Introducing: Beginnings

Many of us who are interested in the arts have listened to makers of things speak about their work after it’s finished. But what if they presented their work right after they first thought of it? Beginnings is a series of events, open studios, and other happenings dedicated to sharing brand new ideas by fascinating creative people. As is the custom with TPR, the idea-in-progress will be followed and supported as it develops so we can all can follow the project’s life on the website and/or live in the space.

The motivation behind Beginnings is to emphasize that ideas are only ideas until someone takes a risk and turns them into things. Our two-year theme, Why Do We Make Things? continues as we examine that crucial place between having an idea and making it happen.

Some of the new ideas being featured are as follows- more information will be online soon about each:

These Streets: A rock musical and educational collaboration by Gretta Harley and Sarah Rudinoff

The Big Question Print Series: A response to Why Do We Make Things? in a limited edition print series by Charlie Spitzack

An Array of Essence: An evolution-inspired sculpture series by Allan Packer

The Klavihorn: A film about an opera about a myth inspired by an instrument by Garrett Fisher and Ryan K Adams

Other special events will also be featured that address the theme of “Beginnings” from different perspectives:

March 22 – Spilled Milk: A conversation with food writers and podcasters Matthew Amster-Burton and Molly Wizenberg, moderated by Langdon Cook.

March 23 – 30 – Northwest Passing by Kevin and Jennifer McCoy: Artwork by Northwest Masters is interpreted on the fly in an improvisational exercise featuring performers and a live audience.

April 27 – Bladfold by David Nixon: An animated musical documentary film-in-the-making with music by David Nixon & Daniel Spils

THESE STREETS

These Streets is a rock ‘n roll story inspired by women musicians in Seattle during the famed grunge years. This original piece of theatre is not a documentary but is based on over 40 interviews with the people who lived it. It is a gritty, funny and powerful fictional story where the characters’ past and present lives collide with their past and present music. The show is filled with music from that era, as well as a few new original songs by Gretta Harley and Sarah Rudinoff’s We Are Golden, all played and sung by the performers and a live band.

The story centers on five musicians who share a house in Seattle from 1989-1994. The audience meets these characters when they are young and full of excitement and optimism. We see the challenges they face as their tight-knit community unexpectedly explodes and their city becomes an international rock Mecca. We also meet the characters in the present; their stories evolving as much as the city around them. These Streets had its world premiere on February 21, 2013 at ACT Theatre in downtown Seattle for 12 public performances.

While the performance is the core of the project, These Streets also aims to illuminate the stories and music of the real life women rockers who were involved in the scene that changed a generation by creating an addendum to history with: an oral history project that will be archived at the Library of the University of Washington; a gallery exhibit at The Project Room (a non-profit interdisciplinary art space in Seattle) of collected memorabilia; and online resources such as Wikipedia and YouTube pages, musician biographies, recordings and discographies.

To go directly to TPR’s programming in conjunction with THESE STREETS, go here

Watch the show video here!

Please follow These Streets HERE and on Facebook to keep up to date on all the ways you can help! Facebook link: (https://www.facebook.com/thesestreetsseattle) and Twitter:  http://twitter.com/wearegolden

Images:  Photograph by David Leonard, 1989; Tess Lotta and Gretta Harley / Maxi Badd, © 1994 Elisa Shebaro Photography; Carrie Akre / Hammerbox by Kelly Evans

L' Aquila

As part of the Failure series, TPR is following the work of Paris-based visual artist Veit Stratmann. Stratmann, whose work often results in proposals that purposefully cannot be realized, is studying the Italian city of L’Aquila after it was evacuated during an earthquake and never repopulated. As Veit writes in his introductory essay on the subject, L’Aquila is in a middle state, neither a ghost town nor a functioning city.

Read an introductory essay about L’Aquila on Off Paper here:
And read a follow-up essay here:

Wednesday, February 6 @ 6pm: Join us for a conversation with Veit as he shares his responses to L’Aquila and other projects in a presentation titled “Impossible Tasks.” And follow the development of Veit’s ideas through this website as the project continues.

About the Artist:
Born in Bochum (Germany), Veit Stratmann lives in Paris. Stratmann’s work essentially rests upon questioning: can an artistic gesture be based on the notions of choice, of decision-making, of the posture of those who encounter the artwork? Can this decision-making become constructive material? If political action originates in the act of making a choice, can an encounter with art generate a permanent oscillation between a political and an artistic gesture? Can an artistic gesture undo the coherence of a space without affecting its physical integrity, create a “parenthesis” or construct a loophole in its meaning in order to generate a statutory blurring?  Can this statutory blur become creative matter?

The artist’s works are often site specific although he has also shown extensively in gallery and museum contexts. Drawing and writing are also ongoing areas of engagement for Stratmann as tools of projection, control and distancing. In 2004, a residency at the Atelier Calder (Saché, France) was the occasion for the artist to create a new series of objects and to integrate them with images realized in 3D. And in 2009, he realized a photographic series of ex-votos in gardens that was published as an artist book, Shrines by Les Presses du Réel.

VS has exhibited widely and internationally. At the Museum Folkwang in  Essen, Fondation Serralves in Porto, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne MAC/VAL,  Vitry sur Seine (France) , Sox in Berlin, Le Centre d’Art et de Diffusion Clark in Montréal, CAPC-Musée à Bordeaux, The Project Art Centre in Dublin, The Taedok Science Town in Taejon (South Korea), LiveInYourHead-Institut Curatorial de la Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneve, L’Institut d’Art Comtemprain in Villeurbanne, The Anderson Gallery at the Virginia Commenwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, The Nevada State Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, La Fondation Miro in Barcelone, Le Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, le Saarlandmuseum à Saarbrücken and Galerie Chez Valentin in Paris.

Introducing: Failure

The role that failure plays in creativity is discussed far less than the inner workings of success. Following the “Solutions” series, TPR turns its attention to the intimidating, yet productive, topic of Failure.

Through events and online content, the role that failure plays in creativity will be addressed from different points of view. Looking both in- and outside of the arts,Failure will offer a diverse series of programs for anyone curious about how failure inspires, informs and drives creativity.

Join us for a unique program series: Successful People Talking About Failure, beginning in December.

Above image: Photograph of the abandoned town of L’Aquila, Italy by Veit Stratmann. From the artist: “I took pictures of those hugely oversized (and very beautiful and precious-looking) scaffoldings that were officially meant to maintain the place, but are so difficult and expensive to take down now that they make it kind of impossible to actually start rebuilding. They are structures meant to maintain hope, but actually through their beauty they destroy the hope they were ment to keep alive.” More of Veit’s work in L’Aquila will be featured throughout the Failure series. Read more here.

The Big Question Print Series

The Big Question Print Series is a project that begins in January 2012.

The Project Room asked printmaker Charles Spitzack to create new works on paper in response to the current theme, Why Do We Make Things?” Charles is creating a limited edition series of twelve woodblock prints and documenting the progress online and during open studio hours. The work will be displayed in The Project Room as it is completed.

Charles will work from The Project Room Saturdays from 1-4pm. To see more happenings, visit the Calendar.

About the Artist:

Charles Spitzack is a Midwest artist and entrepreneur based out of Seattle WA.  Taking a multifaceted approach to survival, Spitzack is the founder of The New Number Two, a small business operating in the Capitol Hill neighborhood offering a wide range of hands-on services. Though he graduated from Cornish College of Art in 2010 with a focus in Print Arts & Drawing, Spitzack prefers to be known as a self-realized individual.

The majority of Spitzack’s work resolves itself in the form of a print. Dedicated to dissolving barriers in commitment to the communal whole, Spitzack has found printmaking to be an excellent way to express these ideas in both subject matter and process. Having dedicated himself to a life of mystery at the age of nine, he wonders how long he will be able to hold on before becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.

Charles works in association with Davidson Galleries

A limited number of prints will be for sale, either individually or in the complete set. Email jess@projectroomseattle.org for more information.

Above image: ‘Introduction’: Response #1 from The Big Question Print Series (detail) by Charles Spitzack, 2011. Woodblock print.

An Array of Essence

Sculptor Allan Packer responds to the theme Beginnings in a new body of work that examines evolution and plays with natural forms from the small (snail) to the large (solar system).

Titled An Array of Essence, this new project is inspired by a recent trip to Playa Grande, Costa Rica where Packer and a scientist were looking at snails with transmitters on their backs to see where and how far they would travel. Further study of other snail species revealed the whole ecosystem of who devours who and the calculated yet randomness of the whole existence of the characters within the parameters of this habitat.

Packer will share his process in TPR, from the first drawings that lead to 3-D models and eventually to the finished work. Visit this webpage for frequent updates on the progress of the work, or come to TPR during open hours on Wednesdays between 11am-2pm to see the work in person.

From the Artist:

An idea is a seed sprouting into a process that ultimately becomes something smaller than a blip – or a force that affects an entire planet. Made from snap-together paintings, fittings, armatures, sculpture, theatrical lighting, scale models and cutout drawings, this work will evolve from a seed into objects, which will culminate in a short, stop action animation of the metamorphosis of a snail.

Envisioning parallel lines of thought, the one we consciously recognize and the actual electro-impulse stimulus that occurs in our body I endeavor to undertake the awareness of the correlation of the minuteness of scale of the snail compared with the infinite scale of the Galaxy.

About the Artist:

Allan Packer was born in 1956 in Windsor Ontario, Canada. After graduating from the University of Windsor, Packer journeyed north to the high arctic community of Cape Dorset with Terry Ryan in 1980. This appointment was to implement a working etching print shop, which became the vibrant and internationally recognized Dorset Fine Arts. There he met Inuit artists Kananginak, Pitseolak and Pudlo Pudlat. Departing the Arctic, Packer traveled to Paris to study with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. Hayter was a scientist and it is here Packer began to experiment with mathematics in his work. The first result of this is A dodecahedron – Time Machine (2007, Kohler Factories, Wisconsin).

In 1986 Packer moved to New York City and began using books as a medium, creating his first sculpture, The Poet, (1988) a portrait of the poet Barbara Barg (above image). Packer then abolished the use of canvas completely and painted with books, creating the piece Forming and Thinking, (1992, Denver Art Museum.)

Leaving New York after 14 years and settling into Seattle, Packer gained recognition for his wry, politically charged, large, cast plastic sculptures, such as The Bride (2000, private collection). This body of work received awards including, two major Canada Council grants, Artist Trust Fellowship and GAP grants including residencies at Kohler Arts/Industry, Banff Centre for the Arts and the International Studio Curatorial Program, New York.

Packer continues to explore ideas of the metamorphosis of biological matter, often using mechanical paintings to represent  natural transformation.

Mandy Greer in The Seattle Times

Mandy continues her work on Solstenen throughout 2012 and shares insight into her process in this recent Seattle Times feature.

Filmmaker Oliver Laxe on the authorship of the director

Saturday November 19, 2pm: Authorship and Why We Make Things with Filmmaker Oliver Laxe

Learn about Laxe’s newest film-in-progress and what he thinks about authorship and why we make things in a discussion at The Project Room. And join Laxe for the premiere of You All Are Captains at the Northwest Film Forum.

Oliver Laxe is a French Spanish filmmaker who moved to Tangiers four years ago where he created and now runs “Dao Byed”, a 16mm film workshop with children. This workshop led to his first feature film, You All Are Captains (2010), a portrait of the daily lives of a group of youth in Tangiers, Morocco and an examination of their increasingly stressed relations with the director, whose specious motives tip off others around him that his concerns lie more with his own film than the children he’s working with.

From the director:

“The spectator had to be aware that the cynical and stupid person I play in the film is the same person who “feels” when making the film. This becomes obvious when I jump out of the film and get behind the camera, where my presence is strangely enough stronger. I wanted You All Are Captains to be a romantic film without seeming to be one.”

More From the Artist:

Born in Paris in 1982, I’m the son of Spanish emigrants. After finishing my studies in Cinema and filmmaking in Barcelona at the Pompeu Fabra University I moved to London, where I filmed in 2006 Y las chimeneas decidieron escapar, a 16mm short film made in collaboration with Enrique Aguilar. This film, screened at the Gijon International Film Festival, won the Val del Omar award at the Granada Experimental Film Festival, and the INJUVE Award from the Spanish Ministry of Culture.  I then ventured to Africa, spending the last four years in Tangier where I filmed in 2007 Suenan las trompetas – ahora veo otra cara, a short film homage to Andrei Tarkovkski for the Spanish edition of the Chris Marker movie Une journée dans la vie d’Andrei Arsenevich. This film was screened at the National Gallery of Dublin and the Reina Sofia Modern Art Museum.  I also filmed in 2007 a medium-length film in 16mm titled París #1, which won the First Prize at Filminho, a meeting of Portuguese and Spanish filmmakers, and at the Playdoc Documentary Film Festival 2009. This film was also screened at the BAFICI, the IndieLisboa International Film Festival, L’Alternativa in Barcelona and Las Palmas International Film Festival.  Since my arrival to Tangier I have been developing and implementing Dao Byed, a 16mm filmmaking workshop for disadvantaged children. This project was invited to participate on the 2009 edition of the Berlinale Talent Campus.

You All Are Captains, born from this experience, is my first feature film.

This event is in partnership with Northwest Film Forum

Mandy Greer’s Solstenen returns for crocheting and films!

On November 16, 2011 from 5-8pm This past summer’s artist-in-residence Mandy Greer pops back up in The Project Room with her project “Solstenen” for a night of community crocheting and investigating the artists who are inspiring and mentoring her new body of work.

At 5pm, Mandy is on hand to teach anyone willing to learn to crochet, contributing stitches to the Solstenen crocheting heading to Iceland in 2012.

From 6-8pm, then, continue crocheting while watching a presentation of films by Solstenen guest artists performance artist/musician Saskia Delores and filmmaker/photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela.

As with the other Solstenen guest artists, join Mandy in an informal Q and A with these artists, as she picks their brains and finds out why they make things.

From Mandy:

Saskia and Rodrigo both make subtly provocative work that highlights how the magic in the mundane can be captured and bloom in the medium of film. Their bodies of work both reveal the cinematic psychological tension and expansive capacity of the eyes to reveal a volcano of emotion… how we reveal when we try to hide. And both continue to encourage my fledgling pursuit of using film/movement to explore themes in the Solstenen project. I am thrilled to share their work, learn more about their projects with anyone willing to take a dip into the Solstenen project, while also basking in their encouragement for expanding into new media with my work.

Between constructions from Rodrigo valenzuela on Vimeo.

How Does Amy O’Neal Make a Dance? Find out December 10

Saturday December 10, 5-6:30pm

Authorship meets Theft + Devotion: The Most Innovative, Daring, and Original Piece of Dance/Performance You Will See this Decade 

Velocity Artist-in-residence Amy O’Neal deconstructs her new work, The Most Innovative, Daring, and Original Piece of Dance/Performance You Will See this Decade, by sharing the processes she uses in creating choreography. As part of The Project Room’s Authorship series and Velocity’s Next Fest NW Theft + Devotion, this performance-lecture explores the role of the dancer as an author, performer, and collaborator while exposing O’Neal’s creative influences. As always, discussion with the audience is encouraged!

Join us later that evening at Velocity Dance Center for an 8pm performance for Next Fest NW.

Free and open to the public.

This program is a partnership between The Project Room and Velocity Dance Center’s Speakeasy initiative.

Photo above by Tim Summers

Authorship presents poets Brangien Davis, Jennifer Borges Foster, and Kate Lebo

Thursday November 10, 6pm: The Authorship Experiment presents poets Brangien Davis, Jennifer Borges Foster, and Kate Lebo

After several weeks of creating erasures and collecting anonymous virginity stories from the public, the three poets from the Authorship Experiment present the results of their collaboration. Join us on Thursday to see what they’ve made!

Erasure in-progress by Jennifer Borges Foster

From the Poets:

This event functions both as an invite to our reading on November 10th at The Project Room AND a call for submissions on the subject of losing your virginity.

Over the last month, writers Brangien Davis, Jennifer Borges Foster and Kate Lebo have been working on a literary experiment for The Project Room. Each writer has created her own erasure of a book called The Impatient Virgin, by Donald Henderson Clarke (1931). As a companion to this experiment in authorship, we are encouraging you to send us the stories of your own loss of virginity (whether you were impatient or uncomplaining).

Our challenge to you is to TELL US THE STORY OF YOUR OWN DEFLOWERING IN ONE SENTENCE. One sentence! You can either submit your one sentence to us via email, at somethingsonlyhappenonce@gmail.com, or write it anonymously on a scrap of paper and bring it to our presentation at The Project Room on November 10.

On that night, Brangien, Jennifer, Kate and audience members will read the one-sentence stories (as well as selections from a few longer submitted stories online)—but with no author attribution. (And perhaps even claiming them as their own virgin stories.) After all, though each person’s virginity-loss story feels deeply personal, the punchline, as it were, is pretty much the same for everyone.

Brangien, Jennifer and Kate will also reveal each of their individual takes on erasing The Impatient Virgin.

Garrett Fisher & Paul Rucker Perform Collaborative Piece

Friday November 4, 7-8:30pm: 

Suite for Cello, Harmonium & Percussion

Garrett Fisher (hamonium) and Paul Rucker (cello) with special guest Dean Moore (percussion) perform a new piece as the result of their studio time together in The Project Room.

Garrett Fisher and Paul Rucker had never worked together before they were introduced for this fall’s Authorship Experiment, and yet they were eager to explore the musical possibilities when collaborating their vastly different styles and techniques. After an open studio rehearsal on Saturday October 29, the two settled on a format for their public presentation and invited percussionist Dean Moore to join them. On Friday, November 4, we will hear the results.

Garrett Fisher: Garrett Fisher is the Artistic Director of the Fisher Ensemble, a Seattle-based collective. Since 1994, Garrett has created ten music-theater pieces which weave ritual and myth to bridge ancient and modern forms.  Fisher’s music is considered “a strong, unified and strikingly individual utterance of unambiguous beauty” (New York Times). His piece Kocho was recently produced by Beth Morrison Projects at New York’s Galapagos Space.  He was a recipient of a Seattle Magazine‘s 2011 Artist Spotlight Award. Above Photo by Paul Joseph Brown

Paul Rucker: Paul Rucker is an interdisciplinary artist: cellist, bassist, composer, and visual artist known for his innovative performances and installations. He finds inventive ways to integrate live performance, sound, original compositions, and visual art. The music he creates on cello involves extended technique, prepared cello and electronics. His visual artwork incorporates infrared beams, lasers, touch pads, glass, sound, video, photography, animation, and large-format printing.

Paul has received numerous grants for the creation of visual art and music from 4Culture, Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, South Carolina Arts Commission, Washington State Arts Commission, King County Site Specific, Photo Center NW, and Artist Trust. Rucker has created public artwork for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, 4Culture, and the City of Tacoma.

He has also been awarded residencies to Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Art OMI, Banff Centre, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. Rucker was named Best Emerging Artist of 2004 from Earshot, 2005 Jazz Artist of the Year from the Seattle Music Awards, and Outside Jazz Ensemble of the Year in 2008. He was invited by legendary filmmaker David Lynch to perform for the opening of Lynch’s film, Inland Empire.

“The Five Obstructions:” A Film About Making

Wednesday October 26, 6-7:30pm: The Five Obstructions (2003) by Jørgen Leth and
Lars von Trier

Wednesday November 2, 6-7:30pm: Response in film by SJ Chiro and Charles Mudede

Join us for a two-part program featuring this thought-provoking film and a response in film by writer and filmmaker Charles Mudede and filmmaker SJ Chiro.

Part I: Screening of The Five Obstructions on October 26; snacks provided- early birds can claim the comfy red chairs!

Part II: The Response by Charles Mudede and SJ Chiro on November 2, 6-7:30pm

In response to The Five Obstructions, both filmmakers will be showing new works that relate to this film and the theme of Authorship. The audience will be treated to new work shown to the public for the first time, and will be encouraged to participate in the discussion with the filmmakers about choices they make in their work, why they make what they make, and what authorship means to them.

Both events are free and open to the public.

We’re screening The Five Obstructions during the Authorship series because it’s about remaking what you’ve made, why you might do such a thing, who controls what you make, and where creavity comes from. In other words, it addresses our theme “Why Do We Make Things?” perfectly. It’s also about friendship among many other topics, but I’ll let presenters Charles Mudede and SJ Chiro take you on that journey…

About the presenters:

SJ Chiro graduated from Bennington College in 1987 with a degree in theater and French lit. Upon graduation she moved to Seattle and  joined forces with the then nascent Annex Theatre where she acted, directed and championed new work, eventually becoming Artistic Director.   Work in the theater lead naturally to work in film. In 1994 she was accepted to USC film school, but opted to stay in Seattle, continuing her studies with Lynn Shelton, and Deco Dawson, among others. Her 2006 short film, Little Red Riding Hood, has been shown at festivals internationally, garnering the awards for Best Live Action Short at Cinema K (Children’s Film Festival Seattle), and Best Cinematography at The San Francisco Woman’s Film Festival. Her film Third Days Child has screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, One Reel Festival of short films and Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films 2008, among others. At SIFF it was named one of the top 20 short films of the festival. It also screened at the SRO Sci-Fi Festival in 2009. 2009 also saw the completion of A Water Tale, an environmental fairy tale commissioned by Seattle Public Utilities. In 2011 she made The Epiphany, a film based on a Jonathan Lethem short story, commissioned by Washington Film Works and SIFF.  Howard From Ohio, also completed in 2011, was awarded a special jury prize at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival as well as Best Short Film at Local Sightings Film Festival 2011. SJ Chiro is fascinated by men and women and how they got that way.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory of this birth, but he does remember noticing himself in the mirror for this first time—it happened on May 3, 1972. Mudede is also a filmmaker: Two of his films, Police Beat andZoo, premiered at Sundance, and Zoo was screened at Cannes. Mudede has written for the New York Times, Cinema Scope, Ars Electronica, C Theory, and academic journals. He also wrote the liner notes for Best of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien: Elektra Years. Mudede has lived in Seattle since 1989.

Authorship Presents Leo Berk, John Grade & Emmett Smith

Tuesday October 18, 6-7:30pm

The Authorship series presents sculptors Leo Berk and John Grade, and Emmett V Smith, Curator of Watercraft at the Antique Boat Museum on the St. Lawrence River in New York. Berk and Grade will share their collaboration-in-progress as part of the Authorship Experiment, and Smith will host a discussion about the role maritime history plays in contemporary culture.

About the presenters:

Emmett Smith is Curator of Watercraft at the Antique Boat Museum on the St. Lawrence River in New York. ABM holds a collection of over 300 boats that represent American woodcraft, design, and ways of living on the water from the late 19th century to the present. As a boatwright working in restoration and reproduction of vintage boats, Emmett gained an appreciation for craft, history, and the artistry of combining the traditional and the contemporary. As a Curator, he seeks to create exhibitions and experiences that project the viewer into past ways of living and recreating on the water. Most recently, he has been captivated by the potential for contemporary art to construct intimate forums for emotional connections with history, often utilizing historic resources physical or ephemeral. This has led to collaborative projects with designers, artists, and urban planners in Seattle and New York City.

Emmett has recently returned to ABM and to the St. Lawrence after three years in Seattle, where he worked as a Consulting Curator at The Center for Wooden Boats and Northwest Seaport. As a thoughtful lay-Curator working in an esoteric subject matter, Emmett has an expansive view of curation, both in terms of narrative construction and collections management. At ABM, direct experience is a commonly utilized interpretive tool, and visitors are invited to go to work and to go boating. Professionally, Emmett enjoys curating and contextualizing experiences in a wide variety of watercraft while keeping track of artifact care and visitor safety. Looking forward, he is working to create exhibits at ABM and elsewhere that interpret vintage boats as objects of design, and exhibitions of artwork that reference experiences and dreams on the water.

Leo Berk was born in 1973 and received a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1997, and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1999.  His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Lawrimore Project, the Lee Center, and Howard House in Seattle, cherrydelosreyes in Los Angeles, and the Bellevue Art Museum. His work has been included in shows at the Henry Art Gallery and Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Galleri Erik Steen in Oslo, Edward Cella in Los Angeles, d.u.m.b.o. Arts Center in Brooklyn, Tacoma Art Museum, Marylhurst University in Portland, and California State University, Long Beach.  Berk has been honored with grants and awards by the Seattle Art Commission, Artist Trust, and 4Culture and was the 2010 Artist Innovator receipient.  His work has been published in Art in America, Art Ltd., LA Times, Modern Painters, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Stranger, and Seattle Weekly, and has been acquired by such public collections as the Tacoma Art Museum; University of Washington; City of Seattle; King County; Amgen Corporation, Seattle; and the United States Department of Navy. Berk lives and works in Seattle.

John Grade is a Seattle-based artist particularly known for his skill in relating sculpture to the environment; his innovative installations have garnered him an international reputation. Grade is currently working with salvaged timbers from the historic Northwest schooner Wawona to create a monumental sculpture for the new MOHAI museum.

John is the recipient of the 2010 biennial Willard Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. He has also been awarded the 2011 Schnitzer Prize from the Portland Art Museum, an Andy Warhol Foundation Award (NY), two Pollock Krasner Foundation Awards (NY), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (NY). Grade recently exhibited at Galerie Ateliers L’H Du Siege in France, Fabrica in the UK, and Cynthia Reeves Gallery in New York. Grade has been a fellow at the Djerassi Foundation (CA), the MacDowell Colony (NH), and the Ballinglen Foundation in County Mayo, Ireland. His work has been featured and reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture, Artweek, American Craft, ARTUS, the Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, Conde de Nast Traveller, Italian and RussianDomus and on NPR’s All Things Considered and Studio 360. Two monographs of the artist’s work have been published coinciding with major museum surveys of his work.

Send Us Your Stories! A Request for Authorship Participation

Authorship Participants Brangien Davis, Jennifer Borges Foster and Kate Lebo ask you to join the experiment!

Over the next month, writers Brangien Davis, Jennifer Borges Foster and Kate Lebo will be working on a literary experiment in which each writer will create her own erasure of a book called The Impatient Virgin, by Donald Henderson Clarke (1931). As a companion to this experiment in authorship, we are encouraging you to send us the stories of your own loss of virginity (whether you were impatient or uncomplaining).

On the evening of November 10, during a presentation at The Project Room, audience members and/or the writers will read a few of the best submitted stories aloud—but with no author attribution. After all, though each person’s virginity-loss story feels deeply personal, themes recur across populations, with more similarities emerging than differences.

Some guidelines:

1.     The word limit is 500. If your story exceeds 500 words, we won’t post it.

2.     We’re looking for good stories—not porn. (Although some of your details may delight us, we’re not looking to be titillated.)

3.     We want to know the concrete details—not just how it felt psychologically, but what were the actual circumstances? Were you alone with your     paramour or surrounded by drunken partiers? What did the wallpaper look like? (Or the car’s upholstery?) What season was it? Was it night or day? Were crickets chirping? Were you in love?

4.     We know losing your virginity may have been awkward, painful, embarrassing, sad or unwanted. We’re open (no pun intended) to hearing all stories—from exuberant to depressing to run of the mill. Extra credit if you actually lost your virginity in a mill.

5.     Another question to consider: Why did you lose your virginity when you did? Peer pressure? Trying to prove you were or weren’t gay? Rebelling against your parents? Madly in love? Tired of waiting around?

Please send your stories to somethingsonlyhappenonce@gmail.com. They will be posted at somethingsonlyhappenonce.blogspot.com.

Important! As part of the experiment in authorship, your story will be posted to the website anonymously. If, in addition, you wish to keep your identity secret from the writers (who will be reading email submissions), simply create a fake email address and use that to send in your story.

Thanks for playing!

Introducing: Authorship

Seattle writer and filmmaker Charles Mudede recently asked me to share more of the ideas behind Authorship. Since he writes for a living, I worked carefully and responded with the following email:

The idea came about during a series of conversations and studio visits I had with sculptor John Grade, who was (and still is) in the midst of a large commission for the new MOHAI building that requires a lot of different people’s involvement. John was musing on how he (alone) gets credit for the piece although there are all kinds of other “authors” contributing to the piece such as engineers, studio assistants, and even a boat historian.

This made me think of the not-new controversy around whether or not an artist has to have touched their work for it be theirs, and this led to me wonder if ownership of one’s work is an issue in other fields as well. I was particularly interested in performers, who present work prescribed by choreographers, playwrights, composers, etc. and who may or may not feel that they are “authors” (or co-authors) of that work.

Another area of interest was appropriation: when does it make sense for the original maker to be considered a collaborator? This has been fun to discuss with the three poets who are working together on erasures for the Authorship Experiment, a type of double collaboration! More info on that is here.

Some of the most important ideas, however, are those that the participants bring to the discussion that I haven’t thought of yet…

To continue, this way of working in which maker/creative person/artist and curator share ideas throughout the process and shape the outcome together reflects the kind of blurring of the lines that I’m interested in revealing in Authorship. It makes for tricky directing because I must balance the creativity being brought by the participants with my vision for the program, but this is one of my favorite things about being a curator, and I welcome the challenge.

Onward!

Merce Cunningham, Maker of Dances

Merce Cunningham, Maker of Dances: A conversation with members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Friday October 28, 6-7:30pm: RSVP Required!

MCDC’s Archivist David Vaughan and dancers Emma Desjardins and Melissa Toogood discuss “authorship” with The Project Room Founder Jess Van Nostrand. Topics will include originality, interpretation, archiving, and who really “owns” what in the world of dance. As with all events at The Project Room, the audience will be encouraged to participate in the discussion in an intimate setting that allows for conversation. The event is free but space is limited so please email to reserve a spot!

RSVP to jess@projectroomseattle.org

About the Presenters:

EMMA DESJARDINS grew up and began her dance training in Providence, RI. She graduated from Barnard College/Columbia University in 2003 where she trained and performed with its Dance Department.  Desjardins began dancing at the Merce Cunningham Studio in 2002, became a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in 2004, and joined MCDC in January 2006, and is currently on faculty at the Merce Cunningham Studio.

MELISSA TOOGOOD earned a BFA in Dance Performance from New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL under Dean Daniel Lewis.  She began working with Cunningham as a member of the CDF Repertory Understudy Group in November 2005.  Melissa joined MCDC in June 2008.  A faculty member at the Merce Cunningham Studio since 2007, she has taught repertory workshops in her native city of Sydney, Australia. Melissa worked with Pam Tanowitz Dance, Miro Dance Theatre, was a founding member of the Michael Uthoff Dance Theatre and performed with writer Anne Carson.

DAVID VAUGHAN, Archivist, has danced, sung, acted, and choreographed in London, Paris, on and off Broadway, in American regional theaters, in film, television, ballet and modern dance companies, and cabaret. He is the author of Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1997) and of Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (revised edition, Dance Books, 1999). At the Dancing in the Millennium conference in Washington DC in July 2000, he received the 2000 CORD (Congress on Research in Dance) Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research, and in September 2001 he received a New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for sustained achievement.

This conversation is in partnership with Seattle Theatre Group (STG) in conjunction with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Legacy Tour  on October 27 & 28 The Paramount Theatre. More information and tickets at: http://www.stgpresents.org/artists/?artist=1589.

“This is pleasantly uncomfortable:” The experiment begins!

The Authorship Experiment participants and I had dinner in TPR last Thursday to discuss “authorship” and– as usual with TPR dinners– the conversation went in all kinds of interesting directions, at one point inspiring musician Paul Rucker to utter the quote in this title. Poet Kate Lebo brought an unbelievably delicious pie (pie fanatic and sculptor Leo Berk approved), and everyone shared some of their early ideas for the experiment.

It was thrilling to bring together this group of outstanding makers for a focused conversation; I’m honored to be working with all of them. Check the calendar for events as they continue to be scheduled, and read more about the idea behind this project here.

(L-R): Brangien Davis, Garrett Fisher, Amy O’Neal, Wes Hurley, Leo Berk

The Authorship Experiment

Throughout the fall, nine “makers” from different artistic disciplines will collaborate in teams to play with the term “authorship.” Each team will work from The Project Room during open studio hours during which the public is invited to visit and watch/listen/ask questions/participate in whatever it is they are doing.

The results of their time together will be presented to the public in a series of evening events- dates and times TBA! If you’d like to be notified of the schedule as soon as it’s confirmed, please join our mailing list.

See the Calendar for dates and times!

About the Participants:

Leo Berk: Born in 1973, Berk received a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1997, and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1999.  His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Lawrimore Project, the Lee Center, and Howard House in Seattle, cherrydelosreyes in Los Angeles, and the Bellevue Art Museum. His work has been included in shows at the Henry Art Gallery and Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Galleri Erik Steen in Oslo, Edward Cella in Los Angeles, d.u.m.b.o. Arts Center in Brooklyn, Tacoma Art Museum, Marylhurst University in Portland, and California State University, Long Beach.  Berk has been honored with grants and awards by the Seattle Art Commission, Artist Trust, and 4Culture and was the 2010 Artist Innovator receipient.  His work has been published in Art in America, Art Ltd., LA Times, Modern Painters, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Stranger, and Seattle Weekly, and has been acquired by such public collections as the Tacoma Art Museum; University of Washington; City of Seattle; King County; Amgen Corporation, Seattle; and the United States Department of Navy. Berk lives and works in Seattle.

Brangien Davis: Brangien Davis is the arts and culture editor at Seattle Magazine. Previously, she has been a freelance writer (The Seattle Times, ReadyMade magazine, Wired), writing teacher (Richard Hugo House, Seattle Central Community College), book editor (“A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body,” by Lauren Weedman, Grist.org’s “Wake Up and Smell the Planet”), managing editor (Amazon.com), professional blogger (petriproject.wordpress.com) and founder/editrix in chief of a literary magazine (Swivel). Her creative writing has been published in Swink, Filter and Rivet (not a law firm, but should be).

Garrett Fisher: Garrett Fisher is the Artistic Director of the Fisher Ensemble, a Seattle-based collective. Since 1994, Garrett has created ten music-theater pieces which weave ritual and myth to bridge ancient and modern forms.  Fisher’s music is considered “a strong, unified and strikingly individual utterance of unambiguous beauty” (New York Times). His piece Kocho was recently produced by Beth Morrison Projects at New York’s Galapagos Space.  He was a recipient of a Seattle Magazine‘s 2011 Artist Spotlight Award.

Jennifer Borges Foster: Jennifer Borges Foster is a poet, bookmaker, and the editor of Filter, a hand bound limited edition literary journal. She is the recent recipient of grants from Art Patch, 4Culture, and the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and was short-listed for The Stranger’s 2007 Genius Award in literature. She has completed several residencies in the States and abroad. Her poems have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, ZYZZYVA, Failbetter,Hoarse and other journals.

John Grade: John Grade is a Seattle-based artist particularly known for his skill in relating sculpture to the environment; his innovative installations have garnered him an international reputation. Grade is currently working with salvaged timbers from the historic Northwest schooner Wawona to create a monumental sculpture for the new MOHAI museum.

John is the recipient of the 2010 biennial Willard Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. He has also been awarded the 2011 Schnitzer Prize from the Portland Art Museum, an Andy Warhol Foundation Award (NY), two Pollock Krasner Foundation Awards (NY), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (NY). Grade recently exhibited at Galerie Ateliers L’H Du Siege in France, Fabrica in the UK, and Cynthia Reeves Gallery in New York. Grade has been a fellow at the Djerassi Foundation (CA), the MacDowell Colony (NH), and the Ballinglen Foundation in County Mayo, Ireland. His work has been featured and reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture, Artweek, American Craft, ARTUS, the Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, Conde de Nast Traveller, Italian and Russian Domus and on NPR’s All Things Considered and Studio 360. Two monographs of the artist’s work have been published coinciding with major museum surveys of his work.

Wes Hurley: Wes Hurley is a filmmaker and performer living in Seattle. His approach to story-telling is inspired by live performance art, cabaret/burlesque and old b-movies. He recently completed his first narrative feature “Waxie Moon in Fallen Jewel” starring Waxie Moon, Sarah Rudinoff, Marya Sea Kaminski, John Osebold, Nick Garrison and many others, featuring music by Jose Bold, We Are Golden and Campfire OK.

Kate Lebo: Kate Lebo is a poet and pie maker from Seattle, where she attends the University of Washington’s MFA program. Her poems appear in Best New Poets 2011, Poetry Northwest, Bateau, and The Portland Review, and she’s the recipient of a Nelson Bentley Fellowship, a 4Culture grant, and a Soapstone residency. For more about Kate’s zine, A Commonplace Book of Pie, and other tasty treats, visit Pie-scream.com.

Amy O’Neal:  Amy O’Neal is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, and the creator of AmyO/tinyrage (tinyrage.com).  From 2000-2010, she was the co-director, along with Zeke Keeble, of locust (music/dance/video)(locustsucka.com). Over he past decade, she has toured nationally and internationally with her own dance and video work as well as with Reggie Watts, the Pat Graney Company,  and was a company member of Scott/Powell Performance from 1998-2004. She has created 2 works for Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater, collaborated with Savion Glover at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, and danced in Mark Haim’s “Goldberg Variations” at On the Boards in 2006. Amy has choreographed for theater, commercials, and for Reggie Watt’s Comedy Central DVD in the music video for “Fuck, Shit Stack”.

Amy teaches contemporary dance technique, funk, improvisation,and choreography regularly at Velocity Dance Center and with Seattle Theater Group’s “Dance This” and the Young Choreographer’s Lab, which she helped to develop.  She has been a guest artist at several major universities in the US as well as Dance New Amsterdam in NYC and has a degree in dance from Cornish College of the Arts. Amy was choreographer in residence at Bates Dance Festival in 2007, at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2008, and took part in the US/Japan Choreographer’s Exchange through Dance Theater Workshop and the Japan Society in 2009.  She has received funding for her work with locust and AmyO/tinyrage from all the major funders in Seattle (including an Artist Trust Fellowship and Stranger Genius short list in 2004)  as well as DanceWEB (Vienna, Austria), the National Dance Project, National Performance Network, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Creative Capital Foundation.  Amy is currently the 2011 Artist in Residence at Velocity Dance Center where she is developing an evening-length solo work. She is also collaborating with filmmaker Wes Hurley for the City Arts Festival.

Paul Rucker: Paul Rucker is an interdisciplinary artist: cellist, bassist, composer, and visual artist known for his innovative performances and installations. He finds inventive ways to integrate live performance, sound, original compositions, and visual art. The music he creates on cello involves extended technique, prepared cello and electronics. His visual artwork incorporates infrared beams, lasers, touch pads, glass, sound, video, photography, animation, and large-format printing.

Paul has received numerous grants for the creation of visual art and music from 4Culture, Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, South Carolina Arts Commission, Washington State Arts Commission, King County Site Specific, Photo Center NW, and Artist Trust. Rucker has created public artwork for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, 4Culture, and the City of Tacoma.

He has also been awarded residencies to Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Art OMI, Banff Centre, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. Rucker was named Best Emerging Artist of 2004 from Earshot, 2005 Jazz Artist of the Year from the Seattle Music Awards, and Outside Jazz Ensemble of the Year in 2008. He was invited by legendary filmmaker David Lynch to perform for the opening of Lynch’s film, Inland Empire.

Back to Authorship

Images: Water (detail), sound installation from from Paul Rucker’s Sounds Like (top); Empty Temples, still from Garrett Fisher’s web operaPsyche featuring choreography by Christy Fisher and filmmaking by Luke Sieczek (top); John Grade in his studio with wood from The Wiwona being used for The Wiwona Project, a large-scale commission for The Museum of History and Industry (bottom)

Hidden World: Processing Cultural History by Design Collaborative Vík Prjónsdóttir

Wednesday September 28, 6-7:30pm

In conjunction with Authorship

Join us in welcoming this important Icelandic design group to Seattle as they share their process, samples of their finished pieces, and stories from the Icelandic mythology as it appears in their work. Tea will be served!

Vík Prjónsdóttir is featured in the 2011 Nordic Fashion Biennial taking place at Seattle’s Nordic Heritage Museum. The NFB runs from September 30 – November 13.

More about Vík Prjónsdóttir:

Vík Prjónsdóttir is a creative brand that designs and produces quality products from Icelandic sheep wool; a unique and sustainable source. Its combination of fibers results in a wool that is warm, light-weight and water-repellent. Vík Prjónsdóttir is inspired by myths and stories, from the past as well from the present. She is fascinated by nature as well as urban life, believes in the beyond and respects the hidden world.

Vík Prjónsdóttir is a collaboration between the designers Brynhildur Pálsdóttir, Gudfinna Mjöll Magnúsdóttir, Thuríður Sigurþórsdóttir and the knitting factory Víkurprjón. Their common interest in applying the form and magic of everyday items into their designs is evident in Vík Prjónsdóttir products. They believe that it’s their task as designers to make use of the natural materials and conditions that exist in Iceland, rather than using imported materials or outsource the production. Their ambition with Vík Prjónsdóttir is to show an unconventional image of the Icelandic woollen industry by developing new products with traditional Icelandic material. Víkurprjón, the knitting factory, is a company steeped in history. It was founded 1980 and is the oldest and one of the best known producers in Iceland. During the 1980s the Icelandic woollen industry flourished and Víkurprjón was one of 30 mills, today however, there are only three left, the others have either closed or been sold off to exporters piece by piece.
This collaboration contributed innovative ideas to elevate the woolen industry again. The Vík Prjónsdóttir collection is unique and different from everything else Víkurprjón has been producing over the years. It opens a whole new international market area for the Icelandic wool industry.

Since Vík Prjónsdóttir launched the second collection at Stockholm Design Week in 2010, they have received the local and annual DV cultural prize for design; The 2011 Association of Craftsmen in Reykjavík award for innovation; and The Reykjavík Grapevine Awards for “Best Product Line 2011”.

The Vík Prjónsdóttir project was initiated in the year 2005 by the above mentioned designers including the designers Egill Kalevi Karlsson and Hrafnkell Birgisson.