Nova EXPRESS CAFE

About me:

NOVA EXPRESS CAFE NEWS............ NOVA EXPRESS CAFE TO DEPART FROM THE PLANET EARTH............ Why was it here and where did it come from?............... The Nova express Cafe was designed to celebrate the impulse that life can be an expression of romantic fun. It was meant to evoke the spirit of the the Left Bank cafes of the early 1900's in Paris, the San Francisco North Beach "beatnik" coffeehouses and the Jazz clubs of New York. The cafe was also an homage to the small business 'mom and pop' culture of Route 66................ The cafe's outer-space-themed ambiance was to be a place to enjoy experimental music and performance, underground bands, poetry readings, storytelling and art events. But also, and most importantly, the cafe was a really fun place to socialize; to share a conversation and a meal with friends. Bringing people together into a fun and welcoming social space, where they might be inspired to enjoy a heightened sense of their own individuality was the meaning of this project................................ Nova Express Cafe was created as an art project in 1993 as a means to explore and model new ways of integrating art into everyday life. The intention was to show how an unusual artistic cafe might itself be seen as a work of art and as a valuable kind of public space; as a vital part of a living cultural ecology........................... I chose the outer space theme because I enjoy being reminded that, amazingly, that's where we live: we live on the surface of a small terrestrial planet that is floating in space! Outer space exploration is also an apt metaphor of the artist's work which is to explore the frontiers of consciousness. The human mind is perhaps the true 'final frontier'!........................... I understand art as essentially a kind of 'playing around' that reveals a phenomenology of meaning. By this I mean that art is an open-ended conceptual structure capable of modeling reality. Art is a way of modeling reality that comingles the 'subjective' and 'objective' domains of experience. The lived, or subjective, component of 'reality' is tremendously important: it is the gauge by which value is established. Art provides a living dynamic way to see the operating system of 'reality' and also ,I think, a way of recoding or remodeling reality. As an artist, this project was a way for me to explore an alternative sociology of art; to be an artist on my own terms and to present art in conditions that are acceptable to my understanding of what it would mean to live in a more open society. I believe that the humanizing benefits of art are profoundly important, and I also believe that there should just simply be more art in the world. Nova Express Cafe was meant to illustrate how 'art' might function in a more democratic, evenly distributed and less hierarchical way. It is my hope that, to this end, other artists might be encouraged by the Nova Express project to consider the possibilities of creating alternative parallel art streams........................ I'm very proud of the high quality food and drinks we served!........................ Finally, however, the cafe's interior, kitchen and sculptures were built on a limited budget almost entirely from second-hand and discarded materials, and existed outside the normal channels of either capital investment or art world patronage. In the end, Nova Express Cafe succumbed to overwhelming economic pressure and was closed Wednesday, March 5, 2008...................... An important component of my art practice has been to model alternative ways of being an artist. I think starting independent artistic businesses is a great way for artists to integrate themselves in a positive way into society. I'm currently starting another art business called the Robot Iguana Art and Design Company which will, of course, specialize in intergalactic art! A project is underway to put together a documental of sort about the Nova Express cafe, both on its website and in a booklet form. If you would like to contribute please let me know or send photos, memories and stories to info@novaexpresscafe.com. Please put "alien intelligence" on the subject line........................ Thanks for an exciting and meaningful fifteen years!...................... Cary Long