Arts Week 2020 Artist Bios and Project Descriptions
Wyly Astley makes work about monsters as a way to study societies and what people believe/d and understood through the ages. During Open Studios, try on an assortment of monster including her newest piece, the A’yahos, a Duwamish Tribe earthquake monster. Learn about this PNW creature and The Seattle Fault through history stories and maps.
Julia Barbee will make work that engages three generations both in and out of her family, finding ways to create a connection through materials, food, and exploration. Three Generational Experiment is a collaboration between Julia Barbee (41), her mother Sondra (74), and her children Iggy (4.5) and Zula (2.5).
William Brattain and Mary Ferrario
Performance Collaboration: Etiquette
Seattle, WA
Brother William and Sister Mary perform Comfort Objects, a performance art tent revival cum pyramid scheme recruitment seminar and makeup demonstration, led by two broken people who ultimately see their needs met in a way neither wanted nor expected. Studio tour components include set pieces, props, and Catharsis Karaoke, an interactive installation.
Lindsay Clark will perform music that is influenced by traditional and English folk, classical, and her own version of experimental folk. She has a penchant for poetry, rich harmony, and a definitive style of self-taught fingerpicking. Her sound has been described as “folk with angelic vocals washing over smooth edges” (1859 Magazine).
Encouraged by thoughtful interaction with the abundant flora of the Pacific Northwest and with Gratitude and accessibility at the core of her practice, Kate will create a large mixed media weaving. Visitors are invited to enter this woven structure created with repurposed and naturally dyed fibers and found objects.
The Curly Wurly collaborative team will combine woodworking mastery, creative wizardry, and soft and sturdy upholstery skills to make functional artistic jazz/folk furniture. All are invited to Curly Wurly’s Esoteric Furniture and Lounge, a resting space/communal gathering area, to share ideas, stories and tea with friends old and new.
Zack Fealk will use modular synthesis and cassette manipulation to design ambient tones along with sequence-building and sharper sounds to generate a wide sonic atmosphere. The studio component will include soft lighting, an aroma of incense and a cozy space to sit while listening to music. These sessions will be recorded for Side B of his cassette
Elizabeth Haidle will create a Tarot for All deck, aimed at ages 10 years and up with an emphasis on parent-child collaborative reading. Major arcana cards will be updated to make more sense to children, teens and beginning adults, with a focus on inclusive gender and roles. Studio components will include small finished watercolor paintings.
Shaun will start a new series of embroidered paper collage works, extending the aesthetics of a recent series into bigger and more elaborate pieces. These pieces visualize hidden forces, moments of time, impact points of reaction, and gateways to other planes. Visitors will see hand-made geometric pattern templates, and embroidered collages.
Joshua will deepen his writing practice for solo songs written on acoustic guitar and piano. Stephanie will work on developing her work as a scriptwriter and filmmaker. KeseKarp will combine their practices to generate audio visual work that will stand as a true collaborative hybrid. Visitors will see a display of short videos set to music.
Uncomfortable Club: Creative one-on-one coaching focusing on brain wiring, thought management and emotional intelligence. The Studio tour will include an “Ask Me Anything” advice box (answers to be published in a zine) as well as one-on-one sessions. Sign up in the lodge and bring any problem to the table. Let’s get comfortable with being uncomfortabe…together!
Nicky Kriara will fire ceramic sculptures in a series of pit-fires on the beach, creating ceramic artifacts that serve as a time capsule of time and place. Cory Gray will collect and interpret soundscapes based on the pit firings. The final audio pieces will be combined with the sculptural firings from the week, creating a collaborative ceramic and sound installation.
This collaborative team will build an interactive sculptural work with fabric, sound, video and lights. Visitors will experience this multi-media, multi-sensory, installation that reflects on the complexities and nuances of sexual, gender, and anatomic identity. To some, it represents pain, choice, birth, stimulation, disconnect, ancestry, suffering, mystery, science, life. For these artists, it represents a subject matter that inspired a new collaboration.
Chris Miller will work on a combination writing piece involving music, poetry and prose based on the triple theme of “Saunas, Forest Wanderings, & Beach Bonfires.” His studio work might also include writing in collaboration with other artists during the week. Visitors are invited to a live music performance in the lodge living room.
Zoe Minikes will install a library of works from her press, Flower Press, centering on women, femme, and queer artists and practitioners. She will work on drawings, poems, recordings and jokes to be included in her mail art project, Winter is Fun Club. She’ll offer SAY YES TO THE YES, her workshop on the use of aphrodisiacs to support one’s personal practice.
Anis Mojgani will combine poetry and illustration to explore his developing picture book stories. He will explore how stories can be re-contextualized for working with audiences in ways other than simply in printed book form. Visitors will see his work on paper, with pencil, ink, and/or color as well as a live reading.
Sophia Munic will create a soft sculpture artist book. With different pages of fabric, and hand embroidery, the pages will consist of designs that look like sculptures. Visitors will see sketches, small interactive pieces, fabric scraps and other textiles.
Julie Perini and John Frentress
Collaborative Experimental Film: Harry & Harry Productions
Portland, OR
This artist collective will create a short experimental 16mm film inspired by the intimacy of lovemaking. They will process the film by hand and directly manipulate the surface of the film by painting, scratching and sanding it. The soundtrack will be sounds gathered from Seaview and the beach. Visitors may watch the film and also touch and examine the hand-manipulated film in the studio.
Hilary Pfeifer will create collage by hand-cutting hundreds of individual elements from colored sign vinyl, sandpaper, drywall tape, and other found materials. She will find an ecological theme or narrative to guide the body of work that is particular to this part of the Washington coast. Visitors will see finished work as well as tools and materials.
Ivy Ross Ricci will interview Artists-In-Residence and visitors about their experience of the Sou’wester. She will gather and record personal stories and recollections and compile them into an audio archive “Sou’wester Stories”. Visitors are invited to share anecdotes in her recording studio space and/or listen to compiled interviews.
Krysta Sa will develop a series of group body treatments using found natural materials and the Finnish sauna at the Sou’wester. This project will further her research around sauna treatments, history and their connection to therapeutic acts of release. Visitors will see sculptural objects, videos and a performance.
Bryna Shields will create mixed media illustrations and patterns using experimental techniques to explore themes around connection to nature, intuition, and non-attachment. Experimental techniques will include using objects from the ocean/nature as tools to create the artwork (using seaweed as a paint brush, for example). Visitors are invited to contribute to an experimental community collage.
Briana Spencer will use the Sou’wester VHS library as a movie spirit guide to create a movie menu, a real/fake food menu to correspond with the chosen film. The studio tour component will include a movie screening with the movie menu available for viewing in addition to prints.
Katharine Spilker will use materials that are mutable, adaptable and combine intimately—such as fabric, plaster, clay, paper, and wax—to explore observations of duality within relationship. Visitors will experience an installation of several pieces of soft sculpture and evidence of site-specific material experimentations with soil, clay, and plant matter, integrating these works in relation to time spent on this land.
Karen Tillou will look to migrating birds’ view of the land and waterways they require, to create oblique birdseye perspectives of arrival and refuge. She will create a three-panel doorway curtain portraying a portion of the Long Beach peninsula and Willapa Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Studio components will include dyed textiles and a small scale indigo dyeing demonstration.
Erica Trabold and Kristina Tate
Collaborative Vocal Performance: Art In Conversation
Amherst, VA and Portland, OR
Writers Erica Trabold and Kristina Tate will bridge distance to create physical art-in-conversation that disrupts the ache of solitude, the strain of aging, and the environmental battle scars of the world. Studio components include written exchanges and visual representations of art ‘in conversation’. They will perform a collaborative reading, a vocal performance demonstrating that a writing practice doesn’t have to be lonely.
Heather Treadway will design and sew new garments using salvaged fabrics as well as work on a tap piece set to music from her solo electronic dance album. Visitors will experience garment design, music and dance as it coalesces into a sonic and visual experience. Studio components include a rack of 100 handmade pieces and a musical performance and/or tap dance lessons.
Lucia Volker will create an abstract, large scale site specific installation based on themes of transition, reflection and expansion. Materials include paper, paint and collaged elements using colors and natural tones found in the surrounding environment. Visitors will experience the seeping in of nature through this completed installation.
This collaborative team will talk with people about moments in their lives when they encountered an emotional obstacle, or any kind of feeling that gets in the way of doing something. They will create an architectural sized, interactive emotional obstacle course using quotidian materials.
Artist Biographies and Project Descriptions
Wyly Astley Biography and Project Description: I am a conceptual artist and I primarily use traditional hand working methods and natural materials to create my work. Because I work with very slow processes like felting, hand stitching, and beading, I stay with the concepts I’m working with for a long time. I am most interested in making work that reflects current takes on Truth. For example, right now I am making work about monsters. This is a very interesting way to study societies and what people believe/d and value/d through the ages. Monsters give face to and reflect what we fear most and/or what we cannot comprehend. I am using costuming, other handwork and dance to create an immersive, site-specific installation about earthquake monsters, specifically, A’yahos. According to Duwamish lore, these shape-shifting spirits lived underground in Duwamish Territory, today’s Puget Sound. If selected, I would use my time to continue work on the A’yahos costumes and an embroidered and hand-beaded map showing the A’yahos’s boulders’ locations, the Seattle Fault line and the Duwamish Territory. Visitors will be able to try on the mask of an A’yahos and see the some of the other costumes. They can hear the story of the A’yahos and see the work-in-progress of an embroidered and beaded map that shows the People of the Inside’s land, the Seattle Fault line and the current placement of the enormous boulders the A’yahos threw. Additionally, visitors will be able to add to one of the paper mâché boulders that will be used in the installation.
Julia Barbee Biography and Project Description: The constraints of her autobiographical journey inform artist Julia Barbee’s subjects and material choices. She has worked in wearable sculpture, performance, film, food, social media, photography and writing. She co-founded and curated a five-year running art event called Spaceness, which was awarded grant funding from the Precipice Fund, The Calligram Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. She has an MFA in Fiber, and has been working in Portland, Oregon for almost two decades where she lives with her husband and two children. For the souwester residency I’m proposing a collaborative effort between three generations of my family. My mother, myself, and my children will engage in a series of experiments and projects in the weeks leading up to the week there, and we will spend our time on site finding space to present the work, and mapping its location for visitors during the open house. Visitors will be invited into our process. My goal is to engage three generations both in and out of my family, finding ways to create a connection through materials, food, and exploration.
William Brattain and Mary Ferrario Biography and Project Description: William Brattain is a playwright and performer Brother William. Mary Ferrario is a choreographer and performer Sister Mary. Each are co-artistic directors of Etiquette, a contemporary performance art collaboration born from the divergent disciplines of playwriting and choreography. Etiquette strives to create work that is considerate, accessible, and sustainable, as well as to be engaging and inspirational for artists and audiences alike. Comfort Objects is an evening-length tent revival cum pyramid scheme recruitment seminar and makeup demonstration, led by two broken people who ultimately see their needs met in a way neither wanted nor expected. The piece lampoons the predatory nature of the multi-level marketing business model, that preys upon low-income communities with promises of an infinite source of wealth, and extends further to explore the unhealthy attachments we create, with visceral absurdity, karaoke, and dance. We will explore proximity in our process, and engage personally with staff, fellow artists, audience members, and patrons of Arts Week, including but not limited to karaoke. We will conduct daily rehearsals and movement practice within the studio and on the grounds and utilize studio space and time to construct props and set pieces out of papier-mâché, as well as piñatas. Visitors can expect to see either excerpts from Comfort Objects or in its entirety, possibly within our living quarters, akin to a Tupperware or Avon party. We also intend to extrapolate elements from the full version of Comfort Objects to create an interactive installation called Catharsis Karaoke, an individualized karaoke experience where participants will begin by personalizing a piñata with the vice or unhealthy attachment that plagues them, privately perform karaoke to themselves, and then destroy the piñata, liberating them from their problem.
Lindsay Clark Biography and Project Description: Lindsay Clark finds balance between traditional and english folk and her own version of experimental folk that seems to come from her soul. With influences ranging from the Beach Boys, Elizabeth Cotton, Joni Mitchell, appalachian folk, her classical upbringing, and her father’s record collection, she blends many worlds into a uniquely warm sound. She has carved out a vibrant place as an artist with a penchant for poetry, rich harmony, and a style of self-taught fingerpicking influenced by Nick Drake, John Fahey, and others. Popmatters called Crystalline (2018) “a rare exhibition of the weight that minimalism can bear in contemporary, reflective folk music.” Atwood Magazine called its first single, “Little Dove” – “a piece of poetry in and of itself.” Originally from the small gold rush town of Nevada City, CA, she now resides in Portland, OR. Her sound has been described as “folk with angelic vocals washing over smooth edges” (1859 Magazine). She has shared the stage with musicians such as Alela Diane, Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors), Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom), and Laura Gibson. Her most recent effort was engineered and co-produced this year with Jeremy Harris (Vetiver/Devendra Banhart). “Crystalline” was released in 2018 via German label Oscarson. She has plans to record her next full-length album in 2020. Over the past year, I have been writing new material for an album with plans to record in 2020. Between touring and teaching this year I have had a few weeks of dedicated time to work on the songs for the album, at Can Serrat Residency in Spain. I would really love to be able to spend another short spell of time to finish these pieces as well as begin to conceive the instrumental and vocal arrangements for the album. There is something so important about the intentional space of creation and I am always amazed by how much the process of a work can shift and grow in only a week or two, especially in the company of a group of other artists. Visitors would be able to parts of the demo recording process, parts of the arranging process, instruments, lyrics, and would be able to hear some of the songs live or recorded if desired.
Kathleen Coulton Biography and Project Description: Guided by the wisdom of the natural world and ancestral knowledge, Kate Coulton has forged an inspired career as a medicine maker, plant cultivator, educator, caregiver and artisan. The founder of Pinion Botanicals, Kate is driven by a reverence for the creative and therapeutic potential of all living organisms. Through collaborative projects that involve natural fiber dyeing, herbal remedy crafting, and personal empowerment, she encourages thoughtful interaction with the abundant flora of the Pacific Northwest. Her background in cultural anthropology instilled in her a deep respect for medical pluralism and influenced her current journey of becoming a certified nursing assistant. Gratitude and accessibility are at the core of her practice. I wanted to challenge myself to spend time in doing something different. I would like to work on a large mixed media weaving with repurposed and naturally dyed fibers and found objects. Right now I am thinking the structure will be about 5-7 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide. The goal is to make this a weaving people can step into. They can walk/ crawl into the structure and have the weaving on three or four sides. The intention is to have some interactive sections inside as well.
Sam Farrell Biography and Project Description: Samuel Farrell is a creative brained Portland based artist, musician, woodworker and jazz builder of sanctuaries who is easily inspired by his surroundings and can be found by the sea with a smile on his face 🙂 Together, we will make functional artistic jazz/folk furniture out of found materials from the peninsula (driftwood, downed trees, local antiques, old lumber) We will collaborate on design and each add our own personal touches to the pieces -upholstery, wood carving, custom cuts and shapes inspired by our surroundings. The studio space will be an interactive workshop during the week and a resting space/ communal gathering area over the weekend to share ideas, stories and tea with friends old and new.
Zack Fealk Biography and Project Description: I am a Detroit-based modular synthesis musician using ambient and minimal tones to create a wide sonic atmosphere. My music can also include steady sequence-building and sharper sounds. My influence for creating these soundscapes comes from a variety of human elements, including the absurd, cinematic storytelling and humor. For a living, I am a builder, contractor and woodworker specifically working on historic home remodels in Detroit proper. During the summer of 2019, I recorded Side A of my modular project with Assemble Sound, a music residency in a repurposed church in Corktown, Detroit. I would like Sou’wester and the land around it to be the setting for Side B of my project. I believe putting myself in a smaller environment (i.e. the trailers/cabins) and on the other side of the country will assist me in creating a much different musical experience than the first side of my tape. I would like my set up to be relatively open in the space so that anyone walking through can gaze closely at the machines and ask questions about their functions. Lighting is an important aspect to my music-making. Dull and warm lights will fill the space to help create a softer ambiance.
Elizabeth Haidle Biography and Project Description: Elizabeth Haidle is a freelance illustrator living in Portland Oregon. After working as an artist, designer and educator for many years, she has turned her attention to books. In 2017, she illustrated her first graphic novel, “I, Parrot”, written by Deb Olin Unferth. Since then, she has written and illustrated “Before They Were Authors…Famous Writers As Kids”, & illustrated a picture book, “The Girl Who Named Pluto, the story of Venetia Burney”, written by Alice B. McGinty. Currently, Elizabeth is the art & editorial director at Illustoria Magazine. She is also a collaborator at Mascot Press, an independent comics press that aims to bring thought-provoking fiction to modern audiences. I will be developing my Tarot for All deck, aimed at ages 10 years and up…with an emphasis on parent-child collaborative reading. Major arcana cards have been updated to make more sense to children, teens and beginning adults, with a focus on inclusive gender & roles. Readings are designed to help create storytelling around life’s conflicts and celebrations, and to draw threads of connection between hardships and inner growth. Visitors will see watercolor supplies, in-progress sketches & drafts, and 10 or more finished paintings. (size 4″x 6″)
Shaun Kardinal Biography and Project Description: Shaun Kardinal is a conceptual artist and curator creating form from repeating parts—one from many, many from one. His cross-disciplinary art practice manifests as altered objects, modular structures, collaborative exhibition platforms, and interactive physical-digital installations. His current multi-year, evolving exhibition Forward launched in May 2017 from the foundation of his 2015–16 iterative curatorial project Turn. His work is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery, where he will exhibit a solo show in January 2020, and has exhibited from Seattle to New York to London and in between. He has received grants from Artist Trust and 4Culture, has served as a member of SOIL artist-run gallery, was an organizational member of Crawl Space Gallery, and co-founded Some Space Gallery. I’d like to start a new series of embroidered paper collage works, extending the aesthetics of a recent series into bigger and more elaborate pieces. These pieces visualize hidden forces, moments of time, impact points of reaction, and gateways to other planes. Visitors will see hand-made geometric pattern templates, and embroidered collages.
Joshua Karp and Stephanie Kesey Biography and Project Description: I (Josh) am a musician, songwriter, and producer from Seattle working professional under the name Budo. I spent 10 years touring with hip hop artists Grieves and Macklemore. I produced the majority of Macklemore’s last record Gemini, including platinum singles Glorious and Good Old Days. I am currently working with John Legend, Julia Micheals, and Doja Cat, as well as hard at work on the next Macklemore album. My girlfriend (Steph Kesey) is a sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and writer. She has had success as half of the KeseyPollock art collaboration, and has done large scale installation work in Anchorage, AK and Seattle, WA. She is currently working on a memoir, as well as several scripts and movie projects. I (Josh) have been working on a batch of solo songs, written on acoustic guitar and piano. This music is a big departure from my past work, and I would use the residency week to dive more deeply into the writing process. I have found these deeply personal pieces of music to spring up from places of deep contemplation and self-reflection, and would look forward to utilizing the retreat week to deepen my practice. Steph, after studying film in Argentina and teaching filmmaking to young people through SIFF, has made two short films in the last 6 months (one of which, Hazards Abound, was made as a part of the Seattle 48HR film festival and won (out of 75 films) Honorable Mention, Best use of Genre, and Best Song). She is working on developing her work as a scriptwriter and filmmaker. We would use this time together to combine our practices generate audio visual work that would stand as a true collaborative hybrid. Visitors will see a display of short videos set to music.
Michelle Kline Biography and Project Description: Artist, Maker, Performer, and Creative Coach, M Kline presents UNCOMFORTABLE CLUB: A self coaching model that focuses on our brain wiring, thought management and emotional intelligence. When we allow ourselves to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and stop listening to our internal critical voice, we can ask better questions, be our own advocate and have awareness of our thoughts which are directly responsible for our current and future results. The studio tour experience will include free one-on-one 45 minute private coaching sessions throughout the week for anyone at the Sou’Wester. Sign up in the lodge and bring any single life problem to the table. Let’s get comfortable with being uncomfortable… together! There will also be an “ASK ME ANYTHING” submission box in the lodge which Uncomfortable Club will answer throughout the week. Questions and Answers will be compiled in an “Ask Me Anything” zine along with a companion zine: “Uncomfortable Club DIY Guide to Self-Coaching”. Michelle will be working on these throughout the week. Finished zines will be printed and available for pre-order. We hope to have them available in the Lodge by the end of the week as well.
Nicky Kriara and Cory Gray Biography and Project Description: Nicky Kriara is a painter and sculptor. She has made several paintings for The Sou’wester over the years including the mural on the Art Gallery Trailer. She worked on three animated stop-motion feature films before starting a ceramic-based design company called Niko Far West in 2016. Her studio focuses on sculptural forms and decorative planters with a reference to artifacts, modernism, and the natural world. She also paints murals and experiments with new forms of sculpture. Cory Cray is composer and performer in Portland OR. He leads a group called Old Unconscious that plays experimental instrumental music, and he records and tours internationally with The Delines. He frequently produces and arranges for other recording artists, composes for movies and television, and creates sound installations for multimedia art pieces. Nicky Kriara would like to fire ceramic sculptures in a series of pit-fires on the beach. Pit-firing is one of the oldest methods of firing ceramics. It is atmospheric-based so each firing can be different depending on variants. Organic materials added to the coals of the fire such as seaweed, horsehair, and copper wire can leave markings and different colors on clay pieces. She would gather sources from the surrounding coastal area to create ceramic artifacts that serve as a time capsule of time and place. The pieces will be assembled into a sculpture display at the end of the week. Cory Gray will be collecting and interpreting soundscapes based on the pit firings. His final audio pieces will be incorporated into an installation with Nicky’s sculptural firing from the week. Nicky will create a sculptural installation based on firing tests, as well as drawings, location maps, and notes on materials used. Cory will provide interactive audio sounds that complement the ceramic pieces.
Kathryn MacCrate and Heather McLaughlin: Biography and Project Description: Heather McLaughlin and Kathy MacCrate are both artists and musicians currently residing in Portland, OR. Brought together by punk shows, dance performances and artistic vision, these two teamed up for their first collaborative installation at the Dundee Campout Vol 2. Kathy is a multi-media artist. Past projects include costume design for Key Turn Projects and fronting the band Bleak Cities. In addition to her visual art practice, Heather fronts the band Rotties, go-go dances at a monthly queer event called Blow Pony, DJs, and teaches art. Follow them on Instagram @_kasha and @hardcoremermaid. Heather and I began our first collaborative artistic journey this past summer at the Dundee Lodge Art and Music festival. Our vision was to create a large, interactive sculpture. Understanding the complexities and nuances of sexual, gender, and anatomic identity, we decided to explore the time-age tradition of vaginal representation in art. To some, it represents pain, choice, birth, stimulation, disconnect, ancestry, suffering, mystery, science, life. For us, it represents a subject matter that inspired a new collaboration. We are excited to see where this journey takes us, with Sou’wester Arts week as our second installation. Our installations take some time to create and construct so the visitors will see that process. Additionally, we hope to build some audience-constructed elements into the sculpture by utilizing an interactive workstation. There will be collected sound and video from the week that will be incorporated into the sculpture as well.
Chris Miller: Biography and Project Description: I play music under the name Green Hills Alone and have enjoyed the pleasure of playing at the Lodge several times over the years. I would like to work on a combination writing piece involving music, poetry and prose based on the triple theme of “Saunas, Forest Wanderings, & Beach Bonfires.” Visitors will see a simple recording setup in the trailer in which they can listen to the music and see the process of evolution as the three songs develop.
Zoe Minikes: Biography and Project Description:I am a participatory designer and artist from San Rafael, California living in Detroit, Michigan since 2016. I am the founder of Flower Press, an equitable publishing practice centering women, femme, and queer artists and practitioners. I am a member of Homeboat, a collective focused on empowering marginalized people across rural geographies through dignified housing and creative community engagement. I am an amateur in a real sense – a lover of the things I do but not necessarily an expert. This holds true for my work as as a publisher, an herbalist, a coffee roaster, a cook, and an activist. I enter spaces as gently as I can, learning from embodied wisdom and listening deeply. My most important work is to be a good neighbor to the people, plants, and animals, to make magical meals, and to play. In September of this year, I created my first zine on herbalism – a treatise on working with aphrodisiacs to support pleasure in our bodies and in our work. I would like to continue this project, developing an introductory zine to the history of herbalism in the West. During my week at Sou’wester, I may alternately focus on the research, writing, and illustration processes of making this zine. As a side project, I make a project called Winter is Fun Club, a mail project I send out in the deepest part of the Winter. I may choose to generate work for this project. This could include a zine on herbalism, a joke book, a game, foraged herbs, feathers, and more. I will bring a pop-up Flower Press library, including zines, books, prints, newspapers, and more. If it feels right and the timing works, I could give a talk on the press or a workshop on herbalism. For open hours or drop-ins, I will provide a cozy reading space and coffee corner. Additionally, visitors will see illustrations, foraged objects and herbs, jokes, and research.
Anis Mojgani: Biography and Project Description: My work over the years has largely centered on poetry and the performance of such. After winning the National Poetry Slam Individual Championship in 2005 and 2006, poetry was what I began doing professionally and being a poet has been my profession for the last 14 years. My background however is in visual arts. I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design where I receive my BFA in comic book illustration and attended graduate school there for performing arts. Born and raised in New Orleans, I first moved to the Portland in 2004. After a brief stint in Austin TX, I moved back to Portland in 2015, where I currently live and where I serve on the Board of Directors for the non-profit organization Literary Arts. I love stories and believe they are inherent to our being human, the telling of, the sharing of, the listening to them. I think all art is story––setting myself on a path to find them and creating the space to let the story unfold, revealing itself to me and then to others. In general I like to explore the engagement of coaxing the interior world out into the exterior one. What happens with the marriage of disparate elements? What happens when we attempt to discover how those seemingly incongruent elements can fit together and what happens when they do? This process of exploration and discovery into the unknown, both in me and in others–hopefully showing others that they have the permission and allowance to to engage with the parts of theirselves that are unseen, and that it is through that engagement that we become closer, to ourselves and thus then to one another. This is one of the reasons live performance has played such a part in my artistic journey––seeing how the engagement between the artist and the audience creates a whole new and singular at through that conversation between them, but it also finds its way into my visual work. In the process of making work, I become the audience as well, lending my discoveries to how the unknown is speaking. This is why I return again and again to art. I want to get a little closer to giving shape to the I love the process of building dialogue between oneself and oneself, as this is what breeds stronger art, stronger expression, and stronger humans. I love the investigating of these processes and investing in a better understanding of the relationship we have to our individual creativity. My curiosity is rooted in how we can make the beautiful things in the world and in ourselves––whether seen or unseen––more fully realized, and I love aiding others in showing the space in themselves they are allowed to be curious about as well. I’ve been working over in recent years, off and on, on combining my poetry and my illustration to explore the developing of picture book stories. Would like to use the residency to further that path, whether it is having the time committed to focusing in on making these illustrated stories more concrete or taking those stories and seeing how they can be re-contextualized for working with audiences in ways other than simply in printed book form. Visitors will see works on paper, with pencil, ink, and/or color––preliminary drawings for illustrated stories and or larger works based off of these story images.
Sophia Munic: Biography and Project Description: Born and raised in Minneapolis, MN I came to Tacoma to study Sculpture and French. I am always interested in learning how to make things and understanding how new things work. I want to create a soft sculpture artist book. With different pages of fabric, and hand embroidery, the pages will consist of designs that look like sculptures I have made over the past few years. This will allow me to reconnect to my bookmaking and my hand sewing. Visitors will see sketches, examples of my small interactive pieces, and fabric scraps and other textiles that I will be using for my artist book.
Julie Perini and John Frentress Biography and Project Description: Julie Perini makes experimental and documentary videos and films. She is interested in how the process of creating a film can change people, places and situations, including herself. She makes a video every day as part of her Minute Movies project. John Frentress is painter and performance artist. He has created several pieces for the VARIABLE performance series in Portland, Oregon and shown his paintings widely including at Portland State University. Together Julie and John have made one super8 film, “Skyboy in the Blast Zone” featuring their dog Skyboy hiking in Mt St Helens set against an experimental soundscape using piano, trumpet, guitar, bird sounds and more. They plan to continue to create films together under the name of Harry & Harry Celluloidals. We plan to create a short experimental film about over the course of the week. Inspired by pioneering feminist artist Carolee Schneemann’s 1965 film “Fuses,” a film about the intimacy of lovemaking, we will create our own film representing the disorienting and intoxicating experience of sex, of two bodies dissolving into one another in pleasure. We plan to use our own bodies and sexual activities for this film. We will shoot the film on 16mm, process it by hand, and then directly manipulate the surface of the film by painting on it, scratching it, sanding it, and using any other materials that strike us as sexy. We will create a soundtrack using sounds we have gathered from around Seaview and the beach during our stay. We are excited to share the actual 16mm film as each frame will have been hand manipulated and will contain a lot of visual interest. We will spread the film out all over the trailer for visitors to examine. We may also be able to project the film, either with a 16mm projector or a digitized version. We could also share the film itself as part of the evening of performances.
Hilary Pfeifer Biography and Project Description: I am interested in the ways that humans attempt to control nature, and, in turn, nature finds a way to adapt or reassert itself. My work often tells these stories with icons such as: a walking stick for insulated city folk, a bug that instinctually gravitates towards automobile exhaust fumes, or a floral couch that has a life of its own. This imagery expresses my feelings about environmental preservation and human intimacy using an aesthetic language of humor, play, and curiosity. I have used discarded wood as a major component in my art since 1998. Moving easily between figurative and abstract representations of nature, I often combine forms that I have completely shaped with altered found objects such as a cooking utensil, pencil, artificial flower stamen, or discarded toy into a single piece. I believe that altering found objects in a way that is vaguely recognizable to the viewer enhances their sensory experience. I have been exploring 2-dimensional collage recently, and this is what I plan to work on during the residency week. By hand, I cut hundreds of individual elements from colored sign vinyl, sandpaper, drywall tape, and other found materials and piece together an intricate design. I would find an ecological theme or narrative to guide the body of work that is particular to this part of the Washington Coast. In addition to finished work, there would be my set of cutting tools and materials, as well as many many cut elements that haven’t found their way into a piece yet.
Ivy Ross Ricci Biography and Project Description: Ivy Ross Ricci is an internationally recognized musician, activist and research artist who synthesizes her findings into experimental folk music and collaborative art projects. Based in the mountains of Port Angeles, Washington, her songs exude the gumption, gratitude and educational elements that emanate from the landscape around her. During the residency I will be interviewing artists in residence and visitors about their experience of The Sou’wester. Visitors will see a cozy recording studio/interviewing space.
Krysta Sa Biography and Project Description: I am an interdisciplinary artist based in Durham, NC and I am currently an MFA candidate and teaching assistant at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. My practice uses video, performance and installation to research and produce objects, treatments and places to exam relationships and knowledge connected to history, healing and transformation. For artist week, I would like to develop a series of group body treatments using found natural materials and the finnish sauna at the Souwester. This project will further my research around sauna treatments and history and their connection to therapeutic acts of release. Visitors will see sculptural objects and videos in my studio.
Bryna Shields Biography and Project Description: I’m an illustrator, surface designer, and educator exploring themes around human connection & belonging, body image, and nature. My creative process involves experimental techniques, mixing media, and using eye-catching color palettes that pack a punch. After designing home products for brands such as Crate & Barrel and Kroger, I’m now exploring ways surface design can create meaningful dialogue within communities, and expand beyond decorative forms. My art practice includes multiple disciplines: surface pattern, illustration, weaving, collage, photography and painting. Working with different tools and materials helps integrate a deeper understanding of each discipline. Digging deep into experimental process allows me to create a richer learning experience for my students and viewers to tap into their own unique sense of creativity and wonder. I will be making a series of mixed media illustrations and patterns using experimental techniques to explore themes around our connection to nature, intuition, and non-attachment. Experimental techniques will include using objects from the ocean/nature as tools to create the artwork (using seaweed as a paint brush, for example). It will be a practice in presence and improvisation, creating work based on the environment around me. Visitors will see a collection of experimental illustrations, along with questions for the viewer to consider for each piece. Visitors will be invited to contribute their own markings on a community collage inspired by experimental prompts.
Brianna Spencer Biography and Project Description: I am a painter and illustrator, most recently working on small batches of work involving reflections of music, movies, feeling, and nature. My work is reflective of my relationship with my partner George and our life. During my past residency at Sou Wester, I created an eight piece collection of “bodies doing things”, myself picking avocados, George and I skinny dipping in the Long Beach Pacific, myself and the sun, among others. I use my “muses” as a channel to better understand what it means to be here, to be slow, and to be with others. Movie Menus – I created a fake menu for Alice’s Restaurant, and want to make more for other movies, and then have a screening of the movie where the menu would be available for viewing and purchasing (prints). I would use the VHS library available at Sou Wester as a movie spirit guide. This is a project I hope to open up to other artists, a vision I have includes different artists making menus for their movie of choice and hosting a screening at businesses in the PNW, Sou Wester being one! This would kickstart the movie menu project for other artists, and the beginning of movie screenings where the artists menu would be available for viewing and purchase. My hope is that annually we would compile the collection as an art book/zine/online collection etc. Visitors can expect to come into the studio and watch me create the menu! The movie in subject will be running on one of Sou’westers TVs while I work on the menu. My hope is that people come to watch the movie for a bit with me, discuss the project and reflect on their favorite movies. What would be even more incredible would be to have a snack available from one of the menus, e.g. Burt Reynolds BLT’s.
Katharine Spilker Biography and Project Description: I am a queer artist and Washington native, having split most of my life oscillating between Seattle and Spokane. I graduated with a BFA in Painting & Drawing and a BA in English Literature from the University of Washington in 2016. Since graduating, my studio practice has expanded with a focus on creating unexpected relationships between disparate materials. The attention toward relational dynamics in my work is centered on the notion of “two-ness,” or how we exist and situate ourselves within polarities. Most recently, my own experiences of coming out as gay in a hyper-conservative environment has informed and congealed around this awareness. Although it is constantly in flux, I understand this universal “two-ness” as the experience of finding ourselves both in and out, attached and disconnected, supported and falling—the kinds of dualities that saturate our very human experiences, that rub up closely against the unsettling graininess of desire, memory, and power. I observe it in the clenching of time when a piece of trash waves merrily on the catch of a wire fence, or when the yearning to be known keeps someone’s mouth open despite their urge to close it. I want my work to inhabit this space, to push back the corners of these nuances and make them feel tangible and touchable within form. I use materials that are mutable and invite adaptability—fabric, plaster, clay, ink, paper, wax—materials that when placed together, interact with one another intimately and unexpectedly. They ask the questions at the tip of the tongue—how do we exist within spaces of difference? How long can separation be endured? And in this space of two-ness, what will we find? During the residency week I would like to dive into the work for a new sculptural series, one that will be based on fragments of writings begun while I was recently working on a farm after a period of intense loss and grief and sitting with the notion of duality in relationships—how things can appear to feel one way, and exist in reality as something very different. Over the course of my time at the residency, I want to begin to synthesize these thoughts into an installation of several pieces of soft sculpture. While I am at Souwester, a place so integrated within the natural world, I would also love to have the access and time to experiment with how natural material can affect and inform this body of work, thru (ethically!) sampling soil, clay, plant matter, and compost and creating natural dyes/forms/marks from these within my work. During the open studio tour, visitors can expect to see a studio space that is transformed with several pieces of installed soft sculpture, and the kinds of material experimentations within the practice that are in accompaniment. I want people who come in to be interested in interacting with the forms and materials that are in the studio space, to form questions and wonder how each piece was created, and be able to find some answers of their own in what is reflected back at them. They will also find me, happy to engage with them and share what the space has been able to be for me during the week!
Karen Tillou Biography and Project Description: I have lived and worked in the Portland area for 20 years, as a farmer, arborist, and pruning teacher. I am a lifelong birder, and a trained cartographer. All my work centers in relationships with plants; pruning trees, dying textiles with plants from my garden, illustrating the moments of a plant’s life. Now I am making art on a full time basis, exploring worlds: birds, plants, water, maps. In this effort, I build relationships and increase intimacy – with places, people, things – and I am drawn to the concept of circling as a way to do that, to improve my perspective of a thing, to enlarge my understanding of a place. Sometimes circling is a mental exercise or a long conversation, other moments it is walking slow circuits around the tree I am pruning or the land I am visiting. My textile work over the past year has centered around stitched resist techniques combined with dyes from my garden to transform vintage textiles such as napkins, tablecloths and handkerchiefs, adding layers of color through mark making. In my illustrations, I strive to portray the private moments in a plant’s life; opening, shedding, decay, disease, and those marks of individuality that are overlooked in the rush to assign generic identity to a plant. I will be exploring migrating birds’ view of the land and waterways they require, creating oblique birdseye perspectives of arrival and refuge. Using indigo, chamomile, and marigold dyestuffs from my garden, and discharge dyeing of commercial fabrics, combined with resist techniques (sewing, applied pastes), the result will be maps of marshes, bays and waterways on cellulose fabric: useful objects such as handkerchiefs, doorway curtains, and wrapping cloths that are also (seemingly) abstract color field works. One of the larger pieces I have in mind will be a three panel doorway curtain (similar to noren from Japan) portraying a portion of the Long Beach peninsula and Willapa Bay NWR that can become part of the Sou’wester’s permanent collection. Guests will be able to view the works that I have completed during the week, as well as pieces in their various stages and a small indigo dyeing demonstration to help illustrate my process. I envision these pieces hung from the ceiling, placed so they are suspended vertically between 4-7 feet above the ground/floor, the visitors walking amongst these completed maps. Over the years working with volunteers and at farmers markets, I’ve come to enjoy talking about what I do in person and reaching out to strangers, so I look forward to talking with folks about this project. I will include some small textiles for sale, along with business cards and information about local wildlife refuges (and candy) to pick up.
Erica Trabold and Kristina Tate Biography and Project Description: Erica Trabold is the author of Five Plots (Seneca Review Books 2018). Her lyric essays appear in Brevity, The Rumpus, Passages North, The Collagist, South Dakota Review, Essay Daily, and elsewhere. A former Oregonian and graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program, Erica is a visiting assistant professor at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia. Kristina Tate is a writer and traveler. She has lived in Arizona, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, New York City, Australia and more. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narratively, Guernica, Proximity, BOMB, and elsewhere. A graduate from Columbia University’s MFA program and Arizona State University, Kristina lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She’s currently working on a memoir and a novel. Erica Trabold and Kristina Tate, writers and friends, haven’t shared physical space in over a year. Writing is so often a solitary practice, but art is a lineage, and art community is the thing that brings about healing. Through a series of letters posed in conversation with each other and important literary influences, Erica and Kristina will collaborate through writing, confronting the hard stuff together. At Sou’Wester, these two artists will bridge the distance between them in order to create physical art-in-conversation that disrupts the ache of solitude, the strain of aging, and the environmental battle scars of the world. We have come to one conclusion—community. At Sou’Wester, we’ll write together in the same room. Because we’ll be sharing physical space for the first time in over a year, we’ve decided to create a physical representation of that experience. Our work sample shows the writing we’ve begun to produce: letters in progress and mock ups of how we plan to present that work visually. A selection of written exchanges will be installed on the walls of our shared writing space, a visual representation of art “in conversation.” We can’t wait to frame and assemble the pages while we’re there. We’ll also use our time at Sou’Wester to produce and rehearse a collaborative reading, a true “conversation” through vocal performance. We want to give our words life and friendship—and demonstrate that a writing practice doesn’t have to be lonely!
Heather Treadway Biography and Project Description: After graduating from The Evergreen State College Heather started her first fashion line, Paper Doll, in her attic bedroom. With a passionate love of garment design, sewing, art and music, Heather Treadway (the design label) was born – rooted in unique self expression, playfulness, self-acceptance, gender fluidity and collaboration. Making artistic photoshoots with photographers, dancers, models, and friends – HT has always been an experiment in art creation through community. Currently HT sportswear is sold online and at select shops in Portland. Along with operating a fashion line, Heather has also recorded, licensed and performed in multiple musical projects including Explode Into Colors, Janet Pants Dans Theatre, HITS and Secret Drum Band. After Explode Into Colors dissolved in 2010, Heather joined drummer Lisa Schonberg in Secret Drum Band as the band’s co-writer and costume designer. Lisa and Heather have performed in numerous musical projects together and have participated in a month long artist residency at A-Z West in Joshua Tree in 2012. Heather has designed costumes for various Portland based dance companies including the Northwest Dance Project, Taka Yamamoto and Top Shake. In 2017-2018 she collaborated with stylists at Nike and Adidas – creating original pieces for advertising campaigns as well as tailoring sportswear to fit models. Heather is currently working full time at Columbia Sportswear in the surface design department (doing production for the yarn-dye designer and textile artist Kyla Sjogren). In her free time in the mornings she Tap dances in the garage. I will be designing and sewing new garments using fabrics that were salvaged from a “free bin” at the Columbia Sportswear campus as well as organic cotton and hemp fabrics. I will also be working on a Tap piece set to music from my solo electronic dance album. My goal is to take space and time to naturally let garment design, music and dance coalesce into a sonic and visual experience that inspires and invites collaboration. Visitors will see a pile of fabrics and sewing machine, a Tap dance floor set up with microphone to catch sounds, me in my overalls ready to show you some basic Tap moves and play you any song you request on my hand-flute.
Lucia Volker Biography and Project Description: Lucia Volker is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Pacific Northwest who explores themes of transparency, opacity, and repetition through a variety of mixed media techniques including painting, printmaking, and installation art. Inspired by minimalism, design, and non-fine art types of painting, Lucia has developed a wide ranging body of work shown in galleries across the United States and Canada, including Art Access in Salt Lake City, Moore Art Project in Portland, and Purdue University Galleries. Recent residencies include The Ou Gallery in Duncan, BC, and the Assets for Artists Studio Residency at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA. She currently lives in Portland, OR. Lucia earned her Bachelor of Fine Art with an emphasis in Printmaking from the University of Utah in 2012. I will make a site specific installation during my residency based on themes of transition, reflection and expansion. I will use paper I paint and collaged elements, and adhere them to the walls using rice paste(if applicable and in a communal area) or tape/binder clips if it is in my trailer. It will be abstract, large scale, and evolving as I work on it over the course of the week. I will use colors and natural tones found in the environment surrounding Sou’Wester. It will feel as though nature has seeped in. Visitors can expect to see a complete installation in the designated space, but the exact design will happen organically. They will see process remnants in the space and possibly some small works on paper.
Samuel Wildman and Eric Olson Biography and Project Description: Someone took a second look at a petri dish that had accidentally been left out by a window overnight. It had grown mold like the kind that appears in your coffee cup when you leave it in the studio too long. Someone looked at it and did not throw it away. Then, a couple days later, they looked at it a third time–it had even more mold, and it had started to smell–and they made a formal inquiry as to the mold’s shape and size, and the particular purplish plume of its spores, and discovered what would become penicillin. As a reader, writer, and an artist, I am devoted to the practice of looking thrice, and leaving-out-by-windows. Since my latch-key-kid days in public school, finding things to be interested in, and engaging with things–both sacred and profane–shaped who I am. While I now roam through texts and histories; and things like outmoded skills and buildings with structural issues; as well as the backstreet alleys and public parks of my childhood; the desire to find some kind of form lurking in the lyrics of a pop song, or the labeling on a soda can, and examine it, is not only irresistible but necessary. I believe that the stories, spaces, and objects available to us often conceal valuable forms that can be powerful and dangerous: these forms, scattered throughout the world, are communicative tools that carry evidence of intention and influence–they are the fingerprints of power. My practice is built around searching for these forms, independently and collaboratively, and working towards their articulation and visibility. I would like to continue research and development for an installation that I’ve been calling an emotional obstacle course. This is kind of a new direction for me but it’s something I’m really excited about. Along with a collaborator, Eric Olson, I’ve been talking with people about moments in their lives when they encountered an emotional obstacle, or any kind of feeling that gets in the way of doing something. At the end of the conversation we imagine what that feeling would look like if it were right in front of them. Then we draw it together. Eventually We’d like to refine these drawings and use them as inspiration for maquettes of emotional obstacles and experiment with some architectural sized, interactive installations. Currently we’re in the process of working with elementary school students and their counselor at King Street School in Portland Oregon to design and build one version of this installation as a temporary installment on the school’s play structure. The installation will be a part of Portland State University’s Social Practice MFA Assembly event. This is one experiment of many that we’d like to do. The whole project will of course never be fully realized, it will exist in bits and pieces, manifestations of fleeting feelings. At Sou’wester we’d like to focus on talking with more people—either on-site or over the phone—to make drawings and maquettes and then build two or three large obstacles out of cardboard and paint and other craft materials. Visitors could expect to see lots of notes and weird drawings, maquettes and crafts— probably the smell of hot glue and paint, and maybe the patter of Eric and me laughing or quarrelling. Add some snacks and coffee. Lots of chocolate—can’t talk feelings without an ample supply of chocolate. And they could also expect to be asked if they have any experience with emotional obstacles