Out of the blue

From magazine publisher to art gallery. From art gallery to performance art space. From performance art space to ... recording studio?

Since its inception, the bluemilk group has been known for constantly pushing the envelope of artistic convergence, shifting focuses from print publishing to art exhibition, online broadcasting and a popular series of multimedia parties.

This past weekend, the paradigm shifted yet again. Saturday night's "Last Shift" put an end to the monthly multimedia parties. Bluemilk founders Chris Hansen and Chris Kowalski are closing up their Paradigm Artspace for the fall and focusing on other projects, most notably securing nonprofit status for their new Prudenia project and also recording a CD.

"We've been in kind of a creative chaos over here for, oh, three years," says Kowalski. "And it's a good thing — we love it. But now we really want to polish up what we're doing and legitimize what we're doing."

Kowalski, 28, and Hansen, 24, started bluemilk magazine from Kowalski's apartment in 1998. They opened Midtown's Paradigm Artspace a year later, which quickly became more than just a publishing office.

"When we moved to this space and used it as a magazine office, it was a slow evolution into the studio, into the gallery," Hansen says. "So we've kinda had to just go with the flow. This is the first time we've said, 'Wait a second, we need to rethink how we're doing this.' We're still trying to apply magazine-style business tactics to something that doesn't need to try and make money in that way."

Money is a big motivator behind the formation of Prudenia. Achieving nonprofit status will allow the group to seek out grants and fund raising previously unavailable to a for-profit art gallery or publishing house. The bluemilk group and Paradigm Artspace will continue to exist, but as separate agencies that work under the auspices of Prudenia. Hansen and Kowalski hope nonprofit status will lead to enough funds to buy the building that holds Paradigm and transform it into a multimedia museum.

Kowalski says the decision to put Paradigm on ice wasn't merely a financial one, though, and his vision of Prudenia is much more sweeping than just another nonprofit arts agency.

"We say big things on the Internet like, 'We're the global artistic revolution centralized in Atlanta,'" he says.

Says Hansen, "The Prudenian mythology is something that we've used as an umbrella for pretty much everything we do here."

Mythology indeed, although to hear this duo talk about it, Prudenia is a real place, an overarching worldview of doing good through artistic creativity.

"Prudenia is the land of the homo prudens, the big brother of homo sapiens," says Kowalski, with no hint of irony. "Homo prudens includes foresight and knowledge. We're their ancestors pretty much. And it's not like they're ahead of us in time or in the future or anything. It's actually a parallel dimension. What we figure is it's not going to be a physical evolution, it's going to be a mental evolution, a moral and spiritual evolution."

Heady stuff, but the idea of Prudenia is catching on. Kowalski's brother Jon, who worked with bluemilk earlier this year, is now spreading the Prudenia gospel in New York. And thanks to Jon, bluemilk has become involved with the New York-based Beggar's Group, an artistic collective that put on a weeklong series of workshops and performances at Paradigm in July.

To underscore the bluemilk group's expanding artistic focus, the Beggar's Group has invited Kowalski and Hansen to perform their Odd Eye See musical in an off-off-Broadway space in the spring. Which explains why Paradigm Artspace has become a recording studio. The Lotus Eaters, the unofficial bluemilk band, is using the space to record an album of songs from the musical.

While not making music or sorting through the red tape required to reach nonprofit status, Kowalski and Hansen also plan to focus on their own art. The artists in residence still will be able to use Paradigm, and Kowalski says he plans to open the gallery doors every weekend, though not for formal openings or multimedia parties.

"We're not going to really shut down," Kowalski says. "This place is not just our place. We like to open it up for anybody. So if anyone wants to take the bull by the horns and do all the promotion and all the hanging and everything, we're open for letting people do that or open for the poetry slams and stuff like that."??