TV News: Ovation TV's Cultural Spring Break -- The "Ovation Staycation"

Too Old for Spring Break? Gas Prices too high?

Why fight the traffic and crowded airports?

Ovation TV invites you to travel with them in their ongoing fight to "Make Life Creative" by presenting a week-long programming event taking you around the world for a Global Art & Culture Tour the network is dubbing the "Ovation Staycation."

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Check Out the Video Below for Details

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Beginning tonight, the "Staycation" will include US premiere series, specials and the channel's beloved original series including the following titles with summaries provided by Ovation:

"This is Civilisation" -- US premiere series. Four episodes runs Sunday, March 8 to Wednesday, March 11, every night at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. Artist and critic Matthew Collings embarks on an epic journey to stunning locations across Europe, Egypt, China and the United States, to explore the changing ways in which cultures of the past have shaped our civilization. Look for the "This is Civilisation" marathon Sunday, March 15 when all four episodes run back to back beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

"The Art of Spain" -- Three episodes runs Sunday, March 8 to Tuesday, March 10, every night at 9:00 p.m ET/PT. In this absorbing and original series, Spanish art gains center stage as art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon goes on the road to reveal the fabulous art treasures of the country. Traveling from the south to the north, he explores some of the most important artists from the Renaissance to modernist, including Goya, Picasso, Dali, El Greco and Velasquez. He also goes off the beaten track your deal insights into a culture and people. On Saturday, March 14 beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT all three episodes will run back to back all night.

"Art & the City" -- Ovation TV original series. Six episodes run Sunday, March 8 to Tuesday, March 10 with two episodes each night beginning at 10 of clock p.m. ET/PT. Hosted by Los Angeles Times reporter David A. Keeps, "Art & the City" leads cultural tourists on discoveries of arts architecture and design in the galleries, hotels, museums and artistic hotspots of destinations throughout the US and Europe, including London, the York, New Orleans, Paris, Chicago, and Los Angeles. All six episodes will run back to back on Thursday, March 12 beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

"Paris" -- Three episodes run back to back on Friday, March 13 starting at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. An Ovation TV favorite, this series follows art historian Sandrine Voillet as she reveals the tempestuous history, immortal beauty and bohemian soul of the city she adores. Taking viewers through several centuries of Paris' cultural history, she celebrates the art, literature, music, films and design that have combined to create the spectacular "City of Lights."

TV News: Andy Warhol's Factory People

Typically when you think of Thanksgiving, visions of endless grocery lists, Presidential turkey pardons, guys getting together to watch football, and eager shoppers clutching ads awaiting bargains at 4 in the morning on Black Friday fill your head. And while some traditions should never be broken whether it's pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes (hold the gravy), or my mom's delicious fruit filled side dish I like to call "Pink Stuff," not to mention watching Steve Martin and John Candy in the John Hughes Turkey Day classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, leave it to the hip folks over at Ovation TV to add a little bit of culture to our lives.

In their undying effort to "Make Life Creative," the eleven year old channel which "was relaunched on June 20, 2007 to a national audience" via DIRECTV has reached such a diverse and loyal following, it's now been added onto DISH Network, cable systems, and made available via video-on-demand to deliver high quality programming to showcase the network's commitment to "the world's greatest artists in theater, dance, opera, literature, film, visual and fine art, music, design, photography and architecture."

With alternating themes from musical concerts to intimate profiles or innovative films (whether it's Kurosawa, Fellini, or the AFI cinematography documentary Visions of Light), this week they're launching an exclusive world premiere of a three part documentary from Emmy Award winning director Catherine O'Sullivan Shorr as part of their "Warhol's World" weekly programming event running November 24 through the 30th.

In Shorr's film, Andy Warhol's Factory People, we're taken behind the scenes of the infamous Silver Factory located on East 47th Street in Manhattan from 1962 to 1968. The film, which was derived from more than fifty hours of exclusive interviews with those who knew Warhol best, also is comprised of never before seen and newly discovered archival footage, and access to thousands of photos from Warhol's friend and Factory manager Billy Name.

Produced by Planet Group Entertainment in association with Zarafa Films and France Television 4, the series offers, as the press release reveals "the most extraordinarily vivid portrait to date of what Warhol himself was really like."



Following the consecutive evening premieres on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of each installment, the episodes will air again as an encore back-to-back presentation on Thanksgiving Day. So this year, add a little art (along with some vicarious sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, Campbell's Soup cans, Velvet Underground tunes, Edie Sedgwick, Nico, and "fifteen minutes of fame") to your holiday tradition.

"Warhol's World" Promo



Andy Warhol's Factory People:
Promo Spot

The Series

Episode One: "Welcome to the Silver Factory"
(Monday, Nov. 24 @ 8 p.m. ET/PT)



Episode Two: "Speeding Into the Future"
(Tuesday, Nov. 25 @ 8 p.m. ET/PT)



Episode Three: "Your 15 Minutes Are Up"
(Wednesday, Nov. 26. @ 8 p.m. ET/PT)

Learn more by visiting Ovation's "Warhol's World" programming page to explore added videos, blogs, photos, fun-facts, wallpapers, official links to the Warhol Museum and much more.

Fine Art: The Work of Ilene Spiewak

The Artwork of Ilene Spiewak

Visit Her Official Website

After stretching the canvas herself and dripping brushes full of red, yellow, and blue acrylic paints in countless layers to help "it become what it will," painter Ilene Spiewak signs her work. Like most artists who struggle with obsessing too much when the paint dries, Spiewak admits she tries "not to go back and torture" herself once her name finds its way on the canvas.

A painter since age eleven, Spiewak felt that it was the ideal outlet as someone who never considered herself "very expressive or articulate." While this seems to be a surprising admission after perusing through a selection of her gorgeously eye-catching work available online, the high school teacher turned full-time artist said that throughout her life, even if "I wasn't painting, I was thinking about it."

Now hoping "to just paint forever," Spiewak's slightly abstract, highly colorful, multi-textured, and beautifully expressionist paintings derived mostly from still-life are available to a larger audience via her website.

A Sampling of Work
(Click the Slideshow Below to See a Full-Screen Presentation)