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Dinosaur Party
Three friends take First Friday personally
By Madeline Masters
10 April 2008
Any night that involves dinosaurs, drinks, and old and new friends sounds like a good time -- at least it did to three friends living in downtown Lancaster. Michael Muldowney, Sara Karpinski, and Lukas Hussack hosted a gallery in which all the art displayed featured dinosaurs in some way.
Did I mention that the gallery was in their dining room? Muldowney, Karpinski, and Hussack decided to take a little piece of First Friday home when they invited friends to create or enter pieces based on the chosen theme and displayed them on Friday, March 7 in their apartment on Queen Street.
The dino theme was a definite success with contributors and spectators. The creatures inspired artists to use a variety of techniques, styles, and mediums. Paintings, drawings, one wood burning, one three-dimensional sculpture, and one video were displayed in the apartment.
Bilal Salahuddin created a wood burning depicting a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. He said he went the skeletal route because he figured "no one else is going to do skulls."
"I love the smell of the wood," said Salahuddin, "Wood burning is like tattooing because if you make a mistake you can't fix it."
Allen Richard Anthony Young created a video that mostly takes place in a bathtub. Plastic dinosaur figures, along with a plastic eagle and a lion, make up the film's cast. Oh, and a set of human feet during the film's climax. According to Young, the film begins with the "Big Bang." Eventually, "cataclysmic flash bangs" lead to the end of the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs' forms are then "frozen in time," and the tub begins to fill with water. Young explained that the lion and the eagle represent the life that continued on after the dinosaurs were wiped out.
Muldowney had two of his own pieces on display in his dining room-gallery. His seven-foot-tall green dinosaur, fabric, stuffed, leaned in one corner of the room. "I just wanted to make something really big, really large," Muldowney explained. He was very pleased with how the gallery showing turned out. "We got so lucky, we had no idea how great of a theme this would be," he said. "It's something everyone could relate to."
Muldowney credits Karpinski with coming up with a lot of good ideas for the showing. "It definitely pulled some great work out of people," said Karpinski. She added that it was great to "light a fire" in people, to inspire them to be creative and create. "It's a great way to get a bunch of people to collaborate on something," said Karpinski.
Hussack was a bit more sarcastic about getting friends and acquaintances to deliver. "You have to really get on them to produce, make them feel bad about themselves," he said. "Myself included," was implied in that statement. Hussack said: "You're 20-something years old, and the only thing you know how to do is draw," which leads to the push to actually make something, as so many young artists did for the informally dubbed "Dinosaur Party."
The trio is already trying to come up with a theme for another in-home gallery party. They took suggestions at the Dinosaur Party from guests and contributors and hope to host another showing in the coming months.