Category: Residencies

Artville (2023)

(2023) Artville Residency 

 

For the month of September I was in residence at Artville, in the town of Leadville CO. This is time and space for me to detach from my normal routines and activities. Letting rest be front of mind, while away from my home. These are my overarching thoughts while there. Taking more time to see what’s around me, “don’t rush, everything will find its place”.

 

Drawing points of interest in the town of Leadville. I am so happy to sit and draw a location for hours. Watching the town go by, making choices about the shapes my hand is creating with the pen. I really do like this place (Leadville) it’s a strange mixture of old and welcoming.

 

While in Leadville Groucho and I created a public sculpture for the community farm. While one must witness this sculpture in person to experience its proposed powers. We named this creation the Intergalactic Squire Portal. 

 

I didn’t walk as much this time and that was just fine. Surrounded by the mountains I can’t stop staring at the outline of the peaks, the snow hiding in the shadows until the sun finally melts it, and then another storm walks through. I want to be in Leadville for the winter one of these years, I know it will be far more than I actually want in regards to snow and cold. I just want it to snow as hard as it can, and keep snowing for months.



Artville Residency (2022)

(2022) Artville Residency, CT Walk, Library Mural

 

I returned to Leadville again this year to spend September at Artville. This time my intention was to do some good solid thinking, and walk the Colorado Trail as much as could be accomplished given how my body coped with the task. Walking from Copper Mountain to Cottonwood Pass, approximately 90 miles, over the course of nine days, with a total ascent of 16,700 ft, and descent of 13,800 ft, was as much as I could handle. I was accompanied and guided by my friend and experienced through hiker Groucho, and the dog Bo Jackson. Along the walk there were many moments of peace, beauty, extremes, time in a geologic sense, stars, and the ache of my IT bands which I learned I need to stretch out quite a lot more if I’m going to go on longer walks like this in the future. I have known for some time that I very much love walking, and I am slowly learning that I very much like walking long trails in nature. As always the tiny community of Leadville is a joy in its weird beauty, the more time I spend there the more I feel a part of the community, and I’m thankful for this.

 

 

In between walking on the CT and resting, I had the opportunity to paint a mural at the Leadville Library with my walking companion Groucho. We chose an apt quote from Groucho Marx, “Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend, inside of a dog it’s too dark to read”, it’s always an honor to leave art works in locations far from one’s usual stomping grounds.

 

I always try to do a few drawings of the places I find myself at, here is a drawing of the main street in Leadville.

Black Crane (2022)

 

(2022) Black Crane Treehouse

One of my main projects at the start of 2022 was helping the Rockland crew build the Black Crane Treehouse. I joined the build just after the subfloor had been established, staying on the build until July, just as final touches were being worked out on the interior finish. This was my second build where I got to take part in the construction from the framing and raising of the walls onward. Since 2018 I have been giving a portion of my time to learning building protocol, permitting, and inspections. This treehouse really brought together all the elements of the build, this is knowledge that I can apply in so many ways as life presents all sorts of building opportunities in the future. Check out Rockland Woods for more info about the artist residencies held twice yearly. Here is a selection of photos following the build process from start to finish.

           

Mother Father (2019)

(2019) Commissioned public art mural, Mosquito MT, Leadville CO.

 

Painted with the assistance of artist NKO while in residence at Artville in Leadville CO. 13,000 feet up in the mountains on an old abandoned radio shack, this message speaks to past generations asking them how have they cared for the world that is being handed off to younger generations? Painted with Enamel paint, the message will stand as a visual voice in the cold high land of the mountains. 

 

Give us a voice (2019)

(2019) commissioned choreography

 

Choreography set on ten young women in North Star Ballet School’s advanced level. This work was created in collaboration with the students. I’ve been interested in exploring different ways of integrating text, voice, and clear messaging into my choreographic works. This interest began with creating gifts of performance for my mother. When I arrived at North Star, I had decided that I wanted to ask my cast of ten young women the question, “what do you have to say to the generation that is leaving you this earth”. We spent a good portion of our first rehearsal time talking about this question. I wrote down each answer, after hearing all the thoughts, I explained that I wanted to build the choreography around the words that we had just discussed. Collectively we settled on “give us a voice” as the text and title for the piece.
My aim was to push these young performers to not only realise my movement ideas, I wanted them to realise their voices individually and as a collective by building vocalised text into the choreography from the very start of rehearsals. I had decided beforehand that the sound used in this work was to come directly from the performers live. Exploration of repetition, abstraction, volume, and exhaustion was the ideas I built, and shaped this work vocally, around. I feel that younger performers often have to be shown how to learn a section of choreography so that they can know this movement sequence without having to think about what step comes next. When this effortlessness is found, the next step is to run this movement sequence to the edge of exhaustion so that the dancer’s ego is shed. When this is found ten dancers can perform as one, their awareness of the ensemble grows and is able to collectively lift each other up. A clear image of the body being propelled by muscle is the intended result. This is quite a lot to ask of young performers, I feel though that this is the most important concept to have been introduced to in the development of a young professional dancer. I was quite proud of what these ten young women accomplished in our time together in rehearsal. This work was set to premier in Fairbanks in April 2020, unfortunately Covid-19 had other plans, so for now the premier is on hold.

 

We Love This (2019)

(2019) Commissioned choreography. North Star Ballet, Fairbanks AK

 

In collaboration with long time friend Oscar Gutierrez, commissioned by North Star Ballet, Oscar and I created a twenty minute duet about friends seeing each other after a long absence.

 

Tech reh

 

Artville Residency (2019)

(2019) Leadville Colorado residency

 

The month of October, high in the mountains, served as a time for allowing space. My time was spent walking, seeing mountain tops, movement researching/choreographing, environment sketches, mural painting, all while living with dear friends.

 

 

I was able to create the movement framework used for the choreographic commission at North Star Ballet in Fairbanks Alaska following my residency. My environment sketches serve as a personal photograph for my eyes, a drawn memory of any location that captures my attention.

 

 

My friends like to walk. While at Artville I was invited to go for a three-day walk along a section of the Continental Divide Trail. I have for quite a long time fantasized about long distance walking. This served as a beautiful introduction to this revealing and healing path.

 

 

I visited the peaks of five mountain tops over 14,000 feet while at Artville. I have a long standing practice of planting a handstand at the top of high points. I aim to try and pretend that while in the handstand, I’m actually rightside up and holding up the mountain and world in my hands. As a student of my own body, I love the reality of walking up a steep mountain, the physical strength and stamina needed to listen to and work through rapid altitude shifts is humbling to say the least.

 

Centrum Residency (2015)

(2015) Centrum Residency at Fort Worden in Development of Psychic Radio Star

 

In residency at Centrum, Paurl Walsh, Anthony Rigano, Danielle Blackwell and myself worked to generate source imagery and build a sound library for use in development of Psychic Radio Star. Paurl Walsh took sine wave recordings of each unique room/space with any amount of reverberation. This allowed us to extract an exact copy of the echo of each space at Fort Worden. Photographic documentation by Anthony Rigano created the building blocks for ideas that would grow into the performance work Psychic Radio Star.

 

Photos by Anthony Rigano

Tiny Home (2015)

(2015) Center on Contemporary Art Un[contained] Residency, Seattle

 

I had recently been in the Bay Area performing and was struck by the tiny movable homes taking up no more than a parking space, I saw lining the streets in West Oakland. Upon learning I had been awarded this residency, I felt compelled to explore these movable tiny houses for myself, as I had not seen anything of this sort in the Northwest despite rampant homlessness. 
Using salvaged wood in tandem with other recycled/donated resources, I created a portable living space. By painting the exterior of the structure I aimed to make this home command the attention of those who would rather choose to ignore the state of homelessness and displacement in our area. The home acts as a billboard, stating in the most matter of fact way the basic necessity of having a roof over one’s head. Voicing through words the needed legislative action of RENT CONTROL to help create sensible affordable homes for those in need.
I can’t help but notice the increase in the past ten years of people living on the streets in Seattle, especially in the last three years. Can this temporary home be a sense of pride for the inhabitant? Could this action open the eyes of developers?

 

Addressing An Issue

Caldera poster (2015)

(2015) painted poster

 

While in a choreographic residence with Tahni Holt at Caldera in the south eastern mountains of Oregon for a month, I decided that the stunning landscape I had found myself in, compelled me to paint in my down time and I created this fifteen by seven foot painted poster. The text that fills this work is taken from a nineteenth century elementary school primer that I found in the library at Caldera. I was struck by the writing in this primer as it was confronting the child who has grown up in the city and assumed that this child would have virtually no understanding of nature or farm creatures and a more rural life experience. Taking inspiration from a poster I created while in Lisbon Portugal which also used text to create the entire design. This work is yet to find a permanent home to this day. When the right location shows itself, I will add this work to the world.