Time: 7 p.m.

 Cover: $15

Kelaine Divine and Loralee Edwards have opened a Dr. Sketchy's here in Lethbridge.

Wowza baby it's gonna be fun!

Dr. Sketchy's is what happens when cabaret meets art school. How cool is that?

When? January 29th 7pm
Where? Henotic's Sofa Room (Upstairs)
What? Crazy awesome art performance, live drawing class...
How? Show up with pencils, pencil crayons, crayons, felts, paints, collage bits, whatever...and come watch/participate
Who? You and anyone that loves to draw - wishes they could draw - likes performance - is looking for an amazing new experience
Why? Because it is going to be freak'n awesome

Loralee and Kelaine are excited to present Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School to Lethbridge. We are going to coordinate the best performers, burlesque dancers, freaks and geeks for you to draw, paint, and contimplate.

The History of Dr. Sketchy's:
Dr. Sketchy's is the little Brooklyn event that became a movement. Founded in 2005 by artist Molly Crabapple, Dr. Sketchy's asked a simple question.

Why can't drawing naked people be sexy?

Here's our attempt at an answer.
We combed New York to find the most beautiful burlesque dancers, the most bizarre circus freaks, and the most rippling hunks of man. Then, every other Saturday, we let you draw them for three hours. Interspersed with posing are comedy skits and ridiculous drawing contests (best left handed drawing? Best incorporation of a woodland animal?) where you can win booze or prizes.

We hauled the lights, sent out thousands of listings, and wheatpasted posters during snowstorms. We also insisted on our models making the highest wages in the city.

Dr. Sketchy's has received scads of media attention for it's combination of burlesque and art. We've been the subject of literally hundreds of articles, radio spots and TV shows around the world. We've been written up in The LA Times, the Washington Post, Time Out New York, Time Out London, The Village Voice, The Sunday Age in Melbourne, NY Press, Gothamist, Fleshbot, The National Post (Canada), Nikkei Trendy (Japan) and scores of alt.weeklies. Talking heads have talked about us on air in the USA, France,Germany, Finland, Brazil, Scotland, Australia, and Canada. We were chosen as "Best Wacky Life Drawing Session" by Shecky's 2007 Best of New York, and have places in Time Out and Lonely Planet Guides.

In the meantime, artists across the world wanted in on our three hours of decadence. Starting in Norfolk, Virginia, but soon spreading from Hollywood to London to Melbourne, Dr. Sketchy's began popping up across the globe. Now we're a 50-city strong art community, with new branches starting each week.

In June 2006, we signed with Sepulculture Books to do Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book. Written by Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt, The Colouring Book is one part official Dr. Sketchy's history and DIY compendium, one part activity book on acid. Filled with drinking games, paper dolls, dirty word finds, and almost a hundred illustrations, it's available for sale now, with its first printing selling out fast.

In 2007, Molly toured the US, founding branches and spreading the Sketchy's gospel. We brought Dr. Sketchy's to Miss Exotic World, the San Diego Comic-Con, the New York Burlesque Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We also threw international gallery shows, exclusive underground loft parties, a 2008 Dr. Sketchy's pinup calender, and even our radio-free radio show.

As Dr. Sketchy's enters it's third year, we couldn't be prouder. And we want to hear from you. Whether you're a New York Times reporter, documentary filmmaker, glittering burlesque girl, or just some scruffy art monkey off the street, drop by for your portal to babes, booze and Bristol.

Now, get drawing.
About Sketchworld- The History of Our Little DIY Empire

No aspect of Dr. Sketchy's has gotten more attention than it's syphillis-like spread across the globe. How did a little Brooklyn drawing club develop over fifty sattelites in less than three years? The blame falls mostly on the internet.

When I started Dr. Sketchy's, I advertised it on illustration message boards. People immediately started commenting that they wished cool things like Dr. Sketchy's happened where they lived. I wondered why cool events should be confined to New York, and, inspired by the Austin Craft Mafia , NaNoWriMo, and Ladyfest, I wrote up a tutorial on starting a Dr. Sketchy's branch. Within a month, three Dr. Sketchy's branches had popped up- in Denmark, Melbourne, and Norfolk, VA. The Melbourne one thrives to this day!

Once we proved that Dr. Sketchy's could be exported, there was no stopping us. Dr. Sketchy's began boozing it up in major cities everywhere. Travellers would visit a branch in Toronto and then start up one in Sydney, only to hire a model from Hamburg who would return home and conquor Deautschland with Sketchy action. Six months after we founded Dr. Sketchy's, Sepulculture Books offered me and co-conspirator John Leavitt a book deal. We created what would become the evangelical tome for the movement. The book took over my life! I toured the country flogging it. Army wives sent it to their husbands in Iraq, and messed up teenage girls wrote me to say it made their lives better.

As of April 2008, there are fifty Dr. Sketchy's, in eleven countries and four continents. I'm continually blown away by the creativity and passion of the folks who run branches. I love you guys! Every week I get a dozen applications to start Dr. Sketchy's- from Hong Kong and Zurich and South Africa- from Tokyo and Tennessee.

If I have an ambition for Dr. Sketchy's third year, it's this. I hope it spreads to South America and Africa and Asia beyond Tokyo's expat community. I hope kids in Tehran add drawing to the booze at their illegal house parties. I hope that Dr. Sketchy's adds to the huge pile of evidence that the internet can bring people together to do interesting things in real life.

Anyone want to take me up on it?

-Molly Crabapple. founder
About Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple is an artist, author, and the founder of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. A former artist's model, Molly founded Dr. Sketchy's when she was 22, and is as shocked as anyone at its astronomical growth. When not running Sketchy's, Molly pays the bills as a fine artist and illustrator for places like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Marvel Comics. She has a saucy, smart-ass Victorian style that gets her written about, but blocked by NSFW filters.