…just remember when the lights are too bright "close them, look down, then <BAM> open them <FLASH> then close them look up <BAM> open them <FLASH>>" HAHAHAHAHA wow what you learn watching terrible Tyra on reality TV. Reaally an awesome pic…would love a PDF if they will release it. XOXO TW
I don’t know…but I’d guess with a name like Hail to the Chef… he’s probably a Chef Alison…
And as a former artist myself (I later sold out hard and started making television), I’ve got to say a good chef is much harder to find than a good artist.
Good art can feed your soul, but a good chef can feed your soul and your stomach!
A good cook helps a community more than "under-appreciated artist in horned rim glasses #2,974,765" ever will. They raise a cities reputation more, bring in more outside business to the community, and have a bigger impact on the economy.
Then again, he could be a terrible chef for all I know (no offense Hail!).
In response to the original blogger who said,
"here, amid it all, you try to remember what the heck the party’s all about. It was billed as a networking and pre-planning party. You’d come in hopes of meeting some of the Ashvegas artworld illuminati. Now you realize this isn’t really the place for that.
and comment from Hail to the Chief..about how pretentious it all was..
I would like to say a few things. First of all, the point of the party was as networking and pre-planning, planting the seed. We had 168 people sign up on Saturday on cards to participate in creating this festival, making it their own. We had almost 320 people attend. I also have over 40 emails in my inbox from artists that met others they had heard of or had never heard of and wanted to collaborate with..
The reasons we made it an invitation only event was because: one. firecode. and two. we didn’t want this to become an Affiliates Event where people came just because it was cool. We wanted the artists that we are trying to serve there.
I work with a non-profit called the MAP and part of our mission is to serve media artists in this area. That is why I had an interest in HATCH from the beginning. HATCH provides opportunities that you don’t get at film festivals or galleries. We pay for struggling artists to fly in and take care of them while they are here. We (or rather YOU, the community who plans HATCH) arrange mentorship and as many other possible boosts as we can along the way. We aren’t promising flashy celebrity status or distribution..
We hired ALL local artists who we think are talented and might not be getting the recognition that they should.. for this party. And yes, even though we are a new nonprofit with no income.. we paid EVERY single one of them.
Most of my friends were there, who work in restaurants and scrape by so they can make their art.. and I don’t consider them pretentious. We invited Moog Music to help people understand what Bob Moog has done for music (and was a local)..brooke because she makes beautiful work and helps the community whenever she can..
I could continue on, but I hope you see my point. I apologize if out of the 65,000 Asheville residents.. you were left off a list that was put together by three volunteers (myself, Sean and Christine) to encourage the community to come out and tell us what they want out of this festival.The typical pretentious Ashevillian, in my mind, complains but offers no suggestions.
What are you doing for this town? I don’t mean that as if you aren’t doing something other than blogging comments about other people’s work.. I would really like to know. Maybe we can work together sometime. And if you have a better way of throwing a party to get people to connect in the creative arts community.. send me an email.
We are only bringing this event here to benefit the existing community..and just to correct one comment, Advantage West contributed money towards our franchise, they do not own it. We are a nonprofit and have worked really hard to make the contract state that we can shape this festival to fit Asheville. We are buying their existing momentum, the obvious (marketing materials and such) and more importantly .. their mistakes. So, let me know if we can change anything to avoid future mistakes in Asheville for HATCH.
Send me an email if you have more comments or suggestions.. I would like to hear from you.
Alison
[email protected]
Hatch fest is the artsy-elitest version of jerking off. Nothing more.
"Hey, I’m great! Are you great! wow, we are both great! Oh, and talented! So talented!"
…My Boss went and got so sick of the pretentious nonsense he left in about a half hour after slamming as many hatchtini things as he could. He was still hung over the next morning, so at least we know they served good booze.
Ewwwww. Ash, I didn’t need the visual this early in the morning. Gagging on my oatmeal, I am. I never envisioned you as middle-aged. Timeless is probably a more apt term, yes?.
Thanks for frontpaging my comments. I’m honored.
Firelady, waaaa… who…. me? If you mean, by "drooling, that I committed an involuntary expulsion of bodily fluid while ogling, then… Never!
El viejo and Ash- thanks for your observations (from someone who was not deemed worthy of such an event. Deep sigh. Silent weeping). I have a few thoughts of my own.
Hatchfest is a great idea on many levels- as a means to provide mentoring opportunities for local creatives, as an opportunity for creatives to network outside of the region, and for locals to network between themselves. These are all vital components for developing a sustainable regional creative economy. Networking is imperative for all economic sectors, but more so for the creative sector. See "The Warhol Economy" which examines NYC’s creative economy. (Yes, I know Asheville isn’t NY, however the dynamics are similar, only at a smaller scale).
However, a creative economy is inherently elitist- naturally creating an hour glass economy. For a creative economy to be sustainable, meaning the environment will continue to perpetuate the same (or higher) level of innovation, inclusivity is an imperative. New people (and their ideas) must feel like they can quickly plug-in to the social networks of the thinker/doer creatives. Diversity is also important- nothing more stagnating than having the same old people sharing the same ideas. Self-congratulatory exclusivity is a turn off. With this type of dynamic, the new creatives just go "Yuck, I’m taking my creative ideas some place else." Another thing about creativity is that it truly is the great "leveler"- creativity and innovation are not the sole bastion of el viejo’s "high status hotshots". The next great idea could come from anywhere/from anyone, (including a middle-aged blogger who drools over models without panties).
When engaging in any type of economic development effort meant to perpetuate a region’s creative economy (which was the point of Advantage West purchasing the franchising rights to Hatchfest), authenticity is a hallmark of any long term effort. There’s plenty of room for Asheville to have numerous facets of its creative ecosystem, but this event sounded like it could be "Anywhere USA-trying-too-hard-to-be-hip."
To be fair, this was the first (that I know of) event by the Hatchfest contingent. Kudos to them for not having a wonky "meet and greet" typical meeting from hell. Did it provide the opportunity for the networking and introductory dynamic needed for a volunteer -driven nonprofit event? I wouldn’t know ’cause I was home watching old movies.
Ash, you weren’t really drooling were you?
fact check, i did not see charu.
El viejo, well said.
What could be cooler indeed? For starters, an event that didn’t begin with a businesslike check-in where organizers acted as if allowing you and your guest to enter was a very difficult decision. Or perhaps something not based on the boring idea that in order to achieve your dreams, you (O beautiful people of Asheville) must rub elbows with high-status hot-shots. This party featured a lot of fanfare to convince partygoers that they are on the inside of something spectacular. Fluff. I sincerely hope the models were adequately compensated for having to deal with middle-aged men drooling all over them and later blogging about their lack of underwear. Gross…..
did you see charu there?
firelady, good question!
ashvegas has his ways…
😉
So how did you rank an invite to such an "exclusive, invitation-only" event "for community leaders"? Just kidding.