Join the Haley House Bakery Cafe on Saturday February 13th from 6pm to 9pm for an artist’s reception celebrating the new show of local artist, Percy Fortini-Wright.

This body of work entitled From 6pm to 6am is part of ongoing project for the past 5 years focusing on night scenes depicting the artificial light and speed of our urban environments.  With spray paint, Fortini-Wright directs the viewer’s eyes toward the bright city lights evoking a sense of space, movement, location, and distance.  His graffiti-like mark mechanism in the foregrounds of his pieces mimics the urban architecture, while the palette knife loaded with stiff oil paint mimics the mason’s trowel loaded with cement in a an ongoing search to create a form and a surface to mark on.

Through the juxtaposition of tropes within representational painting and the contemporary graffiti vernacular, he describes form and shape. He constructs his work from both memory and direct observation, sampling existing imagery, not limiting how his images operate, blurring the lines between collage, abstraction, and straight representational painting. His work investigates his own spatial perceptions of form, line, color, and light through the physical density of paint. Using the ethereal qualities of spray paint mixed with the physicality of oil paint he creates both a physical and optical illusion of space and form, while the expressive nature of the calligraphic mark reveals the time, speed, and charge of the piece.

DINNER & A MOVIE CELEBRATES THE MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO SAY "LOVE": 3 shorts tell various stories of love and giving

The Color of Film Collaborative, Inc. and Haley House Bakery Café presents a Post-Valentine's Day film event on Saturday, February 20, 2010 from  5:30 9:30pm at their quarterly "DINNER & A MOVIE" series. Three short films grace the lineup, following a three-course Latin feast.

Jump the Broom by Kena Dorsey Ayana, a 29 year old fun loving woman, is finally settling down and getting married today.  She has chosen the all around perfectly, geeky-handsome man Sean to do it with.  When Ayana goes to the church to get ready, Shamar, her tall, dark, five o'clock shadow wearing ex-flame pays her a visit.

Chiles by Tyrone HuFF The dinner table is set as Randal, a young Black man, attempts to impress his future, Mexican in-laws. Add in a side of language barriers, a helping of cultural differences, a bowl of Chiles and this table heats up into what turns out to be one fun, comedic and heartwarming take on that ever-dreaded meeting of the parents.

Santa Claus in Baghdad by Raouf Zaki. In impoverished Baghdad under Saddams dictatorship, 16-year-old Amal hopes to regain her social status at school by volunteering to find a book as a class gift for the departing literature teacher.  Meanwhile her emotionally fragile little brother becomes obsessed with the notion that a visiting uncle from America--whom he confuses with Santa Claus--will bring him toys.  Ashamed to have never been able to give his son a toy, the children's father sells some more prized family possessions and buys a little car for his son.  Amal finds the perfect book in the street market and presents it to the astonished but immensely pleased teacher.  Only then does she realize the irony and sacrifices that link the two gifts.

The films will be followed by a discussion led by Nina LaNegra of The Roxbury Media Institute.

"DINNER & A MOVIE" is a quarterly film screening and discussion series that takes place in the intimate, warm and friendly setting of Haley House Bakery Café, 12 Dade Street in Roxburys Dudley Square neighborhood. This successful series is designed to bring a diverse group of 40 people together over dinner, to watch and discuss topics addressed in the films.  Tickets available online only, at:   http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98052

Now in its 3rd  year, "DINNER & A MOVIE" has screened 11 films to over 450 people while serving Haley House Bakery Cafés comforting, healthy meals which, when in season, incorporate locally-grown produce. The first "DINNER & A MOVIE" was a special feature of the Roxbury Film Festival 2007 and under the direction of The Color of Film and Haley House Bakery Café continues throughout the year as an on-going film and food series throughout the year in February, May, July during the Roxbury Film Festival and again in November. 

The three-course Latin feast for February 20th, 2010  will include:

~ Ensalada mixto:  mixed romaine salad, cucumbers and fresh herbs, tossed in a lemon vinaigrette

~ Pasta Latina Primavera:  penne pasta with chicken sausage tossed in a zesty sofrito sauce with fresh carrots, mushrooms, broccoli and green and red bell peppers topped with parmesan (vegan option: no chicken sausage).

~ Flan de leche:  custard topped with whipped cream (vegan option: ensalada de frutas - mixed fruit salad)


About Haley House Bakery Cafe
Haley House Bakery Cafe, located at 12 Dade Street (just off Washington Street, opposite the Hamill Gallery) in Roxbury, is a non-profit community café with an inspiring purpose. The café serves affordable, natural, agriculturally sustainable, healthy, delicious meals in an era when fast food predominates. In addition to its non-profit café and catering business, Haley House runs a soup kitchen in the South End, maintains over 100 units of low-income housing, operates an organic farm and much more.

The Color of Film Collaborative, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization that works to support media makers of Color and others who have an interest in creating and developing new and diverse images of people of Color in film, video and performing arts. For more information about The Color of Film Collaborative, contact info@coloroffilm.com or visit www.coloroffilm.com