VISUAL ARTS

John Grade (Seattle) is a sculptor and installation artist and in his most recent exhibition he extensively transformed Davidson Contemporary with a monumental installation titled Cleave. Grade has received grants from Pollack-Krasner Foundation, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Artist Trust, among others. He has also participated in several residencies including Djerassi in California, Ballenglen Arts Foundation in Ireland, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin. The artist received his BFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Grade will have a solo exhibition at Suyama Space in early 2008.

Elizabeth Brown (Seattle) is the Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions & Collections at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. The recent exhibitions she has curated at the Henry include: Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks, 150 Works of Art, Minus Space: Lead Pencil Studio, and WOW (The Work of the Work), among others. She received her PhD in Art History from Columbia University in 1989.

Jennifer Gately (Portland, OR) is the newly appointed Arlene & Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art, at the Portland Art Museum. She is responsible for the care, research, exhibition, and growth of the Arlene & Harold Schnitzer Center for Northwest Art collection and the development of special exhibitions of Northwest art. In that capacity, she works with art and artists of the Northwest (which is defined as Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) in the areas of acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications. Gately most recently was the Director of Visual Arts at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, in Ketchum, Idaho. Gately also served as Principal for Gately Art Advisory in San Francisco, Associate Director at Braunstein/Quay Gallery in San Francisco, and Director of Anne Reed Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho.

TRADITIONAL & FOLK ARTS

Michael Herschenson (Seattle) is the Executive Director of Northwest Folklife in Seattle and the former Director of the Museum of History & Industry and The Children’s Museum. He holds an MA in French Language and Literature and a PhD in Romance Languages from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MA in Historic Preservation Planning, Urban Planning from Cornell University. He is currently on the boards of Historic Seattle Foundation, Committee for Children, and the Seattle Schools in Action. He is also a council member for Historic Seattle PDA.

Sooze Bloom deLeon Grossman (Vashon) is a visual artist, educator and activist. She has been an instructor at City University, Renton Campus, she was the Director at Books Mercaz, and has worked at 911 Media Arts Center. She received a BA in Cultural Studies (Mexican, Islamic and Japanese emphasis) from Evergreen State College.

Spider Kedelsky (Seattle) is the director of community programs and program producer at Town Hall Seattle, a community cultural center. Previously, he was national coordinator of the NEA’s Dance Tour Program; education manager at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters; founder/director of the Los Angeles International Dance Festival; producer of the landmark US tour, “Aboriginal  Artists of Australia;” and curator of the “Dance and Music of Africa” at Jacob’s Pillow. Spider has taught and lectured extensively on non-western performance, and is a three-time recipient of NEA Choreography Fellowships.

PERFORMING ARTS

Pat Graney’s (Seattle) work has been performed in cities and venues nationally and internationally. She has received a Golden Umbrella Award for Lifetime Achievement from Bumbershoot, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship awards, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, several Artist Trust GAP grants, and an Artist Trust/WSAC Fellowship award in 1994 and 2002. Graney has been involved in artist residencies and exchange programs through Arts International, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Asian-American Arts Partnership program. The Pat Graney Company has appeared four times as part of On the Boards’ New Performance Series. The artist has been choreographing in the Seattle area since 1979, creating over 40 works while living in the Pacific Northwest. She also originated the program Keeping the Faith at Washington Corrections Center for Women, offering arts programming to incarcerated women in Washington State since 1992. 

Elise Forier (Ellensburg) has had more than 15 plays produced across the country, including new works in New York and Los Angeles. She has twice been invited to attend the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center where she developed the award winning La Llorona and Other Tales of the American Southwest and The Last Stand of the Comanche Rider. She has received playwriting awards from the Hugo House, the Whidbey Center for the Arts, the Tacoma Arts Commission, and is a 2004 Artist Trust/WSAC Fellowship recipient.

Joshua Kohl (Seattle) is a co-founder, conductor, composer and co-artistic Director for Degenerate Art Ensemble, a Seattle-based music and multi-art performance company. His compositions have included works for dance, silent film, concert ensembles, classico-punk-big-band and street performances. His latest work has also involved designing and performing new types of acoustic instruments. Kohl attended the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston) and received a BA in Composition from Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle). He has studied composition with internationally renowned composers Bright Sheng, Bern Herbolsheimer, and Jarad Powell. Kohl received an Artist Trust/WSAC Fellowship in 1998, and has been awarded commissions from Meet The Composer, Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, Washington State Arts Commission, On The Boards and the Nesholm Family Foundation. 

EMERGING & CROSS-DISCIPLINARY ARTS

Peter Lucas (Seattle) is the Associate Program Director at Northwest Film Forum and has worked there for the past six years, presenting music films, documentaries, and special series exploring the intersections of art, design, and architecture with moving image media. He has also contributed programming for the Seattle International Film Festival and Sound Unseen Film and Music Festival, and has organized independent art exhibits, film screenings, and collaborative multimedia events in Austin, New York, and Seattle.

Nik Meisel (Pullman) is an installation artist, interested in investigating site material and situation in relationship to the human experience. His installations vary in size; some interact with the volume of a room others within the volume of a coffee cup. Nik is currently an Assistant Professor of Art and the Sculpture and 3D Foundations coordinator at Washington State University, where he received his MFA in Sculpture/Installation in 2002. His recent solo exhibitions include Multiple Stride Piece at Gallery 1078 (Chico, CA), Spin at Littman Gallery (Portland, OR), and Yama’s Corrida in Battery Brannon at Centrum in Port Townsend.

Chris DeLaurenti (Seattle) is a self-taught composer and performer of experimental music. He has received grants from the Yellow Fox Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and an Artist Trust/WSAC Fellowship, among others. He received a Ucross Residency Prize in 2005, and participated in residencies at Harvestworks and Centrum. His recent public performances include In Resonance at Bumbershoot in 2005, Outer Ear 04 Festival in Chicago, The Sound Show on The Conversation on KUOW, among others.