The following are recent Meet the Artist events with 2006 Fellowship recipients.

Seattle visual artist Julie Alexander held her Meet the Artist event at the Bellingham Library. Alexander talked about her drawings, watercolors and oils on canvas and presented a slide show of her current work to an engaged audience.

For his Meet the Artist event, Seattle visual artist Cris Bruch gave a talk at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center on how his work has developed since 1995, when he was awarded a commission to make an entrance portal for the Arts Center. An audience of 20 people attended the talk, at which Bruch spoke about his involvement with process and limitation, and his interests in time, turbulence, and curvature. Many questions arose regarding the nature of art-making in general, and specific questions about Bruch’s approach to materials and concepts. 

Seattle dancer Etienne Cakpo offered an African dance workshop through the Kids for Kenya Club at Endeavor Intermediate and Hedden Elementary Schools in Milton. The event was attended by about 40 children from grades 2-5. Cakpo and two members of his dance company, Siya Manyakanyaka (singer, dancer, drummer from South Africa) and Won-Ldy Paye (drummer, master storyteller from Liberia) taught dances, played drums, sang, and told stories.

“The workshop was a great way for the kids to experience the cultures they are learning about. It was fun to see them all be so expressive in dance...I learned that the kids were willing and open to learning new things – none were too shy to enjoy themselves. The story at the end was the best surprise – what an incredible treat for our kids to meet all – we had a great time.” [Kids for Kenya Club Advisor]

“It was very fun and interesting. I liked that I got to learn a new dance. I practice it every day. I learned that many different cultures have many different dances.” [Student]

Seattle artist Drew Daly gave a slide lecture and discussion at Seattle's Lakeside School. Thirty students from several of the art classes attended. The discussion ranged from Daly's early works as an undergraduate through his current work. Many of the questions asked by students were in regards to how Daly decided to pursue a career as an artist. Daly said his responses were "honest in presenting the challenges faced by the life of an artist, but also encouraging."

Olympia photographer Steve Davis spoke to 400 Tacoma School of the Arts students at the Rialto Theatre in Tacoma for his Meet the Artist event. He shared his past and current work, including photographs of incarcerated teenagers. During and after his presentation Davis took many questions from the energetic and inquisitive audience of high school age students.

Seattle visual artist Blake Haygood spoke at Evergreen State College for his Meet the Artist event. Approximately 70 students, faculty, and community members heard how Haygood came to pursue a career as an artist, and to co-found Platform Gallery in Seattle. He spoke about three distinct phases in his artistic career, beginning with his first show and studio, and showed images that tracked his development. He spoke of his time with a commercial gallery and how he found opportunities to promote his work, stitching together jobs in the arts to make a living. He finished by speaking about the formation of Platform and his current work. Afterwards, Haygood answered questions from the audience: What are your influences? How is it running a gallery? How do you get a gallery? Haygood stated, “It was fun, and made me analyze what I do and why – and hopefully the audience learned something as well.”

For her Meet the Artist event Seattle sculptor Jenny Heishman wanted to work with children. From the experience she had had in the past with kids and art, she noticed that they don’t get as much time working and thinking about three-dimensional space as with two-dimensional representation. So Heishman visited a class of 22 kindergarteners from Peshastin-Dryden Elementary School in eastern Washington. She talked briefly with them about what sculpture is and some of the different ways one can make it. The kids then worked collaboratively to assemble found objects into the shape of a human body. “It was so exciting to see their enthusiasm for the project,” Heishman reported. “Just as any artist would, they took a little time to acquaint themselves with the new objects (their material) and then set to constructing a body. We all gathered together and went from table to table to see each others’ work. It was a real delight to work with such young people, to witness their creativity and the joy they experience from their creations.”

Seattle photographer Ryan Horvath presented his work at Eastern Washington University in Spokane for his Meet the Artist event. About 30 students, professors, technicians and curators from EWU and the local community attended, hearing about and seeing images that influenced Horvath, his background as an artist, his approach to studio practice, and his current and past work. An open discussion followed, with topics ranging from the concerns of the working artist, the importance of working with available resources, venues/exhibitions, Artist Trust and other organizations that help artists. 

For her Meet the Artist event, Seattle cross-disciplinary artist Perri Lynch and her collaborator David Stutz presented radius, a live, improvised, audio performance at the Seattle Department of Urban Planning & Development’s Urban Sustainability Forum. Over 200 people heard raw field recordings Lynch made around the globe, reduced, reused, repaired, and recycled to form a sonic landscape of sustainable practice. Featured sounds included the opening bell of a drawbridge, wind in the trees, a community bonfire, the patter of a Bengali taxi driver, the ping of instruments monitoring the ocean, a suspension bridge at rush hour, the buttermilk blessing of Tiruvannamalai, a gathering storm in Scotland and an endangered bird from the Andaman Islands. Lynch says “radius connects the outer edge to the center, drawing attention to the interrelatedness of all things.” One audience member stated, “What I discovered in that performance was that the juice or spark in art is in the quality of communication.” Lynch states, “This gig clarified that the work, for me, is not ‘entertainment’ per se. It's more about cultivating an environment where people can settle in and listen. That's where I was at when I gathered the sounds and where I want to meet the audience when hand-meets-fader.”

For his Meet the Artist event, Seattle interdisciplinary artist Jesse Paul Miller created a site-specific installation and conducted a gallery talk at Spokane Falls Community College. The installation, titled Horizons, Sounds and People: 2005 Thailand and Laos, included field recordings, drawings and video projections. About 40 people viewed the installation and attended the talk, in which Miller described the workings of the installation and discussed assemblage, drawing, gathering audio recordings, equipment, personal history and perspectives on sound.

Seattle dancer Amelia Reeber held her Meet the Artist event at Northwest Center for the Retarded in Seattle. Having worked previously with developmentally disabled populations and having been inspired by the work and the people she met through it, Reeber decided to conduct her Meet the Artist event there since the population has limited exposure to some art forms. After a brief discussion, Reeber performed a structured improvisational dance, accompanied by improvised and recorded music and vocals by musician Angelina Baldoz. The varied dynamic of the performance repeated itself, encouraging different points of entry and providing varied lenses to see movement. Less than a heartbeat after the end, a man yelled, “WE THOUGHT YOU GUYS WERE GREAT!” Reeber received gratitude from the eight staff and 40 clients present. Many clients had questions: “Are you staying all day?” “Can we see you later?” “Where do you dance?” “That was fun/great/thank you thank you” “Where do you live?”  Many hugs and handshakes were offered, and Reeber sensed that the staff wanted to talk longer than time allowed.

Seattle visual artist Tivon Rice created a presentation on his sculpture, video and installation work for Seattle's Lakeside School Advanced Ceramics class for his Meet the Artist event. They had a lively discussion about form and materials following a 30-minute presentation of his work and Artist Trust.

For his Meet the Artist event, Seattle visual artist Alex Schweder gave a presentation entitled “Medical Technology and Artistic Intent” to the staff at Digestive Health Services in Tacoma. Schweder showed slides of his work, which employs medical technology in its production; the audience of 27 was able to see their daily practices in new light.  Schweder’s 2004 work Jealous Poché was of particular interest because the endoscope used to film the Jell-O in this work came from Digestive Health Services. Many questions from the audience related to where the ideas for art come from, what other ways artists use ordinary tools that are not thought of as traditional devices in the production of art, and how long it takes to make a work of art.

Seattle performing artist Tikka Sears taught a workshop titled Connection, Improvised Movement and Performance Technique to students at Seattle’s Nova Alternative High School. The class was a diverse population of 21 ninth- to twelfth-graders, two with developmental disabilities. They learned elements of physical theater to generate original performance work; the workshop also focused on teaching participants to actively connect with fellow performers and notice their environment and use it as a tool for improvisation.
     Sears reported that the “[s]tudents were very engaged and filled with energy. They committed fully to the experience.” When asked to observe and then describe small wonders in their classroom that they had not seen before answers came back filled with detail. “One student noticed a stain on the floor that looked like a Gorilla sitting in the lotus position with mouth wide open. Another student noticed a hole in the wall and wondered if it had been put there by an angry fist.” Stories emerged from these simple observation exercises.
     The students and teacher will continue to use and build on the new information for an upcoming performance. Sears said, “After the workshop several students came up to me with shining eyes and asked me about the current work I was doing and said how much they enjoyed the workshop and exercises. The students asked if I would come back sometime to work with them again. It was powerful to see that students and performers of all ages connect to this way of working and found artistic freedom within a structure of improvisation.”

Seattle singer Mary Sherhart held a public workshop on Balkan singing in cooperation with Centrum in Port Townsend as part of her Meet the Artist event. Mary gave the 40+ participants an overview of the rich variety of traditional Slavic singing styles found in the relatively small geographic area of the Balkans (which includes Bulgaria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Kosovo and Serbia), as well as the opportunity to sing with live musicians. Mary taught two songs in depth, and distributed song sheets for additional songs that were spontaneously sung with the accompaniment of Mary's group Balkan Cabaret. Each song sheet included notation, text, translation and background into the context and source of the song. Mary also provided complementary CDs of each workshop song. Later than evening, Mary and Balkan Cabaret performed at the Upstage Restaurant in Port Townsend where people experienced the music with friends, food and line dancing. The joy on everyone's faces was tribute to the magic of music and community.

For her Meet the Artist event Seattle metalsmith Lori Talcott visited Naches Valley High School in Eastern Washington and gave presentations to three of Randy Wise’s art classes. Talcott's presentation started with an overview of her education, an apprenticeship she did in Norway, setting up a studio, and what it means to make a living as an artist. Talcott reports, “I then gave a brief historical, cross-cultural and contemporary overview of all the crazy and amazing things people have worn and wear today, emphasizing meaning and symbolism.” Woven into this were personal travel photos and anecdotes, describing how these impressions and experiences have manifested in her work over the years. “The students were incredibly attentive, asked great questions, and made funny and smart comments. The best part of the visit was seeing what they were working on – and from what I saw, Randy Weis runs a great program,” Talcott said.

Gig Harbor stage designer Carey Wong presented two public slide lecture/demonstrations about his recent work at the Bellingham and Burlington Public Libraries for his Meet the Artist event. Wong showed slides of models and photographs from recent and past scenic designs. He also displayed and discussed several full or partial scale models that audience members were able to inspect closely. Four of these were from shows that Wong designed in 12-month period that followed his receiving the Artist Trust Fellowship: The Nutcracker (Ballet Arizona, 2006), Proof (Tacoma Actors Guild, 2007), First Class (ACT Theatre, 2007), and Murderers (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 2007). Wong spoke about his background and how he became interested in stage design. Audience members were especially interested in how the collaborative design process functions among producer, stage director, scenic designer, technicians and performers, and in the logistics (and budgets) for realizing set designs in the scene shop. The talk also touched on recent trends in theatre design and technology.

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Click here to read about Meet the Artist events with 2005 Fellowship recipients.