ritertainment

Bad
,Gir l of

EXAS

o Carol Pierce is
a dusty gem that
won't be polished,
and her words
. cut as sharp as di-
amonds. "You were like
broken glass embedded
in my flesh," she writes
of a heartache on one of
the tracks of Bad Girls
Upset By the Truth, the
debut album by the
profoundly talented
songwriter from
Austin, Texas.
"I just kinda did it
not to go insane," says
Pierce of her writing, a
well-kept Austin secret
until the November
1995 release of Bad
Girls. The album, a
combination spoken-
word performance and
twangy musical
odyssey, flows in story form, re-
counting the-loves and losses
and longings of a woman flum-
moxed by life's contradictions.
Throughout it all, Pierce's voice
carries an innocence and open-
ness that's as disarming as it is
humorous and poignant.

j

Jo Carol Pierce will perform an offbeat performance-art musical, stylistically
ranging from cowboy poetry to Tex-Mex to honky-tonk.

This Week's Best Bets
annual Detroit Focus Exhibition
ART
Committee Slide Review.

Birmingham-Bloomfield Art
Association. Patti Tapper.
Hand-painted furniture and
home accessories. 9:30 a.m.-4:30
p.m. Monday-Saturday. 1516 S.
Cranbrook Rd., Birmingham.
(810) 644-0866.

Detroit Focus Gallery. Nicole
Pangas, Eun Young Koo Lee,
Sun-Young Byun, Cheryl
Novack. Four new talents — a
ceramist, photographer and two
painters — selected from the

Through Feb. 16. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Thursday-Sunday. 33 East
River at Farmer, one block
east of Woodward. (313) 965-
3245.

Swords Into Plowshares. An
exhibit from the gallery's per-
manent collection of works in all
media concerned with war,
hunger, homelessness and eth-
nic hatred. Through Feb. 29. 11-
3 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday,
Saturday. 33 E. Adams, Detroit.
(313) 965-5422.

Siena Heights College.
Sources and Collaborations: The
Creation of the Holocaust Project.
Features study drawings, com-
bination photography and paint-
ing, and related artworks in
various media by contemporary
artist Judy Chicago and photog-
rapher Donald Woodman.
Through Feb. 16. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Monday-Friday; 6-9 p.m. Tues-
day. Klemm Gallery, Studio An-
gelico, 1247 E. Sienna Heights
Dr., Adrian. (517) 263-0731.

Detroit Historical Museum.
Elegance in Glass, rare Victori-

Pierce has been writing songs
for decades, performing them
at various Austin venues and,
unbeknownst to her, winning
over a growing fan base. In
1992, she became the subject of
a tribute album, Across the
Great Divide: The Songs of Jo
Carol Pierce, which included
tracks by fellow Austin stand-
outs Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale
Gilmore (Pierce's first hus-
band). The Austin Chronicle
named it Album of the Year in
1993.
"I never thought of myself as
a musician or a performer," she
says, speaking on the phone
from Texas. It wasn't until
friends such as Ely began prais-
ing her work "that I started to
take myself seriously."
The 40-something Pierce
grew up in Lubbock, but has
been in Austin "since I was old
enough to run away." She says
that the material on Bad Girls,
written beginning in the early
1980s, derives from her own ex-
periences as a woman desper-
ate to escape a repressive
family but not sure what to do
with her newfound freedom.

an and early 20th-century glass
from the collection of Paul Win-
dorf. Through June. 9:30 a.m.-
5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 10
a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
$3 adults/$1.50 seniors and chil-
dren. 5401 Woodward, Detroit.
(313) 833-1805.

Janice Charach Epstein Mu-
seum/Gallery. Realism in Clay
by Gail Rosenbloom Kaplan; Let-
ters Dipped in Honey; and Ju-
daic Art of Ben Glicker. "Letters
Dipped in Honey," is an exhibit
of Jewish children's books cu-
rated by New York's Yeshiva

"I like to run really-disturb-
ing material into a laugh," she
says, adding that "even though
Bad Girls has a lot of depth, I
think it's really comic."
This past May, the American
Music Theater Festival invited
Pierce to perform Bad Girls as
a full-length musical; and the
performance may land off-
Broadway in the near future.
Pierce, nonetheless, insists her <
work will continue to change
and grow as she does. "It's by
no means finished," she says.
"I've got more perspective on it
now."

—Liz Stevens

Jo Carol Pierce performs
Bad Girls Upset By the Truth
at the Ark in Ann Arbor at 8
p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10, ac-
companied by her husband,
Guy Juke, on guitar and J.D.
Fosterass. Tickets are S5.
ninAtreet,
3 763-

University. Through Feb. 29. 11
a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednesday;
11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; 11
a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Maple-
Drake Jewish Community Cen-
ter. (810) 661-7641.

Detroit Institute of Arts.
Flowers in a Glass Vase on a
Marble Ledge, the museum's
new acquisition by 17th-centu-
ry Dutch painter Rachel
Ruysch. Romancing the Ameri-
can Frontier. Through April 7.
Thomas Cole: The Voyage of
Life. Through April 14. Sug-
gested donation $4 adults/$1