At SXSW this year, Beauty Is Embarrassing – The Wayne White Story, directed by Neil Berkeley, will be premiering Saturday, March 10th, 2012 7pm at the Vimeo Theater in Austin, TX. Here’s a glimpse of it via its trailer.
Wayne White is an American artist, art director, illustrator, puppeteer and much, much more. Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Wayne has used his memories of the south to create inspired works for film, television and the fine art world. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University Wayne traveled to New York City where he worked as an illustrator for The East Village Eye, New York Times, Raw Magazine and the Village Voice. In 1986 Wayne became a designer for the hit television show Pee-wee’s Playhouseand his work was awarded with three Emmys. He also worked in the music video industry winning Billboard and MTV Music Video Awards as an art director for seminal music videos including The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’and Gabriel’s ‘Big Time’.
More recently Wayne has had great success as a fine artist and has created paintings and public works that have been shown all over the world. His most successful works have been the word paintings featuring oversized, three dimensional text painstakingly integrated into vintage landscape reproductions. The message of the paintings is often thought provoking and almost always humorous with Wayne pointing a finger at vanity, ego and his memories of the South. Wayne has also received great praise for several public works he has created recently including a successful show at Rice University where he built the world’s largest George Jones puppet head for a piece called ‘Big Lectric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep’.
Wayne has an upcoming solo exhibition, I Say A Lot of Things, opening March 31 and running through May 5, 2012 at Marty Walker Gallery in Dallas, TX.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
