SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!

Jun
24
Sat
Music: Kelli Schaefer (solo) + Crowey @ The Sou'wester
Jun 24 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Kelli Schaefer: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

A few years disappeared into the forest of a global pandemic, but Kelli Schaefer and her brand new band trod through a new record this year, and it is expected to leap from the woods in 2023. With two full-length records and two EP’s already under her belt, her new record is another pivot in stylistic choice. This time, with a fresh take on the age-old singer-songwriter trope, Schaefer delivers haunting melodies over swirling woodwinds, piano, classical guitar, and upright bass. These songs could be the soundtrack to a modern gothic, a playlist for a trudge through the forest, the accompaniment to a subconscious mantra. As expected, Schaefer again demonstrates her refusal to confine herself to a single genre. Along with her bandmates Andrew Jones (bass), Ayal Alvez (piano, keys), Joey Binhammer (guitar), Schaefer is working to finish the record and planning tour steadily in the foreseeable future. The record was recorded live at Color Therapy with Ryan Oxford (Y La Bamba) and mixed by Alex Bush (Damien Jurado).

Crowey: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

What began as the solo project of Joey Binhammer (Die Geister Beschwören, Elektrokraken, Meeping, Whales Wailing), Crowey has grown into a psychedelic/folk soundscape project and collaboration between Joey and Kate Kilbourne (Mordecai, June Rose Band, Sweeping
Exits). Both multi-instrumentalists from Portland, OR, the duo crafts sweeping vistas of finger-style guitar, strings and vocal harmonies, exploring the deep well of human emotion and finding beauty in its darkest crevices. Layers of intricate orchestration evoke the sound of moving clouds. 

Jul
1
Sat
Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jul 1 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Brad Parsons: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Brad Parsons is a singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from Astoria, OR. His career collaborators include John Craigie, Bart Budwig, Horse Feathers, Cabinet, Fruition, TK & The Holy Know Nothings. In 2017, he released his debut album “Hold True,” followed by an EP, “The Starbird Sessions,” in 2020. Parsons has toured nationally and been a mainstay at festivals such as Northwest String Summit and Sawtooth Valley Gathering. 

Jul
8
Sat
!Mindparade: Presented by Sou’wester Arts @ The Sou'wester
Jul 8 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
 
!mindparade dissolves traditional boundaries between pop, experimentalism, and composition, producing a kaleidoscopic output while retaining a strong sense of song craft. Based in Portland, Oregon, songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Alex Arnold collaborates with friends to flesh out the project’s recordings and live iterations, resulting in albums and shows that balance orchestrated rock, synthpop, experimental noise, and ambient group improvisation. The project has been self-producing records since forming in Bloomington, Indiana in 2011. !mindparade founded their own label, Neon Underground Archives, as a platform to release their experimental albums ‘Hypertonic’ (2020) and ‘Skyscapia’ (2023). For this performance at Sou’wester, the group will perform stripped down versions of their material in an intimate setting.
Jul
15
Sat
Music: monica and Lou Trove @ The Sou'wester
Jul 15 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

monica: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

‘monica’ is songwriter Caitlyn Faircloth’s melancholy dream of electric guitars and dusty amplifiers. This project lingers in sleepy, asymmetrical indie rock using soft, lonely melodies to create a nostalgic soundscape for listeners. Caitlyn lives in Quilcene, WA on the Olympic Peninsula.

Lou Trove is the nom de plume for Adam Torres’ new experimental electronic music project, which prominently features the sounds and textures of digital mellotron flute to narrative incisive compositions inspired by precious geologic formations from the Earth’s core. Aesthetically and thematically sparkly, Lou Trove makes music for meditation, hearing as seeing, and as a portal to depart upon adventures of the imagination.

Jul
27
Thu
Exhibition: Barn Rave, 2011 @ The Sou'wester Lodge Art Gallery Trailer
Jul 27 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Barn Rave, 2011” by Tori Wheeler

ON VIEW
JULY 27 2023 – OCTOBER 12 2023

Tufted, and interactive artwork, Barn Rave, 2011 encapsulates the frenetic, feral exchange of energy found in a packed dance floor. The modular work recalls a night in a remote barn outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Its tessellated pieces intertwine, forming a hazy, abstracted scene of kids drenched in sweat, a barn filled with fog, hay, pulsating music, and a mix of suspicious substances. This ephemeral experience imprints neural pathways.

The puzzle-like components and imagery pay homage to a transformative and hedonistic celebration of youthful exuberance. The liberated sensuality and sometimes-brainlessness of infectious bassy beats become the unyielding desires to relinquish the burdens and constraints of adolescence in small town surroundings. The pieces move and connect, at times surpassing a perfect fit. Capturing the raw energy of dancing amidst others. Capturing unbridled energy. Their arrangement allows for infinite reconfigurations—a reflection of the ever-shifting nature of the dance floor.

Tori Wheeler is an artist, designer, and dancer whose work is influenced by ecstatic human exchange, touch and tactility, music-and-nature-induced-trance-states, and a dash of trickster humor. Their creative practice mirrors that of a desire path.

Tori holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from the Kansas City Art Institute and works as a textile artist, gold leaf gilder, and fairweather graphic designer.

Curated by Nikki Cormaci

Jul
30
Sun
Clay Play @ Ilwaco Artworks
Jul 30 @ 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm
 

Community Clay Play

Work with pottery clay and tools to create a finished piece of your own!

REGISTER TO ATTEND

$20/person, includes firing & glazing one item. Additional $10+ per piece 6 inches+. Must prepay to attend Clay Play.

All ages are welcome. Come bond with family or friends! 

 

Location:

ILWACO ARTWORKS

109 1st Ave N Ilwaco, WA 

(across from City Hall & next to Roots)

Aug
5
Sat
Hemlock Live at The Sou’wester @ The Sou'wester
Aug 5 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Hemlock 

Live at The Sou’wester Lodge

hemlock is the “phone-fi” bedroom folk project of swamp-raised musician Carolina Chauffe and various rotating collaborators, currently based in Chicago, IL. Bare-boned and bittersweet, this is means-to-an-end modern-day folk art for the open-hearted – a practice of gratitude to the here and now, swaying with rich, sun-glinted harmonies and tender finger-picking.
 
A self-proclaimed memory-hoarder, Carolina created hemlock in their home state of Louisiana in 2018 with the intention to further explore the practice of songwriting as a heart archive – erring on the side of the imperfect, eager, prolific. The songs of their several releases are often accompanied by intimate voicemails and field recordings – sonic collages spanning the many places they’ve called home – Astoria, OR being one of the most beloved of them. They are honored and thrilled to be back in the Pacific Northwest for a moment to share song with you.
 
Live music presented by Sou’wester Arts
Aug
11
Fri
Clay Play @ Ilwaco Artworks
Aug 11 @ 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm
 

Community Clay Play

Work with pottery clay and tools to create a finished piece of your own!

REGISTER TO ATTEND

$20/person, includes firing & glazing one item. Additional $10+ per piece 6 inches+. Must prepay to attend Clay Play.

All ages are welcome. Come bond with family or friends! 

 

Location:

ILWACO ARTWORKS

109 1st Ave N Ilwaco, WA 

(across from City Hall & next to Roots)

Aug
12
Sat
Ritchie Young and Rebecca Sanborn @ The Sou'wester
Aug 12 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
 
 
Ritchie Young, the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland-based indie rock band Loch Lomond. The band has released several albums and has gained a following both nationally and internationally.
 
 

Rebecca Sanborn began writing songs at age six, starting an early pattern of straying creatively from sheet music. Her piano instructor taught her to write the music down, which seemed like a magical power. She also fell in love with theatre and writing, pursuing all of these arts with equal passion.  Rebecca got her first agent at age ten and landed starring roles in commercials. One director hired her on the spot because she had a voice “like Lauren Bacall”. In High School she would wake at 5 am to jump rope in the driveway and then pound out short works of fiction on the typewriter in the garage so as not to wake anyone. The love affair with stories and music continued and at eighteen, she left her native Portland, Oregon to study at The College of Santa Fe, in New Mexico—majoring in Theatre and immersing herself in the free, unpredictable world of the Contemporary Music Program. Every Thursday night a Forum was held where new music was emphatically encouraged. Rebecca had found her home. She studied under the experimental composers Joseph Weber and Peter Gordon and was moulded by Martha Graham’s personal demonstrator, Juanita Barry, in rigorous modern dance classes for four years.

Upon returning to the Northwest after college, Rebecca met her husband and musical partner, drummer Ji Tanzer. They are both members of the adventurous jazz quintet, Blue Cranes, the art pop trio, Swansea, and Portland’s veteran indie group, Loch Lomond. Rebecca and Ji also starred in the film “Light of Mine”, which garnered a coveted spot at the A.F.I. Fest in 2011. “Light of Mine” was the only independent film from The States to be included in the festival. Rebecca plays in the all-female, cape-wearing, fog-machine-loving synth trio, Eccoh Eccoh Eccoh with Kyleen King (Brandi Carlile) and Jenny Conlee-Drizos (The Decemberists).

In 2021, Rebecca was invited to write an original set of music for the Montavilla Jazz Fest—composing and arranging eight songs in two months. She performed these tunes with her long-time mentor and hero, pianist Randy Porter, bassist Jon Shaw, and of course, Ji Tanzer. The work now stands as a collective entitled “Shadow Work”. Several pieces have since been arranged by Douglas Detrick, and were performed at the 2022 Montavilla Jazz Fest with the 12-piece Portland Jazz Composers’ Ensemble as a part of “The Heroine’s Journey” – an evening with Marilyn Keller, Darrell Grant, and Rebecca Sanborn. In 2023, Rebecca was awarded a RACC grant to record “Shadow Work”.

Throughout all of the years of hard touring and performing, Rebecca never lost touch with the written word. She earned a spot in the highly competitive Tin House Winter Workshop in 2016, mentoring under Mitchell S. Jackson. She has completed five novels and continues to work on her literary, musical, or theatrical craft on a daily basis. When Rebecca isn’t engaged in art or teaching, she can be found chasing after her costume-obsessed five-year-old daughter or trying to get some sleep.

Aug
13
Sun
Reading: My Indigo World by Rosa Chang @ The Sou'wester Lodge
Aug 13 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Rosa Chang will be reading her book “My Indigo World”

at 5pm in the The Sou’wester Lodge on Sunday the 13th.

All ages. Free. Copies for sale.

My Indigo World: 

A PASSIONATE PERSONAL STORY OF BECOMING AN ARTIST AND MAKER, this STEAM title is perfect for inspiring children to follow their creative interests and craft their own personal narratives. AN EYE-CATCHING CROSS-CULTURAL LOOK AT A PLANT OF HIGH VALUE AROUND THE WORLD, with a useful curriculum fit for botany, gardening, agriculture, sustainability, or basic chemistry units. FROM TIE-DYE TO EASTER EGGS, CHILDREN LOVE CRAFTS INVOLVING DYEING, and Chang offers step by step instructions for growing your own indigo plants and making homemade blue dye. BLUE IS CONSISTENTLY NAMED THE MOST POPULAR COLOR AMONG CHILDREN AND ADULTS, and this tribute to all things blue offers a feast for the eyes as well as fascinating information about where the blue around us comes from. 

A True Story of the Color Blue 

by Rosa Chang 

This gorgeous celebration of the color blue and the indigo plant, by a Korean American debut artist and storyteller, powerfully connects art and the natural world. 

With lavish mixed-media art including watercolor painting and hand-dyed textiles, debut author-illustrator Rosa Chang pays tribute to the science and art of growing the indigo plant and making indigo dye. Woven throughout is a poetic tribute to the color blue, Chang’s favorite since her girlhood in Korea, and an appreciation of the indigo plant as a valued source of blue dye in cultures around the world. 

PRAISE for MY INDIGO WORLD

“Other hues will turn green with envy at the visually stunning and factually thorough attention given indigo blue in this vibrant and informative picture-book debut…. Intimate and meditative…and should find quick use in both scientific and artistic circles.”—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW 

“Thought- provoking…..an enjoyable dive into the cultural impact of a hypnotizingly beautiful color.” — Kirkus Reviews 

Rosa Sung Ji Chang 장성지 is a Korean-born visual artist, natural indigo dyer, and storyteller based in New York and Baltimore. A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art and the School of Visual Arts, New York, Rosa has had work exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Paula Cooper Gallery, among many others. This is her debut picture book. 

She can be found at rosafulgarden.com and on Instagram at @rosaful_garden.