Five Arty Events: Jan. 12-14

Second week of January, and how are those resolutions holding up? Yeah – us, too. But, look, never mind all that – there’s places to go and things to do here in Austin this weekend. Let us introduce you to a few of them:

1) How about a twofer? Because right now the visual arts scene in this town, maybe a skoshie discomfited that San Antonio’s seems to be slightly more, ah, glorious in some aspects, gets all rampant like a heraldic lion, roaring into the beginning of 2018 with not just one but two festivals running simultaneously: FotoATX and PrintAustin. The first’s a display of local photographic talents, spread across venues all over this bustling city, and the second’s a similar celebration (but even vaster and deeper, with workshops and ad hoc afterparties) of the multivalent printmaking scene – as it thrives in Austin, in Texas, and beyond. So much to see, so much to learn.

2) The 25th annual FronteraFest unmasks its protean Short Fringe face on Tuesday, but we’re telling you about it now – because the shows tend to sell out, especially those Saturday “Best of the Week” gigs, and we want you to get a head start on the action. It’s been years, but we still can’t quite believe how all of Josh Meyer fit inside that one small suitcase … and who knows what weird wonders await festival-goers at Hyde Park Theatre this year?

3) Go ahead, accuse of us promoting our own. But when photographer extraordinaire Shelley Hiam – former Chronicle graphic designer, now plying her softwarey trade over at SXSW HQ – when that Hiam, we say, takes the stage to spin a monologue off of which a team of improvisers will manifest their unscripted hijinks, we’re gonna tell you about it: It’s this week’s Megaphone Show on Saturday at The New Movement, that underground comedy club & training center Downtown. (Which, nota bene, is also where TNM co-founder Chris Trew himself(!) will be unleashing his Comedy With Strangers spectacle on Friday.)

4) This Sunday afternoon is 2018’s first Family Day at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, and there’s seldom a better opportunity to immerse your family – the kids, think of the kids! – in a variety of activities (Japanese calligraphy, yoga, art-making with a professional pugilist) certain to expand their creative horizons. In there among the sculpture-enhanced nature paths and all, you know? Lovely stuff.

5) On the other hand, forget the kids – you wouldn’t want those little darlings coming anywhere near Radio Coffee this Sunday, as a group of local crime writers gather to uncover Who Killed Andrew Hilbert? It’s only readings, it’s only a live radio drama – but it’ll be descriptively replete with shit like, oh, blood-splatter patterns, maybe? Methods of evisceration? How about an icepick in the forehead? And where is that Hilbert, anyway? Wait, was that previously unidentified body … was it, after all … *choke* *sob*