Blog - The Project Room: Recent Episodes
The Project Room
Jess Van Nostrand and Lucy in The Project Room
The Project Room began in 2011 as an experiment in the arts, offering a platform for the development of new work and allowing for the public to participate in the creative process in a variety of ways. From acommunity crochet residency to a failure variety show to social experiments with art and technology to a podcast series and more, TPR started as a place to ask questions, and ended with a robust collection of events, activities, and conversations made specially for the curious and open minded.
Seattle was an important aspect of the organization, providing a backdrop that often wove its way into the programming, from the script-writing of These Streets to a re-interpretation of Northwest Masters to the presence of many artists, writers and performers who are dedicated to living and making their work here. However, the audience grew beyond the Northwest early on, thanks in part to great editors who worked on Off Paper, the literary voice of TPR, and made use of the online journal to introduce writers and ideas from near and far.
A key element of the organization from before it even had walls was the question-based approach to learning about the arts. From there, once a "big question" was posed, the programming had a direction to follow that provided cohesion to what might otherwise appear to be a wildly eclectic calendar of events. But it always came back to the big question, the thing that kept me up at night in a very personal way and allows us to be unified as people who perhaps share the same wonderment about the meaning of things.
After more than four years, what we have is a collection of over one-hundred original essays, twenty-one podcast interviews, and lots of images (and memories) of the two-hundred thirty-two creative people who shared their work with us.
It took a lot of support from others to take TPR from my head into reality, so thank you to all of those early listeners who patiently had coffee with me while I sputtered inarticulately about the seeds of this idea, including Jim McDonald, Fidelma McGinn, Jenifer Ward, Sarah Novotny, Claudia Bach, Greg Bell and many others; huge grateful thank-yous to Founders' Circle members who allowed TPR to grow far beyond my capabilities, and the TPR Board who stuck with it through the end; also the wonderful volunteers and staff including Tia Kramer, Tessa Hulls, Corey Blaustein and Madeline Williams. I must also extend a special thank-you to all of the artists who were willing to share their work in development which can be a frightening stage of the process; and biggest thanks of all to my two little nuts Bubs & Lucy, and Mike "Smitty" Smith who thinks anything I imagine is possible and sees no reason to consider the alternative.
—Jess, September 2016
Displacement: Visual Artist Veit Stratmann
Paris-based artist Veit Stratmann, who presented the work title L'Aquila at The Project Room in 2012, has made a practice of researching and writing about places of massive upheaval and its impact on the people who have lived there. After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris which took place near his home, we had a conversation about the connections between this event and his work, and what motivates him to be an artist, especially during difficult times.
Learning Outside The Classroom: Electronic Artist Michna
Adrian Michna shares his perspective on what makes a good song, how college transformed his musical style, and advice for young musicians.
The New Art Marketplace: Digital Artist Kevin McCoy
In this interview, we visit with Kevin McCoy during the launch of his first company, an online platform for the buying and selling of digital artwork. Monegraph, as this company is called, could change everything about how we value artwork and how artists get paid for the work they make.
In 1978, Gilbert Baker, a drag queen and community activist in San Francisco, responded to his friend Harvey Milk's assertion that the gay rights movement needed a new symbol. The pink triangle had been in use but was connected to the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the movement needed something uplifting to replace it. Using his creativity, his sewing skills, many many volunteers and even more fabric dye, Baker designed and produced the Rainbow Flag- or Gay Pride Flag- that we know today.
It's a Bitch to RememberOctober 22, 6-6:45pmFor the third consecutive year, TPR is pleased to be a stop along the route for Lit Crawl Seattle. This year, writers Steven Barker, Jason Schmidt and Allison Ellis tackle The Project Room's current Big Question "How Are We Remembered?" with a series of stories about memory.
About the Presenters:
Steven Barker is a 2014-2015 Made at Hugo House fellow and is working on a collection of essays that detail the wide range of short-term jobs he’s held over the past ten years. When he’s not working or writing he hosts the arts and entertainment podcast Ordinary Madness (ordinarymadness.org), and he is the co-founder of Cheap Wine & Poetry and Cheap Beer & Prose.
Jason Schmidt was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1972 and was raised up and down the I-5 corridor — but mostly on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Jason is the author of A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me, a memoir published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a Macmillan imprint. His writing has appeared in Jeopardy Magazine, Cranky Literary Journal, and ZYZZYVA, only one of which has since gone out of business. He took first place in the 4th quarter of the 1998 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest (yes, you read that right), and is the recipient of a 4Culture Art Projects grant. He holds a BA in Creative Writing and a JD, both from the University of Washington. As a law student he received the Frank E. Holman & Judge William Steinert scholarships, and a CALI Excellence for the Future Award. He can make a large cheese pizza in under 40 seconds.
Allison Ellis is a Seattle-based freelance writer. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, SELF, Redbook, Marie Claire, Fodor’s Travel Guides, ParentMap, and the Seattle Times. She is currently working on a memoir about young widowhood and her tragicomic pursuit of a new husband, and was recently selected as a 2015 Literary Contest Finalist by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.
This month's podcast is a conversation with Seattle-based artist Ellie Dicola. As part of Seattle Storefronts, a program that places artist projects in vacant storefront spaces, Ellie created the installation Was Here. As a corporeal monument to places that are gone, Was Here is a documentation of local businesses and organizations that have disappeared over the last handful of years. Ellie refers to her project as a map of experiences, and in our discussion of evolution and change, we explore what it means to give voice to memory and to create a place to collectively mourn the intangible.
Photos by Katie Miller for The Project Room
RESERVE TICKETS HERE:
Since October 2014, The Project Room has been following Anastacia Tolbert in the making of 9 Ounces, A One-Woman Show. Starring the three female characters Alice, Luna & Saraphina, 9 Ounces uses the audience as a mirror to reflect, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. After debuting the work this past July, Tolbert returns to share it once again as it continues to develop.
All performances will be held atThe Project Room. General admission performances are FREE. Recommended for ages 16+ unless accompanied by a guardian. Click on the dates below to link to Stranger Ticket Sales.
VIP PERFORMANCE: $25Thurs. September 10, 6:30-9pm
Special Q & A with the artist after the performance. Wine and hors d'oeurvres will be served! $25 VIP tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 5/14/15. Doors open at 6:30pm, performance at 7pm. Seating is limited.
GENERAL ADMISSION PERFORMANCES: FREEFri. September 11 & Sat. September 12, 7-8:30pm
FREE tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 7/30/15.
Seating is limited.
Please note: Some posters and postcards were circulated with incorrect dates. The above dates are the final correct dates!
MORE about 9 Ounces:
9 Ounces: A One Woman Show is an unkempt, de-ribbon-ed, narrative braid dangling with cooked parts. It unofficially yogas its way through the unexpected journey of a queer woman of color's mid-life a-ha moment and extreme case of takotsubo's cardiomyopathy. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. Meet Luna, innocent, truth-telling childlike ghost-angel, Saraphina filter-free wise counsel-spiritual matriarch and Alice an artist and writer wedged between four universal questions: Who the hell am I/not? What am I supposed to be doing? Why me? What's for Dinner? Together, the three bravely and vulnerably traverse the what-now with humor, sadness and a longing wish to have a deeper appreciation and longstanding compassion for Alice's 9-ounce heart and a goal to master downward dog.
For this month's podcast, TPR Editor Tessa Hulls sat down with Sarah Smith and Micah Stanovsky of Sawhorse Revolution, a Seattle nonprofit that teaches carpentry skills to high school youth. With an emphasis on projects that serve their local communities, Sawhorse has constructed everything from tree houses to garden beds. Recently, they've been garnering national attention for their project The Impossible City, a partnership with the Nickelsville homeless community in Seattle, in which students are building micro-homes for homeless residents.
TPR is proud to share our first ever online sound piece, created by New York-based Daniel Neumann in response to our interview with him in his studio. The conversation addresses the idea of monument through Daniel's use of found objects and personal history- have a listen!
July 31, 8:30pm to 11:30pm
Southgate Roller Rink, Seattle
Join us for Rollergate 2015, an evening of skating, music, and art. A portion of ticket proceeds will support The Project Room's podcast series, yipee! If you happen to be attending Anastacia Tolbert's one-woman show 9 Ounces that night, Rollergate is providing free transportation after the show to the roller rink!
Getting Good: Interdisciplinary Artist Tameka Norris
Artist Tameka Norris dives into issues of intellectual property, authorship, appropriation and her relationship to art history as she discusses the vulnerabilities encountered while building a legacy in our digital era.
Join us for the premiere performances of 9 OUNCES, A One-Woman Show VIP DEBUTS: July 30 & September 10. Drinks @6:30pm. performance @7pmFREE Public PERFORMANCES: July 31 & Aug 1, Sept 11 & 12 @ 7pm
Alice
Alice
Alice
Luna
Luna
Luna
Saraphina
Since October 2014, The Project Room has been following Anastacia Tolbert in the making of 9 Ounces, A One-Woman Show, staring Alice, Luna & Saraphina. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. This unkempt, de-ribbon-ed braid dangling crooked parts is not to be missed.
All performances will be held @ The Project Room. General admission performances are FREE. Required tickets available NOW for VIP debuts & free July & August performances; age 16+ unless accompanied by a guardian. Click on the dates below to link to Stranger Ticket Sales.
VIP DEBUT Performances: $25Thurs. July 30 & September 10, 6:30-9pm
Special Q & A with the artist after the performance. Wine and hors d'oeurvres will be served! $25 VIP tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 5/14/15. Doors open at 6:30pm, performance at 7pm. Seating is limited.
General Admission Performances: FREEFri. July 31 & Sat. August 1, 7-8:30pm
FREE tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 5/14/15.
Seating is limited.
Fri. September 11 & Sat. September 12, 7-8:30pm
FREE tickets required via Stranger Tickets; available on 7/30/15.
Seating is limited.
Please note: Some posters and postcards were circulated with incorrect dates. The above dates are the final correct dates!
MORE about 9 Ounces:
9 Ounces: A One Woman Show is an unkempt, de-ribbon-ed, narrative braid dangling with cooked parts. It unofficially yogas its way through the unexpected journey of a queer woman of color's mid-life a-ha moment and extreme case of takotsubo's cardiomyopathy. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. Meet Luna, innocent, truth-telling childlike ghost-angel, Saraphina filter-free wise counsel-spiritual matriarch and Alice an artist and writer wedged between four universal questions: Who the hell am I/not? What am I supposed to be doing? Why me? What's for Dinner? Together, the three bravely and vulnerably traverse the what-now with humor, sadness and a longing wish to have a deeper appreciation and longstanding compassion for Alice's 9-ounce heart and a goal to master downward dog.
This month, Director of the Project Room, Tia Kramer sat down with Seattle-based poet and artist Natasha Marin. Their discussion moved from her various works in poetry, performance, and visual art, to her upbringing in Canada and how the country's politics influences her work.
Thursday, May 14th, 7-8:30pm @ 10 degreesA Toast to 9 Ounces is a special, one night only fundraiser for 9 Ounces: A One-Woman Show by Anastacia Tolbert.
LOCATION: 10 degrees, 1312 E. Union Street, Seattle, WA 98122
FUNDRAISER TICKETS: $25 via Stranger Tickets. All proceeds go directly to the artist.
http://www.strangertickets.com/events/24274537/a-toast-to-9-ounces
Since October 2014,The Project Roomhas been following writer and performer Anastacia Tolbert in the making of 9 Ounces: A One-Woman Show. During this preview event, Anastacia Tolbert will give the audience a special behind-the-scenes sneak peak into the three characters of her forthcoming production, 9 Ounces. Come meet Alice, Luna, and Saraphina as they are interviewed by TPR Editor, Tessa Hulls. This fundraiser-sneak-peek is sure to not be missed!
9 Ounces debuts at The Project Room this July 30, August 1-2, and September 10-12. Tickets for all performances available soon.
Anastacia Tolbert is a queer mix or supershero & alphabet fairy godmother dust. Although she isn’t opposed to regular clothing, if she could she’d wear a cape & galoshes at all times. She is a Cave Canem Fellow, Hedgebrook Alumna, Jack Straw Writer, EDGE Professional Writer, VONA alum, Ragdale Alum, creative writing workshop facilitator, documentarian and playwright. She is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? Documentary (2007): a documentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image. Lately she’s been obsessed with the body (in parts) & the stories it h(old)s. Recently she has begun a year-long theatrical mixed-media project,9 Ounces: A One Woman Show. 9 Ouncesis an unkempt, de-ribbon-ed, narrative braid dangling with crooked parts. It yoga’s its way through the unexpected journey of a queer woman of color’s mid-life a-ha moment and extreme case of takotsubo’s cardiomyopathy. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. Her poetry, fiction & nonfiction have been published widely.
On May 5 from midnight to midnight, you can make a one-time online donation to TPR as part of the 24-hour fundraising marathon known as giveBIG! In return TPR will treat you with a super fly TPR hat, lots of love, continued amazing programing and eternal gratitude. Support TPR and learn more about the big day...
Monday May 4th, 6-7pm at The Project Room
Photograph by Christopher Felver
Denise Levertov was a great 20th century American poet who lived in Seattle from 1989 until her death in 1997. A convert to Catholicism, she wrote about faith, nature and the environment, politics and social justice.
Author Rebecca Brown, Poet Jan Wallace, and The Project Room will host this evening remembering Levertov by introducing her work, screening short films about her and sharing audio and video clips of Levertov reading.
Breathing The Water is part of a city-wide celebration of Levertov which culminates May 16th, Seattle's official Denise Levertov Day. Join the final celebration on May 16, 2015, when Coral Arts, a vocal ensemble in residence at St. Joseph Church where Levertov was a parishioner, will present the world premiere of a setting of Levertov's poem "Making Peace." St. Joseph is also sponsoring the city-wide celebration of Levertov's legacy as poet, activist, and woman of faith. Concert tickets are available through Choral Arts.
Read more about Levertov in TPR's recent Off Paper Essay, "Bearing Witness" by Jan Wallace. Information about additional Levertov events online. Special thanks to Levertov event sponsors:
FULL SCHEDULE OF CITY-WIDE EVENTSApril 27 Introducing Levertov, St James Cathedral, 7 PM
May 4 Levertov films, The Project Room, 1315 E Pine, 6 PM
May 5 Homage to Levertov reading, Sorrento Hotel, 7 PM
May 7 Introducing Levertov, St Joseph Parish Center, 7 PM
May 9 Levertov gravesite visit, Lake View Cemetery, 11 AM
May 14 Levertov evening, Elliot Bay Bookstore, 7 PM
May 16 Choral Arts concert, St Joseph Church, 8 PM
preceded by preconcert conversation, 7:30 PM
Reception, St Joseph Parish Center, 6:15 PM
City of Seattle declares May 16 Denise Levertov Day
Rebecca Brown. Photo by Andrea Auge
Rebecca Brown is a writer, teacher and literary activist. She is the author of seven novels, including The End of Youth, The Terrible Girls, and What Keeps Me Here, and her short stories are widely anthologized. Her novel The Gifts of the Body won a Lambda Literary Award and has been translated into several languages. Brown divides her time between Seattle and Vermont, where she is a faculty member in the Master of Fine Arts program at Goddard College.
Jan Wallace, poet and essayist, was a dear friend of Denise Levertov's. Her poems currently appear in Terrain, A Journal of Built and Natural Environments. Her work has also appeared in ARCADE, Fine Madness, Field and other journals. Read Jan's recent essay about Levertov, "Bearing Witness" in TPR's online journal, Off Paper.
If a Handful of Matches is Thrown to the Floor: Exploring the parallels between the scientific method and divination with Artist Sierra Nelson.
MondAY, April 27, 7-8pm at The Project RoomPerformance Artist and Poet Sierra Nelson invites us into a conversation questioning the roles divination, science, and artistic practice play in our understanding of the past and choices for the future. She’ll be joined by her longtime collaborator Rachel Kessler to bookend the conversation with some live experiments.
Photography by Rebecca Hoogs
Photograph by Rebecca Hoogs
Poet, performer, and text-based artist Sierra Nelson (co-founder of The Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society) is author of lyrical choose-your-own-adventure I Take Back the Sponge Cake (Rose Metal) made with visual artist Loren Erdrich and chapbook “In Case of Loss” (Toadlily Press). Earning her MFA in Poetry from U.W. (2002), she is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and Carolyn Kizer Prize winner, and she teaches in Seattle, Friday Harbor, and Rome, Italy.
On the divination side, she has written poems inspired by the patterns in tarot, created an interactive poetry installation inspired by Nordic runes using Icelandic lava stones ("Runasafn: Rune Library"), and most recently she has written a new interactive manuscript of poems, "I Change," inspired by the 8 elements in the ancient Chinese divination system the I Ching (a.k.a. The Book of Changes).
On the science side, she has written scientifically-vetted poems about fish in collaboration with ichthyologist Adam Summers' "Cleared" photographs of stained fish skeletons, both of which debuted at the Seattle Aquarium; she teaches and works with scientists at U.W.'s Friday Harbor Labs in the San Juan Islands; and science is a core inspiration for her performance and installation work as the Vis-à-Vis Society collaborating with Rachel Kessler under their poet-scientist personas, Dr. Ink and Dr. Owning.
Photograph by Rebecca Hoogs
Rachel Kessler (co-founder of The Typing Explosion and Vis-à-Vis Society) is a poet and essayist who works with comics, video, installation, and performance art. Her work has appeared in Open Daybook, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest, The Stranger, The Frye Art Museum and elsewhere. She works as a teaching artist with Writers in the Schools, Path with Art, Richard Hugo House, and Centrum.
Sierra and Rachel have been collaborating for over 17 years.
Monuments, Durian, & Portable Toilets: Artist Jenifer Wofford
Visual artist and educator Jenifer Wofford met with TPR editor, Tessa Hulls, in San Francisco to discuss the themes of monument and memory and their presence in Jenifer's diverse body of work.
An Intimate Dialog with Interdisciplinary artist Tameka NorrisSat. April 11, 1-2pm
Interdisciplinary Artist Tameka Norris (aka Meka Jean) recently had her identity and creative property appropriated while producing her newest film, Meka Jean: How She Got Good. Join Tameka Norris at The Project Room to discuss intellectual property, authorship, and socioeconomic status as it relates to personal legacy in a digital era and our current topic, Monument.
RSVP via facebook (optional).
Tameka Norris. Still from her newest video, Recovery.
Tameka Norris (b.1979, Guam) received her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles before graduating with an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2012. Through her work in performance, video, photography, and installation, Norris has always sought to originate and control the distribution of her own images, delving into themes of authorship and subjecthood. She has participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2009), the Fountainhead Residency (2012) and the Hermitage Artist Retreat (2012). Her group exhibitions include Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art recently at the Walker Art Center and Gifted and Talented, Third Streaming Gallery, New York (2012). Norris debuted her feature length film/installation Meka Jean: How She Got Good at Prospect 3 in New Orleans (2014). Publications include articles in Art News, ArtForum, Art in America, and The New York Times. Norris lives and works in New Orleans, LA and Berlin, Germany
http://www.tamekanorrisart.com/
This TPR event is sponsored & supported by: the neddy artist award.Tameka Norris will be the featured speaker at NEDDY's 2015 Ned Behnke Annual Lecture on Friday, April 10 at the Frye Art Museum. Her presentation, 'Notes on Failure', will examine the vulnerabilities of being an artist and creating a life/practice after finishing college.
RECEPTION AT 6:00 P.M. PROGRAM BEGINS AT 7:00. 'Notes on Failure' is a FREE ticketed event.
Sunday, March 22nd, 1-3pm at The Project Room Use the stories your body holds as a vehicle for creativity. Everyone welcome! RSVP if you plan to attend by emailing tia@projectroomseattle.org.
Since October 2014, The Project Room has been following writer Anastacia Tolbert in the making of her upcoming One Woman show, 9 Ounces, which debuts at TPR in July. On Sun, March 22nd, Anastacia will offer a free cross-genre workshop that exposes aspects of her creative process. As participants, we will use both the body and the body's memory as a catalyst to generate new written material. We will examine work by contemporary writers (all of whom use the body) as a substructure for poetry, fiction and non-fiction. We will work through and in our bodies and mesh body movement, brainstorm, and memory. Lastly, there will be an opportunity to have new writing workshopped. Bring your body, memory and creativity!
Wear comfortable clothing
Wear comfortable shoes
*Bring a journal or writing tablet
Spread the word about the event by sharing our facebook invitiation!
Again, please RSVP if you plan to attend by emailing tia@projectroomseattle.org. Spaces are limited.
Anastacia Tolbert is a queer mix or supershero & alphabet fairy godmother dust. Although she isn’t opposed to regular clothing, if she could she’d wear a cape & galoshes all the times. She is a Cave Canem Fellow, Hedgebrook Alumna, Jack Straw Writer, EDGE Professional Writer, VONA alum, Ragdale Alum, creative writing workshop facilitator, documentarian and playwright. She is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? Documentary (2007): a documentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image. Lately she’s been obsessed with the body (in parts) & the stories it h(old)s. Recently she has begun a year-long theatrical mixed-media project,9 Ounces: A One Woman Show. 9 Ouncesis an unkempt, de-ribbon-ed, narrative braid dangling with crooked parts. It yoga’s its way through the unexpected journey of a queer woman of color’s mid-life a-ha moment and extreme case of takotsubo’s cardiomyopathy. Using the audience as mirror, epiphany and diary, three narratives crochet themselves around evolving frames. Her poetry, fiction & nonfiction have been published widely.
Paradox and Choice: Visual Artist Jennifer Dalton
Visual artist Jennifer Dalton hosted TPR at her Brooklyn studio recently, where she makes thought-provoking work about her (and our) surroundings.
10,000 Year Warning System:A Workshop with multi-media artist Robert RheeSaturday, February 28th, 1-2pm at The Project RoomSpecial Guests include: Environmental Lawyers Wyatt Golding + Sara Leverette, Linguist Tanya Matthews, and Multi-Media Artist Vaughn Bell.
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Join Artist Robert Rhee and a group of interdisciplinary thinkers for the first free public workshop in our event series, The Legacy Assignments.
Robert poses this question to participants: How do you create a warning system to prevent an accidental unearthing of 200 million pounds of radioactive nuclear waste? A simple sign, some chain link and a military post might work today. But what about 10,000 years from now?
In 2002 the U.S. Department of Energy brought together engineers, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists and asked them this question. What type of warning system can be put in place so people, 370 generations from now, won't open the glowing door? What they came up with is hardly inspiring. Can we do better?
Together with a group of special guests, workshop participants will take a stab at designing this system while asking, "How Are We Remembered?"
Images above from the 2002 U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Proposal. It includes: a large earthen mound with a salt core and two identical Dr. Strangelove-esque control rooms with a warning message written in the six official languages of the U.N. and Navajo. Construction of this Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is currently stalled and (in our opinion) in desperate need of a redesign.
Spread the word about the event by sharing our facebook invitation!
Robert Rhee is based in New York and Seattle. He is an artist and writer and a professor at Cornish College of the Arts. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including White Columns in NY, the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul, and the Ferdinand Van Dieten Gallery in Amsterdam. He is currently represented by Opsis Art in Seoul and has an upcoming essay in the inaugural issue of Heck Magazine.
Rob Rhee (self portrait)
The legacy of Alvin Ailey has a powerful presence for those who appreciate the history of American dance, and American culture in general. This month in our podcast series, Alvin Ailey dancer and choreographer Matthew Rushing talks with Jess Van Nostrand about his memorable introduction to dance as a young man, and how he relates to our current Big Question, “How Are We Remembered?”
Thursday, February 5th at 7p at The Project RoomAuthor Michelle Peñaloza launches The Project Room's new topic, Monument, with a discussion about the unseen Seattle monuments she uncovered while writing her forthcoming book landscape/heartbreak.
Over the course of a year, Michelle asked people in Seattle to take her on walks from the Richard Hugo House to places in the city where they’d had their hearts broken. With poems and maps, Peñaloza's chapbook landscape/heartbreak creates a literary cartography of heartbreak in Seattle.
Join us to ask, "How do our ephemeral experiences create monuments? What kind of story can a city tell if this isn't just the corner of Broadway and John, but the corner where X learned that Y never really loved him? Or if this isn't just the hospital across the street, but the place where Z told her mother she loved her for the very last time?"
landscape/heartbreak book cover (Tessa Hulls)
Photo by Timothy Aguero Photography for Poetry on Buses, King County, WA
About Michelle:
Michelle Peñaloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming from The Asian American Literary Review, The New England Review, TriQuarterly, Pleiades, Pinwheel, and INCH. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, Artist Trust, Jack Straw, the Richard Hugo House, and Literary Arts, as well as scholarships from VONA Voices, PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists), Vermont Studio Center, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. She lives in Seattle. Her chapbook, landscape / heartbreak, is forthcoming from Two Sylvias Press on Valentine's Day, 2015.
Michelle also recently published an essay, "Who Was Your First Hero, Michelle Peñaloza?" on TPR's online literary journal, Off Paper. Take a peek to learn more about the character that brought her comfort and courage: Muhammad Ali.
Illustrations by Tessa Hulls
As an organization dedicated to works in progress and unfinished ideas, The Project Room is interested in the pursuit rather than the final product. But how do you map a landscape that has no landmarks? How do you chart a trajectory that has no investment in end points? We value the exploratory over the concrete, and while this embedded flexibility is what makes us unique, it also creates a singularly interesting ongoing challenge: it is nearly impossible to explain what The Project Room is.
This Fight Club-esque atmosphere is not intentional. It is simply the natural byproduct of operating as a constantly shifting experiment, and our organizational continuity comes in the form of our Big Questions. From 2011-2013, The Project Room asked: Why Do We Make Things? And from 2013-2015, we are asking: How Are We Remembered? These questions function as guiding principles, and all of our programming is based around our Big Questions. It is only though this lens that our little think-tank/event space/literary journal/lab/meeting place/incubator/sure-we-might-occasionally-put-framed-art-on-the-walls-but-we-are-not-an-art-gallery starts to make any measure of cohesive sense.
With our founder Jess Van Nostrand having accepted a position at MoMA, The Project Room is transitioning into a new chapter. At its helm is our new Incoming Director, Tia Kramer. “I’ve been holding off on the question of how to introduce myself,” Tia explains as she pours hot water for tea. She smiles ruefully and shrugs before handing me a mug. “I do so many seemingly unrelated things that I might end up sounding really disjointed.”
For some organizations, it is true that having an impossibly multi-faceted Director might be seen as confusing or detrimental. But for The Project Room, this is a very fitting problem. (Full disclosure: Tia has been one of my closest friends for five years, and as such I am (happily) incapable of writing a dryly-professional introduction for her. Again, this seems apt.)
The solution to the question of how to introduce Tia Kramer is embedded within the organizational structure of the Project Room itself. Yes, Tia’s identity as a curator/educator/traveler/artist/consultant/outdoorswoman/jeweler does indeed defy concise explanation: but it also illustrates why she is the perfect person to take the reins here at The Project Room. These distinct roles are all lines of inquiry in service of Tia’s personal Big Question: What Makes Life Meaningful?
Tia’s versatility is outmatched only by her endless curiosity, and the insightful concentration that she brings to each of her disciplines gives her a broadly open-minded depth of focus that is a delight to behold. She is an artist, designer and curator who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and at Macalester College. She has a special interest in collaborative, socially engaged and site-specific arts programming, and has curated exhibitions and art happenings at Bellevue Arts Museum, SOIL Gallery, American Institute of Architects, and Canoe Social Club.
In addition to her object-based works, she has presented public performances at Fort Lawton in Seattle's Discovery Park, Smoke Farm in Arlington, WA, the Bellevue Arts Museum, and downtown Chicago. Recently awarded a 2015 Duwamish Revealed Grant and the 4Culture Historic Site-Specific Collaborative Grant, she is currently collaborating with choreographer Tamin Totzke to produce a durational performance for the Georgetown Steam Plant debuting in the fall of 2015.
But these are all things that you can learn about Tia if you spend enough time on her website. If you dig deeply enough, you will learn that Tia’s inquisitive nature has pulled her to some very interesting places. You will learn that she spent two seasons working in Antarctica— the first as a vehicle operator, the second as a communications specialist— and has studied traditional West African fibers in Ghana. You will uncover a consistent interest in architecture and utility, in the melding of function and form. You will discover a curiosity for kinesthetics and the mechanical underpinnings of movement. You will be introduced to the varied questions of a fascinatingly searching mind.
But what you cannot learn from reading about Tia’s career is how deeply she cares about everything that she does. Her website will not show you the beautifully considered intention that she brings to each of her actions. You will not learn that she eats a lot of aged cheddar cheese, or that she has a very friendly dog named Otis. You won’t see her love of the mountains or her appreciation for silence. And you won’t be introduced to her husband, Tim, a physician and woodworker who stands as a quietly understated foundation that always encourages Tia to explore.
I have had the privilege of learning these things about Tia through the course of our friendship, and more so than her impressive professional resume, it is these small details that make me excited to see what she will do in her new role. The Project Room is an unorthodox organization, and it requires unorthodox leadership: our new curator/educator/traveler/artist/consultant/outdoorswoman/jeweler Director couldn’t be more perfect for the job.
Now meet The Project Room's Editor, Tessa Hulls.
Tessa Hulls is a reader, writer, illustrator, painter, public speaker and all-around maker.
Illustration by the multi-talented woman herself, Tessa Hulls.
This presents a problem. The problem lies within describing someone creative who does everything because they could be misrepresented as a hobbyist. It is the curse of the multitalented. So, I very carefully note that Tessa makes work and executes her ideas in a variety of forms, such as illustration, writing, murals, and performance art (I’m not even sure she would call it that, but what else do you call a spoken presentation with drawings that illustrate an idea one is grappling with?). You may have seen Tessa sketching at a TPR event as her way of note-taking, or perhaps you have read her beautiful responses to one of her ambitious solo overseas bicycle trips (yes, she is also good at biking alone in remote places).
What makes perfect sense throughout all of her efforts is the honesty in everything she makes, as she unapologetically interweaves her different creative formats with her personal life in beautiful ways. This is perhaps most noticeable in the outstanding personal essays she has published during her solo travels and her way of explaining how inspiration comes to her from such different sources as Calvin & Hobbesand The Great Gatsby.
Tessa has the perfect open-mindedness of someone who is curious about creativity and is not bothered by the experimental nature of The Project Room. Directing TPR’s online platform for writing and thinking about creativity can only be put in the hands of an editor who knows when to get on the abstract side of an idea and when to just get something direct and understandable on paper- er, online. In other words, the trick to Off Paper is creating a readable collection of essays and images that reflect on TPR’s current themes while grounding them in something anyone can read and enjoy. Tessa Hulls is the perfect person for this challenge.
I am honored by Tessa’s loyalty to TPR since she first offered her skills in 2012, and I cannot wait to see what she makes happen in 2015!
Thanks, Tessa (:
Xoxoxo
Jess
Now meet The Project Room's Director, Tia Kramer
Jess Van Nostrand took a New York-centric storyline this month, interviewing author Sherill Tippins, who recently published a book about the famous NY art hub, The Chelsea Hotel. Sherill uncovered incredible stories about the creative people who lived and visit this historic hotel, and it’s a perfect fit for our current “Monument” topic. Thanks for listening!
Image from Story of the Roman People by E. M. Tappan
In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again.
—Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder
On January 10th of the year 49 BC, General Julius Caesar led his troops across the Rubicon River and uttered the phrase “alea iacta est”: the die is cast. In crossing the Rubicon, Caesar knowingly created a point of no return: he catalyzed a civil war in which he would either face execution as a traitor, or become a conquering hero.
Stories of transformation often contain tipping points, fulcrums upon which the narrative shifts and we are suddenly able to split the tale into before and after. But these moments are rarely as clearly defined as the crossing of a literal river, and more often than not, stories of transformation are testaments to the understated power of accumulation. We see progress in retrospect, and it is only when we turn around and look back that we can concretely point and say, “Right there. That is when it started to change.”
Two weeks ago, The Project Room hosted a conversation with Ahamefule J. Oluo to talk about his recent show Now I’m Fine, a highly personal, genre-spanning pop opera performed at On the Boards. Oluo’s show melded music, standup comedy, and unabashedly intimate storytelling to examine the ways in which we learn to be okay even during those moments at which we are anything but. Oluo joined us to discuss how Now I’m Fine dovetails with The Project Room’s current topic of Transformation.
The first threads of Now I’m Fine began percolating as Oluo’s life was falling apart. He experienced a death and a divorce that leveled him, and in the midst of this personal low point, he developed a rare disease that caused his skin to literally fall apart. As a lifelong musician, Oluo knew how to find release through making work; but as his skin disintegrated, he could not touch the tools that would allow him some measure of release.
But in the midst of this helplessness and despair, Olou found a beat up old organ out on the street, and he brought it home to his basement apartment. His skin was too fragile to press the keys of a real keyboard, but the cheap plastic keys of this discarded organ were light enough that he could touch them. And so he brought this organ into his closet and lightly stroked the keys with his skinless fingers, making music in the only way that he could.
And in that small moment, he was fine.
The title Now I’m Fine can be read in two ways. The first implies a before and after: I was not ok, but now I am. The second is more nuanced: I cannot speak to any larger truth, but within this singular moment, I am ok. It seems to me that this second meaning is more honest: it acknowledges that the resonance of emotional truth always carries within it a fleeting dusting of uncertainty.
Human beings are storytellers. Our capacity for narrative—our ability to define ourselves through self-created mythology—is what makes our species unique. It also makes us melodramatic; we want our stories to be epic. We want our generals to charge across the Rubicon bellowing binary battle cries. But transformation is the accumulation of transitory moments strung together, and it happens with the soothing cadence of walking: we put one foot in front of the other until we can look up to see that the landscape has changed. That we have borne ourselves away to somewhere new.
So as 2014 draws to a close and we welcome 2015, let us take a moment to pause and reflect on the slowness of one single glorious thing. Let us look not to the flashy reinvention of crossing Rubicon, but instead focus on the small streams that we ford each day. Happy New Year, everyone.
Monday, December 15th at 7:30pm at The Project RoomMusician/performer/comedian Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Now I’m Fine is a genre-spanning pop opera of “darkly funny personal stories about illness, despair, and regeneration.” Stemming from a period in his life in which everything seemed to be falling apart, Oluo’s Now I’m Fine is a creative exploration of how we navigate moments of hopelessness. Join us for a conversation with Oluo about this work, and how it dovetails with The Project Room’s current topic of Transformation.
About the Presenter:
Ahamefule J. Oluo is a composer, comedian, and trumpet player. Oluo was the first Artist-in-Residence at Town Hall in Seattle. A longtime writing partner of comedian Hari Kondabolu, he has performed nationally with bands including Das Racist and Hey Marseilles, and is a fixture in the local and national comedy scenes. His garage-jazz quartet Industrial Revelation won the 2014 Stranger Genius Award. Oluo lives and works in Seattle.
Photograph by Bruce Tom
Two-Hundred and Thirty-Two since we opened in July, 2011! Here is our list of past presenters, podcast interviewees, and contributing writers:
Adrian Michna
Ahamefule J. Olou
Alina Hua
Alicia Eler
Allan Packer
Allison Ellis
Amanda Manitach
Amy Poisson
Amy Schrader
Amy O’Neal
Anastacia Tolbert
Andy Meyer
Angela B. Ginorio
Angela Jane Fountas
Anne Blackburn
Anne Carson
Antoine Wilson
Barbara Dollarhide-Pritchard
Barbara Earl Thomas
Ben Blankenship
Bernadette Bascom
Bill Wood
Bill Horist
Bonnie Hammond
Brangien Davis
Brett Hamil
Brian Emery
Bruce Machart
Bryan Cook
Byron Au Yong
C. Davida Ingram
Cameron Hall
Cameron Anne Mason
Carrie Akre
Charles Mudede
Charles Spitzack
Charlie Matlack
Claire Barboza
Claude Zervas
Corey Blaustein
Dale Dougherty
Dan Webb
Dave Zucker
David Eadington
David Mura
David Henry
David Nixon
David Vaughan
Dawn Losinger
Dean Moore
Derrick Jefferies
DJ Brass
Donald Byrd
Elisabeth Robson
Elizabeth Davis
Elizabeth Kenny
Ellen Forney
Ellen Garvens
Ellie Dicola
Emily Marsh
Emily White
Emma Desjardins
Emmet V Smith
Emmett Montgomery
Eric Olson
Erin Shafkind
Ethan Schoonover
Evan J. Peterson
Ezra Cooper
Faustine Hudson
Fiia McGann
Frederick Robinson III
Garrett Fisher
Gilbert Baker
Gina Frangello
Greg Stonebreaker
Gregory Laynor
Gretta Harley
Hannah Stephenson
Harmony Hasbrook
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir
Hsu-Ken Ooi
Jan Wallace
Jane Charles
Janet Yoder
Jason Dodson
Jason Schmidt
Jean Hicks
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jeffrey Mongrain
Jeffry Mitchell
Jenifer Woffard
Jenifer Ward
Jennifer Borges Foster
Jennifer Dalton
Jennifer McCoy
Jentry Sayers
Jesmyn Ward
Joe Henry
Joey Bates
Joey Veltkamp
John Gilbreath
John Grade
John Osebold
Jonathan Miles
Jonathan Zwickel
Joshua Brevoort
Joshua Wolf Shenk
Juan Pablo Macías
Julia Harrison
Justin Runge
Kate Lebo
Kate Willette
Katrina Hess
Keely Isaak Meehan
Kelleen Conway Blanchard
Kevin McCoy
Kim Virant
Kim Fu
Korby Sears
Kristen T. Ramirez
Langdon Cook
Laura Gonzales
Laura Vanderpool
Lauren K. Alleyne
Leah Umansky
Lee Smolin
Leo Saul Berk
Lesley Hazleton
Lisa Chun
Lisa Halpern
Lowery Stokes Sims
Lucy Hanna
Luisa Igloria
Madeline Williams
Mandy Greer
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Mary Sharratt
Matthew Amster-Burton
Matthew Baldwin
Matthew Rushing
Maya Sonenberg
Megan Jasper
Melinda Moustakis
Melissa Toogood
Michael Schmeltzer
Michelle Peñaloza
Mike Katell
Molly Lannon Kenny
Munenori Takeda
Nadine Antoinette Maestas
Nancy Guppy
Natasha Marin
Nicholas Kripal
Nick Courtright
Pam Houston
Patricia Smith
Patrick McGann
Patrinell Wright
Patterson Clark
Paul Rucker
Paul Kikuchi
Paul Marioni
Peg Wood
Peres Owino
Pete Bjordahl
Peter Van Lier
Peter Steinbrueck
Rachel Kessler
Rebecca Brown
Rebecca Walker
Redwood Stephens
Reeve Van Nostrand
Rhonda Pelikan
Robbie Hill
Robert Currie
Robert Rhee
Rodrigo Valenzuela
Ryan Feddersen
Ryan K. Adams
Sally Johnson
Sarah Rudinoff
Sarah Bergmann
Sasha Pasulka
Saskia Delores
Scotch Wichmann
Sharon Arnold
Shawn Telford
Sherill Tippins
Sheryl Wiser
Sierra Nelson
Siolo Thompson
SJ Chiro
Sonora Jha
Sooyoung Shin
Stephanie Emery Wicker
Steven Barker
Steven Strogatz
Stokley Towles
Storme Webber
Stuart Dempster
Suiren
Susie Evans
Susie J. Lee
Tameka Norris
Tara Austen Weaver
Tess Lotta
Tessa Hulls
Tim O'Reilly
Tim Detweiler
Timothy Firth
Tom Kundig
Tony Benton
Trimpin
Troy Gua
Valerie Agnew
Vanessa Veselka
Veit Stratmann
Vik Prjonsdottir Design Collective
Wendy Call
Wes Hurley
Zephyr Paquette
Most recently updated: September 2016
Photography by Katie Miller
Thank you to everyone who came out to support donum, our TPR fundraiser! We were honored to feature beautiful work by local artists (learn more about them here, and view studio visits here). The Project Room continually looks to support innovative makers, and we appreciate their generosity in supporting our work in return. Special thanks to our food sponsor Artusi, and to Britt Rynearson, donum founder, who selected The Project Room for this year's event.
The event was a huge success, and we are grateful for all your generosity.
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by Katie Miller
Photography by Nicholas Strobelt
On September 30th 2014, The Project Room gathered twelve artists and twelve technologists for the purpose of engaging in high-powered yet very brief conversations, under the watchful eyes of twelve "chaperones." The event was called Art & Technology: Speed Dating 2.0.
by Nicholas Strobelt
Thanks to our hard-working chaperones, we have notes from every conversation that took place, and we did our best to tweet as fast as we could during the one-minute break between "dates." We didn't have time to tweet everything--and some handwriting was just too indecipherable!--but we did our best.
Thank you to Siren, our co-host, and our wonderful participants, whose investment and curiosity made this event a success! Read more about structure of the event in our original invitation. Stay tuned for future Art & Technology events!
Below are some particularly good responses to a few of the questions we asked:
When do you do your best problem-solving?
Which matters more to you, that your work be critically acclaimed, or that it be wildly popular?
by Nicholas Strobelt
Should your work last forever? If so, how and why?
What does it look like when your work fails?
by Nicholas Strobelt
What would you do if you weren’t an artist/technologist?
by Nicholas Strobelt
What might a monument built for you look like?
Icelandic visual artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir aka Shoplifter invited TPR Founder Jess to her studio in New York for a conversation about collecting, making, and our current Big Question, "How Are We Remembered?" Much was discussed beyond these topics as well, including playing between art and fashion. have a listen!
I want to write you all with some big and exciting news:
As of November 3rd, I will no longer be Founder/Director of The Project Room, but will begin my new job as Assistant Director of Exhibition Programs and Gallery Initiatives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This is an incredible opportunity to bring what I have created and learned at The Project Room to a world-class art institution that has been producing arts programming since 1929!
Although I will be joining a larger institution with a richer history, I will bring with me my love of Seattle and the curiosity of its people that allowed The Project Room to thrive. There were many moments over the past three years when I would conclude an event and think to myself, "People really care about the arts here and are open to weird experiments in creativity- this city is awesome!" In other words, Seattle pride follows me to New York.
Thanks to people like you who have attended events, shared your work, donated money, and followed along from afar, we have produced unique arts programs for free since 2011. We have featured the work of over two-hundred creative leaders, makers and thinkers, and have been able to position the organization to continue beyond my leadership, which is a dream come true.
Moving forward, I will join the TPR Board of Directors and will help transition programs and operations to the brilliant Tia Kramer, who has been working with us as a volunteer since 2012 and has more than earned the title of Director of The Project Room.
Among her many skills, Tia Kramer is an artist, designer and curator who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Macalester College. She has a special interest in collaborative, socially engaged and site-specific arts programming, and has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Macalester College, and the School of Visual Arts in Minneapolis.
I look forward to keeping in touch with all of you in my new role as a TPR Board member as we continue to work towards realizing the goals of the organization. This is a very special organization to me and, although I would have created arts programming even if no one showed up, having all of you with me has been the best part.
Love,
Jess
From left: Eric Olson, Emmett Montgomery, and Timothy Firth suited up for failure
For those of you wondering what took place at our Failure Variety Show at Bumbershoot, and for those who were there and want to see it once more, take a look at these excerpts of failure, featuring the following brave souls:
Comedian Emmett Montgomery (our unflappable host)
Playwright Kelleen Conway-Blanchard
Singer/Songwriter Carrie Akre
Comedian Brett Hamil
AND: Our Rube Goldberg Machine Creators, Eric Olson & Timothy Firth!
In keeping with the show's theme, the quality of the video is poor, but we think it gives you a sense of the event and how much fun everyone had- enjoy!
In anticipation of donum, our upcoming art and fashion sale, we visited the studios of each of the featured artists to learn more about why they make what they make and where their ideas come from. Enjoy these excerpts and join us for the event!
donum: A Contemporary Art and Fashion Sale
November 21st & 22nd 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm each day
location : The Project Room @ 1315 E. Pine, Seattle
About donum:
donum is an annual contemporary art and fashion charitable event. Featuring high quality, artful products made by selected notable local designers, donum brings together a group of established artists and designers in an effort to present their unique work to consumers and to raise money for a Seattle-based nonprofit. This year's show will support The Project Room. Participating artists will donate a portion of their proceeds to the organization. Admission to this event is free. Items for sale will range from $50 to $1000.
Special thanks to talented videographer Daniel Laninga
Jess sits down with artist Juan Pablo Macias to talk about his upcoming show that documents
A Contemporary Art and Fashion Sale
November 21st & 22nd 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm each day
location : The Project Room @ 1315 E. Pine, Seattle
The Project Room is honored to be the chosen non-profit organization for this year's Donum fundraiser! Please join us during this two-day event that features some of the best designers working in Seattle today.
donum is an annual contemporary art and fashion charitable event. Featuring high quality, artful products made by selected notable local designers, donum brings together a group of established artists and designers in an effort to present their unique work to consumers and to raise money for a Seattle-based nonprofit. This year's show will support The Project Room. Participating artists will donate a portion of their proceeds to the organization. Admission to this event is free. Items for sale will range from $50 to $1000.
Watch studio visit videos with each of the designers!
Participating Artists & Designers
Tia Kramer, jewelry
Moth and Crow by Dawn Smithson, handbags
ARAE by Britt Rynearson, scarves & shawls
Mia Fioravanti, women's clothing
Bremelo Press by Lynda Sherman, letterpress
Pariscope Studiosby Elena Korakianitou, jewelry & ceramics
Scroll below for sample images!
questions about the event? email inquiry@araeform.com
Tia Kramer
Tia Kramer
Tia Kramer
Moth and Crow
Moth and Crow
Moth and Crow
ARAE
ARAE
ARAE
Mia Fioravanti
Mia Fioravanti
Bremelo Press
Bremelo Press
Elena Korakianitou
Elena Korakianitou
Thank you to our food sponsor, Artusi!
Sunday, October 26 at 12pm
at The Beacon/Massive Monkees Studio*
664 S King St, Seattle, WA 98104
FREE - no registration required
Join us for a special presentation and conversation with choreographer Amy O'Neal and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Director of Performing Arts Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Using O'Neal's forthcoming debut of the same name, "Opposing Forces" addresses assumptions and rethinking of B-Boy culture, contemporary dance, gender roles, and other questions of opposition found in this new work. Part of The Project Room's investigation of the topic of "Transformation", this program draws on Joseph's dual expertise as hip hop generation curator and playwright and celebrates the world premiere of O'Neal's new work.
*Note the location- this program is not at The Project Room!
Opposing Forces debuts at On the Boards October 23, 24, 25, 26. Tickets and more info here!
About the Presenters:
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is one of America's most vital voices in performance, arts education, and artistic curation. After appearing on Broadway as a young actor, Joseph developed several poetry-based works for the stage including Word Becomes Flesh, Scourge, and the break/s that have toured across the US, Europe, and Africa. Joseph's Word Becomes Flesh was re-mounted in December 2010 as part of the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces series, and will tour throughout the US and Canada. An acclaimed educator and essayist, Joseph has lectured at more than 200 colleges and universities, appeared as a commentator on NPR, and carried adjunct professorships at Stanford University, Lehigh University, Mills College, and the University of Wisconsin. He is the co-founder of Life is Living, a national series of one-day festivals designed to activate under-resourced parks and affirm peaceful urban life through hip-hop arts and focused environmental action. Joseph is also the artistic director of the seven-part HBO documentary "Russell Simmons presents Brave New Voices" and an inaugural recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is the 2011 Alpert Award winner in Theater and in April 2012, he was one of 21 artists to be named to the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artists. He currently serves as Director of Performing Arts at Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.
Amy O’Neal is a diverse dancer, performer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Seattle WA. For the last 15 years, she has taught and performed throughout the US, Japan and Mexico and choreographed for stage, commercials, rock shows, galleries, dance films and music videos. Her work is an amalgam of her diverse movement and life experiences presenting social commentary with dark humor and heavy beats. She is the recipient of numerous grants including awards from Creative Capital, the National Performance Network, the National Dance Project, Mid Atlantic Arts and the James W. Ray Project Venture Award. Amy has been an artist-in-residence at Bates Dance Festival, Headlands Center for the Arts, the US/Japan Choreographer’s Exchange, and Velocity Dance Center. She is a two-time Artist Trust Fellow, a DanceWEB Scholar, two-time Stranger Genius Awards nominee. She has worked extensively with musician/comedian Reggie Watts since 2002 both on stage and screen. She choreographed his Comedy Central produced “Fuck, Shit, Stack” video and toured nationally in his show Disinformation. She has created commissioned pieces for Degenerate Art Ensemble and Spectrum Dance Theater and collaborated with Savion Glover and Daniel Bernard Roumain through Seattle Theater Group. She has performed in the work of Pat Graney, Scott/Powell Performance, and Mark Haim. From 2000 to 2010, she was co-director of locust (music/dance/video) with musician/composer Zeke Keeble, creating six evening-length works and several shorter works. She teaches Contemporary Dance and Hip-Hop/Urban Styles at Velocity Dance Center and House at The Beacon: Massive Monkees studio in Seattle. She also teaches dance composition and improvisation for Seattle Theater Group’s Dance This program and the Seattle Youth Dance Collective. She holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, and her dance writing has been published in Dance Magazine, City Arts Magazine, and ArtDish Forum.
Thursday, October 23
7-7:45PM & 8-8:45pm
We are delighted to welcome back the annual Lit Crawl Seattle event to The Project Room! This year, two of the evening's program will take place at TPR in conjunction with our current "Transformation" topic. For the complete listing of all Lit Crawl activities, go here.
7PM: Hedgebrook Presents: Past Lives featuring Emily White, Lisa Halpern, Kate Willette, and Janet Yoder, with Sonora Jha
8PM: Superheroes vs. Fairy Tales featuring Angela Jane Fountas, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Michael Schmeltzer, and Maya Sonenberg, with Evan J. Peterson
More info:
7PM: Hedgebrook Presents: Past Lives: Hedgebrook alumnae Emily White, Lisa Halpern, Kate Willette, and Janet Yoder read work on ghosts, gods, grief, and native tongues. Hosted by Sonora Jha (Foreign).
About Hedgebrook:
Hedgebrook is a global community of women writers and people who seek extraordinary books, poetry, plays, films and music by women. A literary nonprofit, our mission is to support visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. We offer writing residencies, master classes and salons at our 25-year-old retreat on Whidbey Island, and public programs that connect writers with readers and audiences around the world. Learn more at https://www.hedgebrook.org/
About the Readers:
Emily White is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. She has published two books of nonfiction with Scribner: Fast Girls, Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut and You Will Make Money In Your Sleep, a biography of a con man who was also a close friend. Her short stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Greensboro Review, The Sonora Review and Black Clock. Her articles - about topics like teenagers, con artists, military recruiters and gaming addicts - have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Stranger and Seattle Metropolitan among others. She has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, as well as Editor in Chief of The Stranger. Recently she was invited to speak at the Harvard - Berlin dialogues about the persistence of the Slut archetype in American high schools. She teaches in the low residency MFA program at Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Award-winning writer/director/producer Lisa Halpern recently worked with Marta Kauffman (co-creator FRIENDS) to develop Lisa’s screenplay adaptation of the best-selling novel ‘Broken For You’. Lisa is a two time Hedgebrook alumni, and is a member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Writers Group. Her first play ‘Flying Through Blue’ was a 2011 PlayPenn Finalist and was selected for staged readings at the Great Plains Theater Conference (Playlab) 2013, Uprooted Theater’s Playwrights Festival in Milwaukee 2013 and the Northwest Playwright’s Alliance 2014. Intiman Theatre commissioned Lisa to write ‘Metanoia: A Change of Mind’ which recently had a staged reading at the Seattle Repertory Theater. For more info go to: www.thirdeyeproductions.org
Kate Willette is a 2003 Hedgebrook alumna. She has published short literary fiction (“Evidence,” Best of Writers at Work 1994), memoir (Some Things Are Unbreakable) and narrative non-fiction (Working 2 Walk 2012). She holds a variety of degrees and certificates from the University of Washington and the Seattle School of Psychology and Theology.
From her home in Bellevue, Kate is currently working on two projects: one is a novel about an unusual church run by a young atheist pastor, and the other is a manual for lay people interested in the science of spinal cord injury and its cure. She’s married to artist/musician/geek/pun-lover Bruce Hanson, with whom she’s raised a pair of insanely wonderful daughters.
Janet Yoder lives with her husband on their Seattle houseboat, the floating nation of Tui Tui. Her writing has appeared in Raven Chronicles, Bayou, Porcupine, Passager, The MacGuffin, North Dakota Quarterly, The Evansville Review, The Massachusetts Review, Pilgrimage, River Teeth, Chautauqua, and Signs of Life. She is currently at work on a collection of personal essays inspired by her friendship with Skagit tribal elder, the late Vi Hilbert.
Sonora Jha is a novelist and a professor of journalism. She was born in India and had a successful career as a journalist in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Singapore before moving to the United States to earn a PhD in Political Communication. She is now Associate Professor of Journalism at Seattle University. Her debut novel, Foreign, exploring both Seattle and the suicide of farmers in the villages of contemporary India, has met with much critical acclaim and brings together her work as a journalist, an academic, and a creative writer. She is now writing a memoir.
8PM: Superheroes vs. Fairy Tales: Drawn to Marvel contributors Jeannine Hall Gailey (Becoming the Villainess) and Michael Schmeltzer (Floating Bridge Review) battle fairy tale writers Maya Sonenberg (Learning to Paint) and Angela Jane Fountas (Fairy Tale Review). Hosted by Minor Arcana Press editor-in-chief Evan J. Peterson.
About the readers:
Jeannine Hall Gailey recently served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She is the author of four books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, and The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, out in 2015 from Mayapple Press. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review and Prairie Schooner. Her web site is www.webbish6.com.
Michael Schmeltzer earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. His honors include six Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and the Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. He has been a finalist for the Four Way Books Intro and Levis Prizes as well as the OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry. He helps edit A River & Sound Review and has been published in PANK, Rattle, Natural Bridge, and Mid-American Review, among others.
Maya Sonenberg has been playing with fairy tales since she was 10 and wrote a story about a doll who was also a princess and also a fairy. Her more recent fiction—much of it fairy tale based—has appeared in two collections—Cartographies (winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize) and Voices from the Blue Hotel, and in numerous literary journals, including Fairy Tale Review, Web Conjunctions, and DIAGRAM. The Cupboard will publish a pamphlet of her fiction, with pictures, in 2015. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Washington—Seattle.
Angela Jane Fountas is a former Hugo House Writer-in-Residence and Jack Straw Writer. Her work has appeared in Fairy Tale Review, Quick Fiction, Diagram, and elsewhere. She has been awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship and grants from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture. She also serves on the board at Lit Crawl Seattle.
Evan J. Peterson is the author of Skin Job (2012 Minor Arcana Press) and The Midnight Channel (2013 Babel/Salvage Press), as well as volume editor of the 2014 Lambda Award finalist Gay City 5: Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam (Gay City Anthologies & Minor Arcana Press). His poetry, fiction, journalism, and criticism have appeared in Weird Tales, The Stranger, The Rumpus, Assaracus, Nailed, Court Green, and Aim for the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry, from which his poetry was excerpted in The New York Times. He is the new Editor-in-Chief of Minor Arcana Press, recipient of a smART Ventures grant from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and publisher of the anthology Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books.
Japanese Noh master Munenori Takeda and composer Garrett Fisher of the Fisher Ensemble join Jess at the Project room to talk about their collaboration and our current topic of "transformation" and how it relates to the rich tradition of opera and Japanese Noh Theatre.
September 23, 7-8:30pm at The Project Room
with Special Guests: Writers Kelley Eskridge & Nicola Griffith; Haruko Nishimura & Joshua Kohl (Degenerate Art Ensemble); Gretta Harley & Sarah Rudinoff (We Are Golden)
What does it take for a two-person partnership to succeed?
In response to this question, TPR presents a collaboration workshop by author Joshua Wolf Shenk. Joshua will present the ideas in his new book POWERS OF TWO and engage participants in thinking about and identifying the beneficial partnerships in their lives using the research he conducted for the book. This is aimed at the general public, with an emphasis on those who work in pairs and would like to learn more about Joshua's research and its impact on creativity and success.
Read Joshua's recent article about creative pairs in The Atlantic
Pre-order the book from Elliott Bay Book Company and pick it up on your way to the event!
Join Joshua with TPR's Jess Van Nostrand for a conversation at Town Hall Seattle the night prior to the workshop for additional insight into this revealing look at creative collaboration.
About the Presenter:
Joshua Wolf Shenk is the author of Lincoln’s Melancholy, a New York Times Notable Book. A contributor to the Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, and other publications, he directs the Arts in Mind series on creativity and serves on the general council of The Moth.
September 22, 7:30 - 8:45pm at TOWN HALL: tickets $5
And join in a creative pairs workshop with Joshua on September 23rd at The Project Room!
For every John Lennon and Mark Zuckerberg, there’s a Paul McCartney and a Sheryl Sandberg. According to Joshua Wolf Shenk, creativity and innovation work best in pairs. Powers of Two analyzes historical dynamic duos — from politicians and musicians, to artists and business partners. His “eye-opening, illuminating” account highlights the ways these partnerships are created and how these dyads mutually propel one another to greatness. He’ll outline the stages of a successful partnership — meeting, confluence, archetypes, distance, the infinite game, and interruption — explaining why creativity hinges on collaboration. He’ll appear in conversation with Jess Van Nostrand, the Founder of The Project Room.
Presented by: Town Hall, The Project Room, and Elliott Bay Book Company, as part of the Arts & Culture series. Sponsored by City Arts.
Tickets: $5.
Town Hall member benefits: Priority seating, discounted onsite book sales.
Doors open: 6:30 p.m.
Learn more: Quotes from famous creative pairs
About the Presenter:
Joshua Wolf Shenk is an essayist, author, and curator based in Los Angeles. His most recent book, Powers of Two: Seeking the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (Eamon Dolan Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). His magazine pieces include cover stories inHarper’s, Time, and The Atlantic, where his essay "What Makes Us Happy?" was the most read article in the history of that magazine’s website. His work has also appeared in Slate,The New Yorker, The New York Times, and the national bestseller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey. His first book, Lincoln’s Melancholy, was named one of the best books of 2005 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, and won awards from The Abraham Lincoln Institute, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and the National Mental Health Association.
When he’s not reporting and writing, Josh spends his time leading and supporting creative communities. He is a curator, storyteller and advisor to The Moth; vice-chair emeritus of the board of directors, he currently serves on the general council. He is also a past director of the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College, where he curated programs and festivals and directed a small literary press. Shenk consults to the Erikson Institute for Education and Research at the Austen Riggs Center, where he develops creative programs, including Arts in Mind, a conversation series on the intersections of the creative arts and psychology co-hosted by the New School in New York City.
Josh has taught creative writing at The New School, New York University, Washington College, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and in private groups. His other publications include In Lincoln's Hand, co-edited by Harold Holzer, an anthology of original original manuscripts with original essays by luminaries including John Updike, Toni Morrison, and Tony Kushner.
Other honors include residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Norman Mailer Center; a Rosalynn Carter fellowship in mental health journalism at the Carter Center; a Japan Society Media Fellowship; and the Frank Whiting scholarship at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Josh was a 2005-06 fellow in non-fiction literature at the New York Foundation for the Arts.
He lives in Silverlake and is the father to a four-year-old boy who, like Josh, has webbed toes.
Tuesday, September 30, 6:30-8:30PM
at 10 degrees: 1312 E. Union St. (Capitol Hill)*
Live Twitter Feed: @projectroomSEA / #ArtTechSpeedDating
In a revival of The Project Room's 2012 Art & Technology Experiment, we are expanding the size and format of the event for Speed Dating, version 2.0! This time, the public is invited to join the experiment (registration required!) Featuring top-notch makers in art and technology, this event introduces creative people who may not meet each other otherwise for an entertaining evening of "first dates" that allows for 250 conversations to take place in one hour!
A speed date from the 2012 event, with Computer Scientist Elisabeth Robson and Composer Byron Au Yong, under the dutifully-tweeting chaperone and Seattle Magazine Arts Editor Brangien Davis
Both art and technology are unavoidable aspects of life, so how can they be resources for each other? The goal of Speed Dating 2.0 is to explore the creative territory that is shared by art and technology and to begin conversation that could foster creative problem-solving between these fields.
Format: Each "date" is six minutes long and includes one artist, one technologist, and one facilitator ("chaperone") who is a highly-respected leader in their field. There is also time for general mingling and socializing before and after.
Players: Artists from a variety of disciplines including the performing, literary and visual arts; Technologists including programmers, developers, tech "evangelists" and more; Facilitators who produce ideas, such as artistic directors, CEO's, curators, editors, and attorneys.
Results: The chaperones will propose a topic for each date and will share their notes for live Twitter at #ArtTechSpeedDating. A final written response of our collective findings will be published on TPR's literary journal, Off Paper.
How to Prepare: Is there an issue or question about your work you'd like to ask your Art/Tech counterpart? Email it to jess@projectroomseattle.org in advance of the event so it can be worked into the topic questions during the dates! We would love to know what you are wrestling with that could be helpfully addressed by someone outside of your field. Other than that, just bring your curiosity and your conversation skills!
How to Register: If you are not one of our invited participants and want to join the fun, please write jess@projectroomseattle.org with your stated identity as "Artist", "Technologist" or "Producer" (who act as the facilitators) with a note about what kind of work you do. It's first-come, first-served, so write us soon! Update: We are currently at max capacity and unable to add any more participants; however if you would like to be added to the wait-list, let us know: jess@projectroomseattle.org
This program is inspired by Siren, the dating app created by artist Susie Lee and her technology team of Katrina Hess, Karen Caplan, Zuri Biringer, and Joren Winge. Responding to problems users often articulated in other online dating apps, Siren is a platform inspired by what works in real life and what women would choose their dating experience to be like. Siren represents Lee's creative skills as a visual and conceptual artist whose work examines contemporary issues, from aging to environmental fracking- more about her work can be found here
We are making use of a larger space around the corner to accommodate this more ambitious format! It's three blocks from TPR next to Oola Distillery. Special thanks to our program partner, 10 degrees!*
Musican and visual artist Paul Rucker and Jess sit down to talk about his on-going project on slavery and its relationship to current American issues about race and equality
At Bumbershoot!Sunday, August 31, 1:45-2:45pm
Charlotte Martin Theatre, Seattle Center (at the Seattle Children's Theatre)
FEATURING: Carrie Akre, Kelleen Conway Blanchard, Bryan Cook, Brett Hamil, and Eric Olson w/ Timothy Firth; hosted by Emmett Montgomery!
Entry to the show requires a Bumbershoot festival ticket, which can be purchased here
The Project Room presents an hour-long variety show featuring a critical part of the creative process: failure. Mixing humor with artistic disaster, The Failure Variety Show will feature rapid-fire presentations by a talented lineup of special guests, followed by the live on-stage reveal of the Failure Variety Show Rube Goldberg Machine, created during the show by artist Eric Olson and destined not to succeed.
Why are you making a Rube Goldberg Machine during a live show about failure? you may ask yourself. Well, we thought it was the ultimate test of something that's really difficult and is certainly not meant to be made in one hour in front of an audience in a theater. Thus, it has a high potential for disaster, and we think you will enjoy watching us face failure live on stage.
Why are you collecting stories of failure, and what am I supposed to do about it? you may also ask yourself. In order avoid failing alone, we would like to hear your personal anecdotes of failure for sharing during the Failure Variety Show (yes, you can be anonymous). Send your failure story to info@projectroomseattle.org
About the Presenters:
In the early ’90s, Carrie Akre was the lead singer of Hammerbox, a potent alternative rock outfit with guitar hooks as sharp as Nirvana’s but without the record label push the group deserved. In August 1993, Hammerbox performed at Endfest in Washington State to an audience of more than 14,000 fans, sharing the stage with well-known college-radio favorites like X, Social Distortion, and They Might Be Giants. The group was dropped, marking the beginning of Akre’s difficulties with major labels, one that would motivate her to start her own label, Good-Ink Records. Akre formed the band Goodness in 1994 whose self-titled first album was first released on Y Records and then later re-released onLava, an imprint of Atlantic Records. Their second LP, Anthem, for Atlantic in 1998 was shelved after failing to produce a “single”. The label dropped the band soon there after. Goodness disbanded in 2000. In 1999, Akre joined the Rockfords with guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Rick Friel (vocals), and ex-Goodness members Danny Newcomb (bass) and Chris Friel (drums). Akre released her solo debut, Home, in 2000 (on GoodInk Records), Invitation in 2002 (on self owned My Way Records) and Last the Evening in 2007 (on Loveless Records).
Kelleen Conway Blanchard is a Seattle playwright. Her work has been seen/produced at Annex Theatre, Macha Monkey, Balagan Theatre, Weird and Awesome, Live Girls!, 12 Minutes Max, 14/48, Spin the Bottle and as part of FringeACT. Her plays have been nominated for the Gregory awards and the Gypsy Rose Lee awards. Outside of Seattle, her plays have been part of Eight Tens at Eight in Santa Cruz, the 2nd Annual Festival of New Short Plays in Belfast, Maine and Perishable Theatre’s Women’s Playwriting Festival. She is inspired by ordinary creepiness and terrible secrets. She also enjoys those internet videos of raccoons. Her new play, The Blood Countess will be produced at Annex theater in the Fall. Come see it! There will be blood. http://thisisprettycreepy.blogspot.com/
Comic/writer Bryan Cook, recently named one of LA Weekly’s 10 Comics to Watch for 2014, is the host and creator of the live show (and podcast on the Nerdist network) Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction (one of Rolling Stone’s Top 10 Comedy Podcasts) presented every month at The Virgil in LA, as well as all over the US. He writes for Funny or Die, was featured in the comedy special Dancing Around the Shit Fire with Kyle Kinane, and has performed at JFL Chicago, Outside Lands (SF), High Plains Comedy Fest (Denver), SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Fest (Portland), Riot LA, and Bumbershoot (Seattle). Cook has also contributed to McSweeney’s, written for Ridiculousness on MTV, Fashion Police, and various Joan Rivers projects.
Brett Hamil is a standup comic based in Seattle, where The Stranger called him “a truly treasured ham.” He writes a monthly humor column for City Arts Magazine along with cartoons, essays, videos, and interviews. He performs at clubs, colleges, and festivals all over the U.S. and Canada, including the Bridgetown Comedy Festival (Portland), Northwest Comedy Fest (Vancouver) and Bumbershoot (right here now). He is the creator of the award-eligible one-man sketch comedy podcast Ham Radio with Brett Hamil, featured on the Earwolf Podcast Network’s Earwolf Challenge. His videos have been featured on websites like Upworthy and the Daily Dot, receiving hundreds of thousands of views. He lives atop Beacon Hill with his wife and two dogs, all of whom he found on the internet.
Emmett Montgomery (FVS Host) is a storyteller, comedian and artist who first found the stand-up stage in 2004 and has been failing beautifully ever since. Emmett has been involved in a lot of things including critically acclaimed comedy collectives, post apocalyptic variety shows, underground wrestling leagues and family friendly comedy nights in pizza restaurants. Mr. Montgomery has been featured the film “Seattle Komedy Documentary”, the coffee table book “Seattle 100: a portrait of a city” and multiple festivals including Bumbershoot and the Bridgetown Comedy and Sasquatch festivals. In addition to wandering the country telling jokes, he currently curates and hosts a love letter to Seattle in the form of variety show/sharing party entitled “Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery” at the beloved Annex Theatre; and is a member of the Seattle chapter of the Bushwick Book Club, a collection of musicians and artists that create and perform original works based on literary sources.
Eric John Olson (Rube Goldberg Machine Designer w/ Timothy Firth) is an artist and engineer. He studied computer science at Seattle University and human-computer interaction at Columbia University. Olson works with video, digital media, installation and participation to explore how we relate to ourselves and one another. Recently he helped create SEAWORTHY, a curatorial project dedicated to creative practices that value collaboration, experimentation, and social engagement.
Read more about other TPR programs related to the topic of Failure
Author Jesmyn Ward stops by the Project Room to have a conversation about her memoir "Men We Reaped"
September 11, 6-7pm: A roundtable discussion with Angela B. Ginorio from the University of Washington Women’s Studies Department, and Alina Hua, Mozilla’s Manager of data governance and privacy policy. Join the conversation as we explore the tricky business of privacy and female relationships with two experts in very different fields. This event is in conjunction with our ongoing "Privacy" topic and the launch of the Siren dating app created by visual artist Susie J. Lee.
About the Presenters:
Angela B. Ginorio is associate professor in the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and adjunct associate professor in the Departments of Psychology and American Ethnic Studies--all at the University of Washington in Seattle. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Fordham University in New York City. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association's Divisions 35 and 45. She teaches courses on "Women and Violence," "Women and/in Science," "Issues for Ethnic Minorities and Women in Science and Engineering," and "Gendered Technologies." Her scholarship focuses on factors affecting access to and experiences in science and engineering of under-represented groups (students and faculty of color, women, students from rural backgrounds, first-generation students), with particular attention to impact of socially defined identities / intersectionality. Ginorio developed and from 1992-2004 directed the Rural Girls in Science Program [depts.washington.edu] of the University of Washington.
Alina Hua is a Senior Data Privacy Manager at Mozilla. In her role, she advises and guides the organization through the development, evolution and implementation of its privacy principles and data policies. She also leads privacy-innovation initiatives and collaborations that explore the creation, education and awareness of new privacy features or enhancements for mobile and desktop. Prior to Mozilla, Alina was with Yahoo!’s Privacy & Data Governance group, and spent several years as a senior consultant at Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers providing advisory services to technology, financial and healthcare clients. She holds a Master of Science in Public Policy & Management (MSPPM) from Carnegie Mellon University and is a Certified Privacy Professional (CIPP/US).
Recognized for the intelligence, emotion, and sensuality of her new media work, Susie J. Lee explores transformation and connections through technology. Lee's work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad, in such venues as the Denver Art Museum, Blanton Museum, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro in Salerno, Italy, and Gallery Hyundai in Seoul. A winner of the Stranger Genius Award, Lee has received support from 4Culture and the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, and her work is in notable public and private collections. Lee's Still Lives was an unfolding of time at the end of life in a series of video portraits and traveled to the Portland Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum and featured in Huffington Post. Of Breath and Rain at the Frye Art Museum was named "Best Multimedia Exhibition" in 2012. Her solo exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Split Open, revealed the quiet and fierce lives impacted by the oil boom in North Dakota, and her recent piece with collaborator Byron Au Yong, 11 Pianists was commissioned by the Mitchell Center for the Arts for its Countercurrent festival. She is currently the CEO and founder of Siren, an app that empowers women in their interactions with men.
Read more about TPR & Siren here:
Wednesday July 23, 7-8:30pm
Join us for a very special evening as we celebrate the history of Seattle’s inner city music scene of the 1970s and 80s. Hear personal stories from the musicians featured on the brand new release, Wheedle's Groove Volume Two: Seattle Funk, Modern Soul, & Boogie 1972-1987 (Light in the Attic Records), and join the conversation that reflects on Seattle's important yet overlooked past as one of unique musical energy.
The event will be hosted by City Arts Magazine Senior Editor Jonathan Zwickel, who conducted many interviews for the liner notes included in the multi-artist collection Wheedle's Groove Volume Two: Seattle Funk, Modern Soul, & Boogie 1972-1987.
Listen to the live event recording here
About the Presenters:
Jonathan Zwickel is an editor and journalist who lives in Seattle and has been Senior Editor at City Arts Magazine for several years. He has also written for Rolling Stone, Filter, People, and authored a book on the Beastie Boys.
The format for Living Liner Notes will include Jonathan chatting live with WGV2 music scene veterans Robbie Hill (the drummer who formed Family Affair with his own brothers, best represented by the song "Don't Give Up"); Tony Benton (of ahead-of-its-time electro group Teleclere and currently working in contemporary hip-hop promotion); Bernadette Bascom (who recorded “I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love,” was part of pop-R&B band Epicentre, and later worked with Stevie Wonder); and Frederick Robinson lll (pioneering the gospel-funk protest song with “Love One Another,” and spent many years as a Chemical Dependency Counselor).
About the Album:
Seattle-based reissue label Light In The Attic Records released the original Wheedle’s Groove compilation a few years ago, which chronicled the King County Soul and R&B scene of the late 60's and early 70's. The newly released Wheedle's Groove II (CD and vinyl LP) is more than just a sequel, it features crucial stories about our region’s vibrant, diverse, and creative African-American music scene during the late 70's and early 80's.
Living Liner Notes gives historical Seattle-Tacoma music fans a chance to listen to and engage with those who crafted music for nearby clubs yet had their eyes on the stars, and went on to become engaged in the music business, social work, politics, the church, and other ways to entertain, illuminate, and serve the community. This event is part of The Project Room's How is Seattle Remembered? series.
July 10, 5-8pm: In preparation for The Failure Variety Show at Bumbershoot, we will be testing our plans for a Rube Goldberg machine and collecting YOUR stories of failure! Stop by for a lively open house as we ask for your input and get ourselves ready for TPR's first Bumbershoot appearance.
Featuring Eric Olson, Failure Variety Show Rube Goldberg Machine Designer; and Emmett Montgomery, Failure Variety Show Host and Presenter
Why are you making a Rube Goldberg Machine during a live show about failure? you may ask yourself. Well, we thought it was the ultimate test of something that's really difficult and is certainly not meant to be made in one hour in front of an audience in a theater. Thus, it has a high potential for disaster, and we think you will enjoy watching us face failure live on stage.
Why are you collecting stories of failure, and what am I supposed to do about it? you may also ask yourself. In order not to feel like we are failing alone, we would like to hear your personal anecdotes of failure; we are collecting them for sharing during the Failure Variety Show at Bumbershoot (yes, you can be anonymous).
Read more about the Failure Variety Show here
Eric John Olson is an artist and engineer. He studied computer science at Seattle University and human-computer interaction at Columbia University. Olson works with video, digital media, installation and participation to explore how we relate to ourselves and one another. Recently he helped create SEAWORTHY, a curatorial project dedicated to creative practices that value collaboration, experimentation, and social engagement.
Emmett Montgomery is a storyteller, comedian and artist who first found the stand-up stage in 2004 and has been failing beautifully ever since. Emmett has been involved in a lot of things including critically acclaimed comedy collectives, post apocalyptic variety shows, underground wrestling leagues and family friendly comedy nights in pizza restaurants. Mr. Montgomery has been featured the film “Seattle Komedy Documentary”, the coffee table book “Seattle 100: a portrait of a city” and multiple festivals including Bumbershoot and the Bridgetown Comedy and Sasquatch festivals. In addition to wandering the country telling jokes, he currently curates and hosts a love letter to Seattle in the form of variety show/sharing party entitled “Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery” at the beloved Annex Theatre; and is a member of the Seattle chapter of the Bushwick Book Club, a collection of musicians and artists that create and perform original works based on literary sources.
Writer, Director, an Actor Peres Owino visits the Project Room to discuss her new film "Bound: Africans vs. African Americans"
Author Rebecca Walker visited The Project Room on November 18, 2013 to talk with TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand and Off Paper Editor Tessa Hulls about her latest book, Adé: A Love Story, the fiction-like memoir about the man she fell in love with during her travels as a young woman.
May 29, 6pm:
Producer Jane Charles adapted the book SOLD by Patricia McCormick into the film of the same name, and Shawn Telford turned his short film The Last Virgin in to the feature film BFE. Come hear a presentation from both filmmakers about how they created new work from something else, as we continue our current topic, "Transformation." Both films are featured at this year's Seattle International Film Festival- for dates and times of the SIFF screenings, please go here:
Watch the trailers below:
About the Presenters:
Jane Charles has more than 20 years of experience in the film industry, and has recently produced the films Switchmas, Fat Kid Rules the World, Grassroots and SOLD, with Oscar-winning director Jeffrey Brown and executive producer Emma Thompson, which wrapped shooting April 2013 in India & Nepal.
As a member of the Directors Guild of Canada, Jane worked in production on the original Cannel Films shows 21 Jump Street, Booker, Wise Guy, Neon Rider (with the late Winston Reckert) and the feature films Bird On A Wire (Goldie Hawn, Mel Gibson), Run (Patrick Dempsey, Kelly Preston) and Pure Luck (Danny Glover and Martin Short), as well as several TV movies.
Jane’s first feature films as producer, Cyberteens In Love and Once In a Blue Moon, were distributed internationally, and premiered at the Montreal and Toronto International Film Festivals. She has also produced countless television commercials, television shows and music videos for Sting, Harry Connick Jr and Our Lady Peace. Beginning in 1996, as Executive Producer, Jane successfully ran Apple Box Productions (1996 – 2002) and Run Spot Run Films (2002 – 2007) before relocating to Seattle, WA where she makes cause-based films that entertain and enlighten and is co-founder of the non-profit Stolen Youth.
Shawn Telford is an Actor/Writer/Director whose debut feature film BFE won a Special Jury Prize at the Sarasota Film Festival for Best Ensemble and was also awarded a Special Mention at US in Progress, Paris, part of the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. His short films have played in a number of festivals, most notably the Seattle International Film Festival, 1 Reel, San Francisco Independent Film Festival and the Jecheon Int'l Music & Film Festival in Korea, among others.
He received his MFA in acting from the University of Washington’s prestigious PATP (Professional Actor Training Program), where his favorite roles included Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Haroun in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Other stage credits include Lewis Black's One Slight Hitch, Steven Dietz’s Yankee Tavern, Martin McDonagh’s Pillowman and Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent in Brixton (all at ACT), Nicky Giblin in The Seafarer (Seattle Rep), Grapes of Wrath (Intiman), as well as Red Badge of Courage and Jason and the Golden Fleece (Seattle Childrens Theater).
Shawn has also acted in numerous short, feature and student films as well as the TV series Grimm, Leverage, and The Fugitive. Film credits include Nothing Against Life, Dishonesty, un Film de James, The Delivery, 8 Minutes To Love and Professional Courtesy. Yet, despite all of this real acting, he is most often recognized as 'the train guy' from the Washington Lottery commercials and the ‘bearded BECU guy,’ from an ad campaign that appeared on buses, billboards, ATMs and in-flight magazines all over the Northwest.
In addition to acting, casting, teaching and filmmaking, Shawn is also a professional writer. Since 1998, he has written music criticism as well as arts & entertainment pieces for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocket, the Tablet, Seattle Sound Magazine, the Louisville Eccentric Observer and eyeheartmusic.com. He is currently working on a memoir “I Gave My Ears to Rock ‘N’ Roll” which chronicles his experiences, observations and philosophies related to music, music appreciation and music criticism while slowly going deaf.
This event is in conjunction with the Seattle International Film Festival!
June 25, 6pm: Selfie Expert and writer of Hyperallergic's selfie column Alicia Eler presents her writing and research and offers a hands-on workshop about our current topic, Privacy, and its relationship to the selfie. Join the conversation and make something of yourself(!)
It is hard to walk down the street or enter a retail outlet, let alone leave one's home, without feeling that you are being watched. Yet in an age of constant surveillance, why would we willingly post selfies to the internet? Or is it that we live in a post-privacy age thanks to the NSA, the selfie lives we live online, and the data that we leave behind? Eler's presentation addresses these questions of selfie surveillance and data collection today. This event is in conjunction with the making of Siren, the women-powered dating app developed by artist Susie J Lee.
About the Presenter:
Alicia Eler is a writer, critic, and curator based in Los Angeles. She is the Selfie Columnist for art blogazine Hyperallergic, where she is also a regular contributor. Her writing projects consider the relationship between American pop and consumer culture, adolescence, and sexualities. Her journalism and art criticism have been published in Art21, Artforum.com, Art Papers, RAW Vision Magazine UK, BusinessInsider, ReadWriteWeb, and Salon.com, and her stories have featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, New York Times, Reuters, and the New York Post. She tweets at @aliciaeler. More at www.aliciaeler.com.
Special thanks to our friends at Rare Medium for the Polaroid camera supplies!
Top image by Dylan Neuwirth
Saturday, May 24 from 11am - 2pm
What is a hero? Who are your heroes? How can you be a hero?
Join us for a hands-on drawing activity & audio interviews for kids and adults about who our heroes are! This event is part of the Pine & 14th Family Day celebrating the new book Momstrology by our neighbor Tali Edut. Other events taking place are as follows:
- Rare Medium: book signing and Polaroid portraits
- Bootyland: face-painting, trunk show, temporary tattoos
- Aria & Moxie: braid bar, bang trims, chair massages
- Fire Dept: kids can climb on the trucks and take a tour of the station!
Stop by anytime between 11am - 2pm and join in the fun!
May 20, 7pm
Join Los Angeles-based performance artist Scotch Wichmann in an entertaining evening celebrating his new book TWO PERFORMANCE ARTISTS KIDNAP THEIR BOSS AND DO THINGS WITH HIM. Scotch will present a brief history of performance art, read excerpts from the book, and perform a short performance piece that promises to be memorable. Pick up your copy of the book down the street at Elliott Bay Book Company!
And read Scotch's response to our question, "Who Was Your First Hero?"
About Scotch:
Scotch Wichmann is a writer, performance artist, comedian, actor, and filmmaker whose madcap riffs about his trailerpark childhood, neurotic delusions, and Hollywood obsessions spurred the San Francisco Chronicle to describe his work as like "eating and snorting [drugs]...then freebasing...then reaching for the turkey baster." A two-time finalist in Northern California's largest comedy competition, he's a regular feature and host at comedy clubs across the country, keeping audiences rolling before national headliners like Bill Burr, Barry Sobel, Laurie Kilmartin, Eddie Brill, and many more.
Scotch began as a performance artist in the early 1990s. A protégé of seminal L.A. performance artist John M. White, he launched himself into the underground L.A. performance art scene with his debut pieces, SNORTING MOUSE FUR and HAVING A BALL: ONE TESTICLE'S PUPPET SHOW. His live work continues to be featured at galleries, art venues, and fringe festivals around the world. He’s also a member of Wet The Hippo, a performance troupe nominated for Best Comedy and Best Stunt at the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
In 2007, Scotch launched Meth Coffee, an underground coffee company in San Francisco as both a branding experiment and an ongoing performance. Calling himself "The Drinker," he acted as the company's cracked-out spokesman, attracting a swarm of press from CNN, NBC, FOX, NPR, Maxim, The Washington Post, and The New York Times while selling super-caffeinated coffee beans in white druggy bags. The product was eventually banned in several regions, including the state of Illinois by its Attorney General, who found the whole concept objectionable.
In a strange turn, actor-director Shia LaBeouf was caught plagiarizing Scotch's performance art manifesto in January, 2014, as well as writings by performance artist Marina Abramovic. Scotch responded on February 13, 2014 with a 6-hour protest and performance entitled #IAMPLAGIARIZED for a crowd of hundreds outside the Los Angeles gallery where LaBeouf was staging his #IAMSORRY "mock apology" stunt.
Scotch works increasingly in TV and film. He folded himself into a killer's suitcase for the late-night TV short HACKSAW (2005), played an overgrown baby in OUTER SUNSET (2007), and made his directorial debut with SECRET TO A BETTER LIFE (2011), a short that was featured at the 2011 Nihilist Film Festival and the 2012 Freethought Film Festival.
His writing has appeared in magazines, anthologies, and online. His debut
novel, Two Performance Artists Kidnap Their Boss And Do Things With Him—a screwball dark comedy about two performance artists struggling to make it—will be published by Freakshow Books April 10th, 2014. The book was a 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel First Round Finalist, and Kirkus Reviews called it a “raucous debut satire” with a “fertile, scabrous comic imagination.” To learn more, visit www.2p4m.com
Presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures
Wednesday, May 14, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Max: 20 participants
Price: $100 / SOLD OUT
Please note that tickets are still available for Carson's presentation at Town Hall on May 13th- tickets available via this link
A special opportunity for an intimate workshop experience with a poet who, according to Daphne Merkin in the New York Times Book Review, “In the small world of people who keep up with contemporary poetry,...has been cutting a large swath, inciting both envy and admiration.” Join Ann Carson and her partner Robert Currie and only 19 other people for their 3 hour workshop, EgoCircus.
EgoCircus is a writing workshop in which there is no writing. Participants will work in collaboration, joining with others in various configurations to imagine and invent small new works in performance and perhaps, if we are lucky, all will discover dormant talents that will make us better writers.
Anne Carson is a professor of Classics, a poet, essayist and translator. “In the small world of people who keep up with contemporary poetry,” wrote Daphne Merkin in the New York Times Book Review, “Anne Carson, a Canadian professor of classics, has been cutting a large swath, inciting both envy and admiration.” Carson has gained both critical accolades and a wide readership over the course of her “unclassifiable” publishing career.
A MacArthur Genius Award-winner, Carson's most recent work is Red doc> (2013), a direct sequel to her first poetic novel Autobiography of Red (1998).
In addition to her many highly-regarded translations of classical writers, Carson has published poems, essays, libretti, prose criticism and verse novels that often cross genres. Known for her supreme erudition, her poetry can also be heartbreaking; she regularly writes on love, desire, sexual longing and despair.
SAVE THE DATE: MAY 6 is GiveBIG!Have you ever asked yourself how The Project Room can produce free public online and on-site programs of such high quality? Have you attended an event, read an essay online, or listened to a podcast and wondered how to show your support?
Now is your chance to be part of the answer.
On May 6 from midnight to midnight, you can make a one-time online donation as part of the 24-hour fundraising marathon known as GiveBIG!
Breaking News: If you donate $100 or more, you will receive an awesome party favor in the form of a custom TPR ring made by artist Seth Friedman (see below for image).
The Project Room is supported through individual donations from people who listen to our podcasts, read our online essays, or attend live events (special thanks to those who do all three!).
This is the one time of year when we ask you to click on this link and make a quick donation so we can bring new and exciting programs to you from all kinds of inspiring creative people.
Bookmark this link, mark your calendar, and help us thrive!
Some things to look forward to at TPR in 2014:
Podcast Interviews with innovative creative people, such as Authors Joe & David Henry, Musician Paul Rucker, Author Jesmyn Ward, Japanese Noh Actor Munenori Takeda, Author Rebecca Walker, Visual Artist Juan Pablo Macias, and more!
New Writing by an ongoing roster of thoughtful writers about creativity and culture, including our ongoing column of creative discoveries and musings by TPR Contributing Writer Corey Blaustein.
Live Events Featuring: Performance Artist Scotch Wideman, selfie blogger Alicia Eler, A conversation about the intersection of women, relationships, and the internet; a social activism workshop with visual artist Richard Kamler; a film conversation in conjunction with SIFF; a workshop about heroes for kids and their grownups; a "Failure Variety Show" with some very funny people; and much more to be announced!
WIN A GOLDEN TICKETThroughout GiveBIG day, donors will be chosen at random to win golden tickets, providing an additional $1,000 in the winner's name to the nonprofit that received their original donation. The winner will also receive a $100 Starbucks or Taco Time gift card! And, we'll also be giving away airline tickets to nonprofits throughout the day, courtesy of Alaska Airlines!
Please mark you calendar for May 6 and GiveBIG!
Throughout our communities, there are heroes: working to improve lives, to strengthen families, to better our world. GiveBIG 2014 honors the heroes in our community.
Seth Friedman's ring design for our $100+ level donors: made from recycled car tire parts and cast in fluorescent resin in one of the colors noted above!
Thanks to the GiveBIG Sponsors who make this possible!
Brothers and authors Joe & David Henry join Jess at the Project Room to talk about their new book, Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him
Dear TPR Readers and Audience Members:
We are pleased to share a new podcast series this Spring, featuring interviews with fascinating creative people in all fields. In keeping with how TPR does things, the conversations will be focused on the current theme and topics, providing unique points of view on how creativity works for different types of makers.
TPR's Jess Van Nostrand interviewing Paul Rucker in February 2014
Series 1 features the following guests:
Rebecca Walker, Author and Memoirist
Joe & David Henry, Brothers and Co-Authors of FURIOUS COOL: RICHARD PRYOR AND THE WORLD THAT MADE HIM
Paul Rucker, Musician and Visual Artist
Jesmyn Ward, Author
Stay tuned for the release of these podcasts- available on iTunes soon!
NEXT SIREN EVENT: Selife Surveillance, June 25th, 6pmThroughout 2014, The Project Room is following the making of Siren, a new iPhone dating app made for-- and by-- women, and led by video artist Susie J Lee. Below, Susie introduces us to why she decided to use her art skills to tackle the online dating world.
Merging arts and entrepreneurship, I am launching Siren, an app that empowers single women in their interactions with men by giving control and privacy online. Siren is a discerning female artist’s challenge to existing sites and a cultural response to the winner-takes-all, male-dominated start up culture.
Siren Founder Susie J Lee and Designer Katrina
When I announced I was going to make a woman-initiated social app, initial confusion gave way to sly smiles. “Of course you are…”My work explores transformation and human connection through technology, and Siren is an intuitive and clear extension of my
practice. I thrive in an “I don’t know” space with collaborators. I want to know what happens when rules change for women. I was curious about start up culture; that vantage point revealed both a devastating gender disparity and recognition that good art can also be good business.
A recent user-interface work session at TPR
Siren is a cultural tool designed to make an impact in the world. It expands the definition of art by reframing the scale and intent of social engagement and repositioning the artist within the machinations of hyper-capitalism. In city-by-city releases, partnerships with arts organizations and technology hubs will activate conversations through interactive exhibitions, online writing, gatherings and education. In Seattle, places such as The Project Room, Women in Tech, and UW are part of Siren.
Sarah Novotny, an advisor for Siren recently told me, “Please document your process. So few women do.” Siren has an all-female coding team, and I am the CEO and founder. It is an artist’s reflective encapsulations coupled with a woman’s voice on sexuality and leadership.
Siren gives people the chance to discover the individual beyond a profile photo. It’s about unexpected moments that make us smile. Instead of a tedious, image-crafted résumé, Siren’s profiles are layers of responses to fun daily questions and micro-videos. Women always control their visibility and men get better signals for a better experience overall. We encourage charming the pants off someone.
Stay tuned for event announcements in conjunction with this new endeavor!
The Makers of Siren:
Recognized for its intelligence, emotion, and sensuality, the new media work of Siren CEO Susie J. Lee explores transformation and connections through technology. Lee's work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad, in such venues as the Denver Art Museum, Blanton Museum, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro in Salerno, Italy; and Gallery Hyundai in Seoul. A winner of The Stranger Genius Award, Lee has received support from 4Culture and the Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, and her work is in notable public and private collections. Lee's Still Lives, an unfolding of time at the end of life in a series of video portraits, traveled to the Portland Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum and was featured in The Huffington Post. Of Breath and Rain at the Frye Art Museum was named "Best Multimedia Exhibition" in 2012. Her solo exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art Split Open revealed the quiet and fierce lives impacted by the oil boom in North Dakota, and her recent piece with collaborator Byron Au Yong, 11 Pianists was commissioned by the Mitchell Center for the Arts for its Countercurrent festival.
Katrina Hess, Design Director of Siren, has had over seventeen years of experience as a graphic designer, web developer, and owns the urban raingear outfit, Made in Sodo. She spent over ten years branding and marketing for corporate and retail companies before branching out on her own. Her designs are distinctive and functional, with intelligent modifications at every turn, and comprehensive branding. She selects her collaborative partners with an eye on opportunity, invention, and outcome.
The Siren network of contributors and helpers, as of May, 2014
Friday February 28, 6pm: Difficult Fruit
Poet Lauren K. Alleyne presentation and book release for her new poetry collection, Difficult Fruit. Moderated by Catherine Chung and featuring guest writers David Mura, Anastacia Tolbert, Dawn Lonsinger, and Patricia Smith. In conjunction with the Annual AWP Conference.
Transformation is the heart of Lauren K. Alleyne’s debut collection of poetry, Difficult Fruit. In these poems, bodies transform to smoke; passion becomes love, then memory; a girl flowers into womanhood; and innocence becomes knowledge. This launch event celebrates another transformative event--the publication of this collection of poems. The program, hosted by Catherine Chung, will feature readings by Lauren K. Alleyne, and the mentors and friends, who in one way or another nurtured the seeds that became Difficult Fruit.
About the Presenters:
Lauren K. Alleyne is a native of Trinidad and Tobago. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is currently the Poet-in-Residence and an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Dubuque. She has been published in several journals and anthologies, including Crab Orchard Review, The Cimarron Review, Black Arts Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, The Belleview Literary Review, Growing Up Girl and Gathering Ground. Difficult Fruit( Peepal Tree Press) is her first collection.
Dawn Lonsinger is the author of Whelm (2012 Idaho Poetry Prize winner), the linoleum crop (Jeanne Duval), and The Nested Object (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, Guernica, Best New Poets 2010, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Cornell University and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah and is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Muhlenberg College.
David Mura’s newest poetry book is The Last Incantations. His other poetry books are Angels for the Burning, The Colors of Desire (Carl Sandburg Literary Award), After We Lost Our Way (a National Poetry Contest winner). His memoirs are Turning Japanese, which won an award from the Oakland PEN and was in the New York Times Notable Books of Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory. His novel is Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire.
Patricia Smith is the author of six books of poetry, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the 2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, and in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays and Best American Mystery Stories. Patricia is a professor at CUNY and an instructor in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.
Anastacia Tolbert is a writer, Cave Canem Fellow, Hedgebrook Alumna, VONA Alum and Artist Trust EDGE Program Graduate. She is the recipient of the 2004 San Diego Journalism Press Club Award for the article "War Torn." She is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? (2007), a documentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have been published widely.
Saturday March 1, 6pm: Gina Frangello, Pam Houston and Melinda Moustakis
A reading and discussion around our current topics "Transformation" and "Privacy," featuring the work of three writers whose work overlaps in interesting ways. In conjunction with the Annual AWP Conference.
About the Presenters:
Pam Houston’s most recent book is Contents May Have Shifted, published in 2012. She is also the author of two collections of linked short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, the novel, Sight Hound, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The 2013 Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is Professor of English at UC Davis, directs the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers and teaches in The Pacific University low residency MFA program and at writer’s conferences around the country and the world.
Gina Frangello is the author of three books of fiction: A Life in Men, just out from Algonquin Books, Slut Lullabies, and My Sister’s Continent. She is Sunday editor for The Rumpus and fiction editor for The Nervous Breakdown. The longtime editor of Other Voices magazine and Other Voices Books, she now runs Other Voices Queretaro (www.othervoicesqueretaro.com), an international writing program. Gina teaches at UC Riverside’s low residency MFA program in Creative Writing and can be found online at www.ginafrangello.com.
Melinda Moustakis is the author Bear Down Bear North: Alaska Stories, which won the Flannery O' Connor Award and the Maurice Prize and was a 5 Under 35 selection by the National Book Foundation. The book was also a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She received a a Hodder Fellowship at The Lewis Center of the Arts at Princeton University and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Fiction. Her story "They Find the Drowned" won a 2013 PEN/ O. Henry Prize.
I hope you enjoy exploring content and finding information easily on our new website! We are still editing content from 2011-2012, so if you can't find something specific, send me an email through the contact link. And special thanks to Volunteer Matt for his tireless work designing and-- more difficult-- training me on this new platform.
Happy Reading!
Jess Van Nostrand, TPR Founder
Thursday February 27, 6-7pm
Featuring poets Hannah Stephenson, Nick Courtright, Leah Umansky, Luisa Igloria, and Justin Runge
In conjunction with the 2014 AWP Conference & Bookfair
How does a poem become a poem? How do the lines take shape? What if a book of poems came with a blooper reel? Join us as five poets candidly present the transformation of one of their pieces. Presentations will be accompanied by excerpts from journals and notes, drafts, photographs, and short video. Part of TPR’sTransformation topic, this event is for anyone interested in inspiration, artistic process, creativity, and words.
About the Presenters
Hannah Stephenson is a poet, editor, and instructor living in Columbus, Ohio (where she also runs a monthly literary event series called Paging Columbus). Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Weekly Rumpus, Verse Daily, The Huffington Post, Hobart, Contrary, MAYDAY, and The Nervous Breakdown; her collection, In the Kettle, the Shriek, is now available from Gold Wake Press. You can visit her online at The Storialist (www.thestorialist.com).
Nick Courtright’s debut full-length, Punchline, came out in April 2012 with Gold Wake Press, and a chapbook, Elegy for the Builder’s Wife, is available from Blue Hour Press. His poetry has also appeared in many literary journals, including The Southern Review,Kenyon Review Online, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, and many others.
In Austin, Texas, he teaches classes such as Creative Writing, Classicism, Romanticism, and Writing for Publication, among other literature and writing courses.
From 2007-2013 he was a music journalist and Interviews Editor for the Austinist, and he has interviewed such interesting personalities as “Weird Al” Yankovic, Nick Offerman, Michael Ian Black, Henry Rollins, and Paul Giamatti, and musicians from bands like St. Vincent, MGMT, Odd Future, and Destroyer.
Less résumé-ly, he is an Ohio native and the oldest of six kids. And lastly, but most importantly, he lives with his wife Michelle, who works in media, and his sons William and Samuel.
Leah Umansky’s first book of poems, Domestic Uncertainties, is out now by BlazeVOX [Books.] Her Mad-Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream is forthcoming from Kattywompus Press in early 2014. She has been a contributing writer for BOMB Magazine’s BOMBLOG and Tin House, a poetry reviewer for The Rumpus and a live twitterer for the Best American Poetry Blog. She also hosts and curates the COUPLET Reading Series. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Thrush Poetry Journal, and The Brooklyn Rail. Read more at: http://iammyownheroine.com
Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, Luisa Igloria (previously published as Maria Luisa Aguilar-Cariño) has four daughters, and now makes her home in Virginia with most of her family. She is a Professor of Creative Writing and English, and Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University.
Her work has appeared or been accepted in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, The Missouri Review, Indiana Review, Poetry East, Umbrella, Sweet, qarrtsiluni, poemeleon, Smartish Pace, Rattle, The North American Review, Bellingham Review, Shearsman (UK), PRISM International (Canada), Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria), The Asian Pacific American Journal, and TriQuarterly.
Various national and international literary awards include the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize for JUAN LUNA’S REVOLVER (University of Notre Dame Press), the 2007 49th Parallel Poetry Prize (selected by Carolyne Wright for the Bellingham Review), the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize (selected by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for the North American Review); Honorable Mention in the 2010 Potomac Review Poetry Contest; Finalist in the first Narrative Poetry Contest (2009); Finalist, the 2007 Indiana Review Poetry Prize; the 2006 National Writers Union Poetry Prize (selected by Adrienne Rich); the 2006 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize (Crab Orchard Review); the 2006 Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry; Finalist, the 2005 George Bogin Memorial Award for Poetry (Poetry Society of America); the 2004 Fugue Poetry Prize(selected by Ellen Bryant Voigt); Finalist, the 2003 Larry Levis Editors Prize for Poetry from The Missouri Review; Finalist, the 2003 Dorset Prize (Tupelo Press); the first Sylvia Clare Brown Fellowship, Ragdale Foundation (2007); a 2003 partial fellowship to the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg; two Pushcart Prize nominations; a 1998 Fellowship at the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers in Lasswade, the Midlothians, Scotland; and the 1998 George Kent Award for Poetry.
Luisa is an eleven-time recipient of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in three genres (poetry, nonfiction, and short fiction) and its Hall of Fame distinction; the Palanca award is the Philippines’ highest literary prize.
Justin Range is a writer, designer, and raconteur, currently living in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife and cat.
Photos above of: Leah Umansky (top) and Hannah Stephenson
Transformation is one of TPR’s topics of focus during the 2014 Big Question, “How Are We Remembered?” As with all of the programs at TPR, this topic will be looked at through the lens of creativity. Questions will be asked such as, “How does a new idea go from its seed into a finished work?” “What’s it like to make something that’s pretty good into something that’s outstanding?” and “Why might someone successful in a particular creative area change directions and make something entirely different?” Throughout the Transformation topic, we will explore and learn from a diverse group of presenters and online contributors whose work speaks to sudden change, different directions, and the mystery of how an artistic thing comes to be.
See the Online Calendar for Upcoming Events!
About the image: A detail of Origami Butterfly instructions by Darren Abbey. My five year-old daughter received a “Geogami” kit for Christmas, which, if anyone has tried anything in the origami family before before, is NOT for young children. It is also not for impatient adults. She asked me to make one of the forms for her (not sure if that’s the right term for these tiny pieces of finger torture), and I ended up cursing out the lovely squares of paper and the ridiculous instructions they are meant to correspond with. I felt like I was in a reverse Ikea vortex, in which something which should not be hard is made heard by the instructions- except, with Ikea furniture everything is drawn and I want them to TYPE the words for me, and here, everything is in words that make no sense when you are dealing with making your hands do something special that I will never be able to do. After having my little fit in front of my mother who was the giver of this cruel gift she replied, “I thought it would be relaxing.” This made me feel greatly misunderstood, for if anyone knows me (especially if they have raised me) they should know how making origami plays into all my worst qualities, like sitting quietly and exercising patience. However, parenthood trumps everything, so I continue to try geogami in the hopes of making myself a better person for my daughter. In the meantime, she has happily used most of the remaining paper to draw pictures of princesses.
February 6th, 6-7pm
FREE
For Today I Am A Boy: A conversation with authors Kim Fu and Rebecca Brown about Fu’s new novel, which follows the life of a family whose only son longs to be just like his sisters. Join these two Seattle authors in a discussion about the role privacy plays in the way they work and the stories they create.
About the Presenters
Kim Fu holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of British Columbia. She is the author of the novel FOR TODAY I AM A BOY, coming in January 2014 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, HarperCollins Canada, Random House Australia). Her work has appeared in Maisonneuve, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine, The Tyee, Prairie Fire, The Stranger, Grain, Room, and Best Canadian Essays, among others. She is the news columns editor for This, a magazine of progressive Canadian politics now in its 47th year, and writes the advice column ASK FU! for the YourBoxClub.com blog. She lives in Seattle with her husband and their many computers.
Rebecca Brown is the author of seven novels, including The End of Youth, The Terrible Girls, and What Keeps Me Here, and her short stories are widely anthologized. Her novel The Gifts of the Body won a Lambda Literary Award and has been translated into several languages. Brown divides her time between Seattle and Vermont, where she is a faculty member in the Master of Fine Arts program at Goddard College.
Throughout 2014, The Project Room continues to ask the big question “How Are We Remembered?” Within this question, we will focus on several topics, one of which is Privacy.
From a contemporary perspective, privacy is an ever-changing part of our lives: it is both a thing we hold dear, and a thing we often give up in exchange for visibility, connections, even celebrity. From a historical perspective, sharing our personal business may not be as modern as we thought. (Tom Standage’s 2013 book WRITING ON THE WALL is a fascinating account of how it was handled in Roman times).
How has privacy changed in our lifetime? What value does it have for today’s youth culture? How will legacies be preserved for those who worked electronically? And, how important is privacy as part of the human experience? These are only some of the many questions expected to be raised during this program series.
In keeping with TPR’s practices, programs will be both long-term studies of how a new artistic project is being made and evening events featuring a diverse group of voices who work in different creative fields. Online writing and on-site events will present many different points of view on what privacy means and why it matters to us.
UPCOMING “PRIVACY” PROGRAMS:
February 6th, 6-7pm
For Today I Am A Boy: A conversation with authors Kim Fu and Rebecca Brown about Fu’s new novel, which follows the life of a family whose only son longs to be just like his sisters. Read more here.
Saturday March 1, 6-7pm: Gina Frangello, Pam Houston and Melinda Moustakis
A reading and discussion around legacy and privacy, featuring the work of three writers whose work overlaps in interesting ways. In conjunction with the Annual AWP Conference.
March (date to be announced)
The Making of Siren: An Artist Tackles the Flawed World of Online Dating. Be among the first to see how this innovative Dating App gives users — especially women– the power to make a personal connection.
Join the mailing list for the most recent event listings, and follow along with our events calendar as new programs are added throughout the year!
Image: Detail of the cover of FOR TODAY I AM A BOY by Kim Fu. Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
UP NEXT:
Philip H Red Eagle: December 18, 6pm
As part of the 2013-2014 theme, How Are We Remembered? The Project Room presents a unique series of conversations specific to Seattle, featuring guest presenters who have deep roots in the city. Taking The Project Room’s position as a platform for understanding creativity, questions that address Seattle’s legacy and its creativity will be addressed such as, What should we be proud of as Seattleites? What stories do we want to remember and pass down to the next generation? And, How is today’s Seattle making its mark? Taking a personal approach to our city’s history, this special group of guest presenters will share their stories, memories, and hopes for the city’s future.
Each event in the series will feature a guest speaker from a creative field who shares his or her point of view on this subject in a conversation with the audience. This will provide an unusually-intimate setting for these high-profile public figures- so arrive early and be ready to participate!
All programs are free and open to the public
Above image: Moon River, Vietnam 1971. ”The call sign for the base there was ‘Moon River’. The Base was Nha Be Logistical Support Base. Nha Be was about 30 miles up river from the coast just above the Mekong River. I had just acquired the camera from the Cholon Exchange in Saigon, now Ho Chi Mihn City. I had already been In-Country for almost a year at that time. I shot primarily in black and white film up to 1990, with some shots in Kodachrome.” -Philip H Red Eagle
Guest Presenters
Peter Steinbrueck, Architect and 2013 Seattle mayoral candidate
July 12, 7-8pm
Listen to audio here
Patrinell Wright, Founder of the Total Experience Gospel Choir
August 9, 6pm
Listen to audio here
Megan Jasper, Executive Vice President of Sub Pop Records
September 6, 6pm
Listen to audio here
Paul Marioni, Glass Artist
October 2, 6pm – Featuring a special screening of Paul’s 1972 experimental film, HOLE. This is a rare opportunity to see this short film, hosted by the Northwest Film Forum. Join us at 6pm for the discussion and at 7:15pm for the screening down the street! Special thanks to our program sponsor Chihuly Garden and Glass
Listen to audio here
John Gilbreath, Earshot Jazz Executive Director
November 7, 6pm
And join us afterwords for a live Earshot Jazz Festival performance featuring Kneebody at Poncho Concert Hall at 8pm! (The presentation at TPR is free; tickets for the 8pm show are available online here)
Philip H. Red Eagle, Writer, Poet, Cultural worker
December 18, 6pm
And more presenters to be announced!
About the Presenters
Growing up in Seattle, Peter Steinbrueck never knew who might show up at the family table on a given night or what issues were going to be debated. Architects, actors, writers, and people of all political persuasions – whoever was there, the conversation was always lively.
The late 1960s and 1970s were stirring times of political and social upheaval – the epic civil rights movement, world environmental awakening – mass cultural change, and changing cities.
Peter’s father, Victor Steinbrueck, an architecture professor, artist, author and activist, was probably best known as the savior of the Pike Place Market. He rallied citywide support for rescuing the blocks of buildings between First and Western avenues at a time when traditional local farmers markets were vanishing, and the concept of historic preservation was hardly known in Seattle.
Peter was born and raised in Seattle. He grew up in the Denny Blaine neighborhood in the Central District, attended Harrison Elementary School in Madison Valley, and graduated from Lakeside High School.
Pastor Patrinell “Pat” Wright was born in Carthage, Texas to a Baptist preacher dad and a school teacher mom. She is one of seven siblings. Being introduced to music early, she sang her first solo at the age of 3. By the time of her 14th birthday, she had taught herself to play the piano and was directing two choirs in her father’s church.
Patrinell attended Turner High School in Carthage where she graduated as valedictorian of her class. She went on to attend college at Prairie View A & M in Hempstead, Texas. In 1964, Pat moved to Seattle and, in 1973, founded Total Experience Gospel Choir. The choir has performed in 38 states, on 5 continents and 22 countries. The choir consists of persons ages 7– 72 and has to its credits numerous awards and 7 recordings.
Over her long musical history, Pat has received numerous awards and citations, and she has performed on the same billing with the following: Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Take Six, The Winans, Charlie Daniel, Chuck Mangione, Steely Dan, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Dionne Warwick, Melba Moore, Olympia Dukakis, Pete Seeger, Michael Bolton, The Judds. Foreigner and NUMEROUS gospel artists. She and Total Experience Gospel Choir are featured artists on Dave Matthews’ CD entitled “Same Devil” on the song “Save Me”. Her latest credit is on the soundtrack of the movie “Because of Winn-Dixie” on the song “Glory, Glory”.
Megan Jasper currently works as Sub Pop’s Executive Vice President. She started at the label in 1989 as an intern, was hired as the label’s receptionist, got fired, then re-hired and promoted. She has done more than 20 years of volunteer work and board work for The Service Board, The Vera Project and she is now serving on the Music Commission for the city of Seattle.
Paul Marioni, one of the founding members of the American Studio Glass movement, creates sculptures and vessels that incorporate humor, images of taboo sexuality, genre figures, tribal masks, photographs, and visual puns.
Paul moved to California in the mid 1960s, where he was attracted to the beat poets of San Francisco and to the burgeoning counterculture of that city. There, he became part of the influential group of artists working in stained glass in the Bay Area during the early 1970s.
Paul has completed more than 85 public commissions, including cast glass walls, ceilings, and skylights. Known as an innovator in the glass world, Marioni pushes his techniques to their limits, regularly redefining what is possible to achieve with the material.
Marioni graduated in 1967 from the University of Cincinnati, and is a Fellow of the American Crafts Council. He has received three fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has taught at the Penland School of Crafts and at the Pilchuck Glass School.
Paul Marioni has a son, Dante, who is also a glassblower, and in 1998, the two of them presented a feature exhibition of their glass at the Fresno Art Museum in California. Paul Marioni’s program is sponsored by Chihuly Garden and Glass, which aims to celebrate our region’s creative energy and inspire visitors to engage with our region’s cultural community.
A rabid jazz fan since childhood, John Gilbreath has been immersed in the local and national jazz and performing arts scene as executive director of Earshot Jazz, Seattle’s non-profit jazz-support organization. He oversees Earshot’s monthly publication and educational programs, and has produced more than 1,000 far-reaching concerts, including the Seattle’s annual Earshot Jazz Festival each fall. He actively works with various Northwest arts organizations and national jazz consortia, hosts the weekly Caravan show on KBCS, and, in his rare spare moments, is a student of stone sculpture. John is the host of KEXP’s Jazz Theater, Sunday nights into Monday mornings, from 1am-3am.
Philip Harold Red Eagle is of Dakota and Puget Sound Salish heritage. His father, Philip Sr., is of Sisseton-Wahpeton-Mdewakanton-Yankton descent; and his mother, Marian (formerly Mary Ann) is of Steilacoom-S’Klallam descent. He holds two degrees from the University of Washington, Seattle, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Metal Design from the School of Art (1983) and a Bachelor of Arts in Editorial Journalism from the School of Communications (1987).
Philip writes poetry, fiction, essays and reviews. His works have been included in Art Access,Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Humanities Today, Nobody’s Orphan Child (Anthology),Northwest Ethnic News, The Raven Chronicles, Red Ink, Seattle Arts Commission Newsletter – Diverse Views, Guest Editor Series-1990.
His current work is a book of fiction titled: Red Earth – A Vietnam Warrior’s Journey. Red Earthhas received high praise and is now going into a 2nd Edition. Red Earth is actually two novellas focused around the return home of Native American Vietnam veterans and their struggles with their loss and inability to cope with with their past. It is Philip’s experiences in Vietnam in 1970-72 that he draws his images for these stories.
Philip is also a visual artist and a photojournalist. His photos have appeared in American Indian Art Magazine, Air Cal Magazine, Northwest Ethnic News, The Raven Chronicles, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Seattle Times and The Tacoma News Tribune, as well as several gallery exhibits across the country.
Philip is the originator and co-founder of The Raven Chronicles – Multicultural Journal of Art, Literature & The Spoken Word (1990).
Philip has also been part of the Canoe Nations Program which is bringing back the Traditional Carved Canoe to the Northwest. He is primarily concerned with using the canoe as a mechanism in which to bring about cultural change among the tribes and to bring the notion of traditional ideas to bring about healing and pride among Native youth.
This series is part of The Project Room’s current theme, “How Are We Remembered?” Special thanks to artist Seth Friedman for his part in creating this program. Seth’s site-specific MONUMASS was installed at Seattle’s Victor Steinbreuck Park from July 20 – August 10, 2013. Read more here.
About the top image:
This is an image showing the Denny Regrade that took place in Seattle between the years of 1908-1911 (and again in 1929). Many homeowners held fast to their properties in protest of the massive leveling of the land, and some even sued the city (unsuccessfully) to avoid their destruction. What were playfully called “spite mounds” emerged from the deep underground digging around these houses (see the ladders in the foreground for a sense of scale!). How did the future of this city change because of this physical altering of the landscape? What does this kind of change do to a city’s identity? And how many who live there today know of its history? More about this story can be found here
Photo by Asahel Curtis (1874-1941), 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Due to popular demand, the two short films we screened in October, 2013 of glass artist Paul Marioni’s HOLE (1972) and RIP (1974) are now online!
View them here:
Musician and visual artist Paul Rucker began making work in 2009 that responded to the history of slavery and its relationship to current American issues about race and equality. This initial effort developed into a large and ongoing body of work, Recapitulation, that The Project Room will be following throughout 2013 and 2014.
First Public Program:
Friday October 11, 6-7pm
Join Paul in a public conversation as he tackles the idea of “empathy” and asks for participation from the audience to help inform this work-in-progress.
Listen to an interview with Paul about this project: Podcast Episode 5
Trained as a classical musician, Paul Rucker combines his unique compositions for cello with video, print, and sculpture to form new ways of thinking about America’s history. Throughout The Project Room’s 2013-2014 theme, “How Are We Remembered?” Paul will blog about his process and host public conversations and workshops at TPR. Stay tuned for exact dates in Fall, 2013. Until then, follow his writing online as he shares the process behind this ambitious and powerful body of work.
Watch here
About the Project
Recapitulation is a music and visual installation demonstrating the parallels between slavery and the contemporary prison industrial complex through animation, digital stills, sculpture, original music compositions, interactive sound and video. Although “slave” and “convict” are different in name, these labels share similar limitations and expectations. Both have faced exploitation for labor, a loss of rights and disenfranchisement. Currently over 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S.; 40 percent are African Americans, although they comprise only 12 percent of the country’s total population. In Recapitulation, Paul Rucker will respond to the vast numbers affected by both institutions and the disparity in the racial makeup of the prison population.
Recapitulation is presented through different “chapters.” The first, titled Assassin Series, was presented at Gallery 4Culture in Seattle, Washington in Summer, 2013.
About the Artist:
Paul Rucker is a visual artist, composer, and musician who combines media, often integrating live performance, sound, original compositions, and visual art. His work is the product of a rich interactive process, through which he investigates community impacts, human rights issues, historical research, and basic human emotions surrounding a subject.
Rucker has received numerous grants, awards, and residencies for visual art and music. In 2012, he received an award for Visual Art from the Creative Capital Foundation, a 10-week residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in California, the Conductive Garboil Grant, a Grant for Artists Projects from Artist Trust, and an Artist Project Grant and Gallery Show from 4Culture. Seattle-area organizations that he has received project funding from in the past include: Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Washington State Arts Commission, King County Site Specific, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and Photo Center NW. He has also received funding from the South Carolina Arts Commission.
As a musician and director, Rucker plays in various situations, from solo cellist to leading his LARGE Ensemble of 22 musicians. He was awarded Best Emerging Artist as well as Outside Jazz Ensemble of the Year by Earshot Jazz, and Jazz Artist of the Year by the Seattle Music Awards. Rucker regularly plays as a solo cellist, including past performances at the Jacksonville Jazz Festival and The Stone in New York City. He was invited by legendary filmmaker David Lynch to perform for the opening of Lynch’s film, Inland Empire.
As a public artist, Rucker has created work for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, 4Culture, and the City of Tacoma, WA. Past residencies include Blue Mountain Center, Ucross Foundation, Art OMI, Banff Centre, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. In 2011, Rucker was commissioned to create the fine arts poster for Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle. Paul is currently the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Artist in Residence and Research Fellow at Maryland Institute College of Art.
This work is funded in part by Creative Capital.
Top image: September 15, 1963 Birmingham, Alabama from the Soundless Series by Paul Rucker, 2013
Above image: Proliferations (video still) by Paul Rucker, 2009. “Art can tell stories. For years I would talk about injustice by reciting numbers and statistics. When you say, “We have over 2.3 million people in prison,” it’s a large number to comprehend. Doing research at a prison issues-themed residency at the Blue Mountain Center in New York, I found some maps that I felt could help tell the story. This project shows the proliferation of the US prison system if seen from a celestial point of view. Using different colors to indicate different eras, the viewer can clearly see the astonishing growth of this system over time.”
Timeline: Green Dots: 1778-1900 Yellow Dots: 1901-1940 Orange Dots: 1941-1980 Red Dots: 1981-2005
November 14, 6-8pm
The Big Question Print Series by Charles SpitzackRead more about this series here:
Join us for a special presentation of the completed twelve-print series that Seattle artist Charles Spitzack has been working on at TPR since January 2012. Created in response to TPR’s themes and topics, Spitzack has made twelve different woodblock prints over the course of many Saturdays, and will share the entire series in person on November 14 from 6-8pm.
See prints #1-#10 below!
About Charles:
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 pledged himself to a life of mystery at the age of 9, he wonders how long he will be able to hold on before becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Charles Spitzack is represented by Davidson Galleries.
All the works from this series are available for sale, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting The Project Room’s programs. Prices are as follows: $125 unframed; $300 framed; $1200 for the unframed set. Contact Charles directly with inquiries: charles.spitzack[at]gmail.com
1 564: “Introduction” (2011). Read more about how Charles approached making the first print in the series.
2 565: “Disjointed” (2012) came from original feeling of overwhelmed when approaching the project and the questions this presented- Read more about that here.
3# 567: “Child’s Play” (2012). Working off TPR’s big question, “Why Do We Make Things?” I thought of how the child’s construction toy– in this case–a the backhoe that you often see at playgrounds– reminds us that in the future (when the child has grown), our landscape may be drastically different from today. It is also saying we make things to do just that, change our landscape, change & alter our environment so it meets with our ideals & perspective better.
4 568: “The Futurist’s Manifesto” (2012) came from a series of obstructions/challenges that a friend gave me to work around: read more about that here.
5 569 “Extension Bridge” (2012) is another response to Tim’s assignment of “obstructions.”
6 570: “Leviathan” (2012) is the third print made from Tim’s assignment of “obstructions”, number 1.
To hear more about the ideas behind each print, join us on November 14th!
Paul Rucker is sharing the making of his new body of work with The Project Room throughout 2013-2014. Please join him on October 11 at 6pm for an on-site workshop, and share your stories in response to this essay about his work and ideas.
A couple of weeks ago I was part of the “8th Annual Constitution Day” at the Maryland Institute and College of Art. The theme this year was Inequity and Incarceration in America. My video Proliferation is pictured here behind David Simon- creator of The Wire, Ashley Hunt- Artist Activist, and Susan Barton- Activist.
When I started working on bringing attention to incarceration, it wasn’t because I spent time in prison. During my first year of college, four of my friends back home were involved in a drug related murder. They robbed an elementary school principal who was working late one evening. When the principal resisted handing over his wallet, he was shot. They used the $76 from the robbery to buy drugs and beer. Later convicted, one was executed by lethal injection. A second was released and later incarcerated again for an unrelated crime. He died in prison during his second sentence. The other two have since been released after time served.
I felt for the shooting victim, but I also felt something different for the four involved in the shooting. I remember a time we were all young kids playing on the playground. Part of what I felt was survivor’s guilt; part of me knew that no one is born with ambitions of robbing, or killing.
So I’m creating work about incarceration, but I have never been incarcerated. Would I have more “street cred” if I had been? I ask this because out of the three panelists and the moderator at the Constitutional Day event, Susan Barton, understood the broken system more than anyone because she lived it. She served 6 prison terms for drug related offenses. What’s remarkable to me is that she started A New Way of Life Reentry Project, an organization that gives to just-released female offenders a sober and safe place to live and other support services. She’s helped more than 400 women get back on their feet.
I can try to understand, but even with the best imagination, I’ll fall short of having any idea about what she has experienced.
Former drug users that are now drug treatment counselors are far more trusted than someone who has never been an addict. Mutual understanding of the struggle can be a strong base for trust.
While I work on my project Recapitulation, I feel that exploring empathy should be part of the project. I’d like to extend an invitation to share your stories about your earliest experiences with empathy. You can submit it anonymously. Stories will be shared.
Special instructions:
Everyone:
Write 500 words or less about your early experience with empathy.
OR
For artists:
Create something using only discarded or failed art pieces that have been set aside. No one is allowed to buy any new art material, but they can and are encouraged to exchange failed or incomplete art pieces from each other. Any medium- including digital, photos, movies, drawings, sculpture, etc.
Please send writings and images to empathy@projectroomseattle.org
And Join me in The Project Room on Friday October 11 from 6-7pm for a workshop based on this work.
Thank you for joining in this discussion.
-Paul
Friday October 11, 6-7pm
Join composer, video artist and performer Paul Rucker in a public conversation as he tackles the idea of “empathy” and asks for participation from the audience to help inform this work-in-progress.
To submit a story for anonymous inclusion in the project, go here:
Recapitulation is a music and visual installation demonstrating the parallels between slavery and the contemporary prison industrial complex through animation, digital stills, sculpture, original music compositions, interactive sound and video. Although “slave” and “convict” are different in name, these labels share similar limitations and expectations. Both have faced exploitation for labor, a loss of rights and disenfranchisement. Currently over 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S.; 40 percent are African Americans, although they comprise only 12 percent of the country’s total population. In Recapitulation, Paul Rucker will respond to the vast numbers affected by both institutions and the disparity in the racial makeup of the prison population.
Go here for more information about this long-term program, Recapitulation.
Top image: September 15, 1963 Birmingham, Alabama from the Soundless Series by Paul Rucker, 2013
Wednesday, October 2
Paul Marioni conversation, 6-7pm at The Project Room: 1315 E Pine St
Film Screening and special reception: 7:15-8:30pm at Northwest Film Forum:
1515 12th Ave
Free and open to the public
Please note that reserved seating is not available and space is limited for the 6pm conversation- seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. However, everyone will be accommodated at the Northwest Film Forum for the film screening at 7:15pm. We encourage you to arrive early.
Tickets to the film are being generously underwritten by Chihuly Garden and Glass.
Glass artist Paul Marioni will give a free and unique presentation about his life and work at The Project Room (TPR) during the ongoing “How is Seattle Remembered?” series. Featuring a conversation with TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand and a special screening of Paul’s 1972 experimental film, HOLE, this is a rare opportunity to see a different side of this legendary figure from the American Glass Movement. The program takes place in two parts, the first at The Project Room and the second at Northwest Film Forum. Join us at 6pm for the discussion and at 7:15pm for the screening down the street!
About the Program Series
As part of The Project Room’s 2013-2014 theme, How Are We Remembered? Seattle’s thematic based arts organization presents a unique series of conversations specific to Seattle, featuring guest presenters who have deep roots in the city. Taking The Project Room’s position as a platform for understanding creativity, questions that address Seattle’s legacy and its creativity will be addressed through a personal approach to our city’s history, this special group of guest presenters will share their stories, memories, and hopes for the city’s future.
Each event in the series will feature a guest speaker from a creative field who shares his or her point of view on this subject in a conversation with the audience. This will provide an unusually-intimate setting for these high-profile public figures- so arrive early and be ready to participate! Past speakers include Total Experience Gospel Choir’s Patrinell Wright, Architect Peter Steinbrueck, and Sub Pop Records’ Megan Jasper. For more info, go here.
About the Artist
Paul Marioni, one of the founding members of the American Studio Glass movement, creates sculptures and vessels that incorporate humor, images of taboo sexuality, genre figures, tribal masks, photographs, and visual puns.
Paul moved to California in the mid 1960s, where he was attracted to the beat poets of San Francisco and to the burgeoning counterculture of that city. There, he became part of the influential group of artists working in stained glass in the Bay Area during the early 1970s.
Paul has completed more than 85 public commissions, including cast glass walls, ceilings, and skylights. Known as an innovator in the glass world, Marioni pushes his techniques to their limits, regularly redefining what is possible to achieve with the material.
Marioni graduated in 1967 from the University of Cincinnati, and is a Fellow of the American Crafts Council. He has received three fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has taught at the Penland School of Crafts and at the Pilchuck Glass School.
Paul Marioni has a son, Dante, who is also a glassblower, and in 1998, the two of them presented a feature exhibition of their glass at the Fresno Art Museum in California. Paul Marioni’s program is sponsored by Chihuly Garden and Glass, which aims to celebrate our region’s creative energy and inspire visitors to engage with our region’s cultural community.
Thursday, October 24
8-8:45pm
Hauntings: Three authors tell stories of mothers and other ghosts
As part of the 2013 Seattle Lit Crawl, writers Wendy Call, Anastacia Tolbert and Storme Webber perform stories of women haunted, women who haunt, and the ties that bind them together. All three have participated in the Hedgebrook Women’s writing retreat, and will be introduced by Hedgebrook’s Katie Woodzick.
About the Presenters:
Wendy Call’sbook No Word for Welcome won the Grub Street National Book Prize for Nonfiction in 2011. She has been Writer in Residence at twenty institutions, including Richard Hugo House, Harborview Medical Center, and Everglades National Park – all of which were definitely haunted.
Anastacia Tolbert is a writer, Cave Canem Fellow, Hedgebrook Alumna, EDGE Professional Writers Graduate, VONA alum, creative writing workshop facilitator, documentarian and playwright. She is the recipient of the San Diego Journalism Press Club Award for the article “War Torn.” She is writer, co-director, and co-producer of GOTBREAST? Documentary (2007): a documentary about the views of women regarding breast and body image. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have been published in: WomenArts Quarterly, Specter Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Everyday Other Things, Women Writers in Bloom, Saltwater Quarterly, The Poetry Breakfast, Things Lost, Midnight Tea Book, Reverie, Alehouse Journal, Women. Period., The Drunken Boat, Torch, Clamor Magazine, Cave Canem XI, Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees (Nominated for the 2007 NAACP Award), I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: 76 Voices of African American Women, Essence Magazine, Number One Magazine, Chicken Bones Journal, The Nubian Chronicles, Hair Piecez, San Diego City Beat, The Pitch Weekly, and The Source Magazine.
Internationally nurtured poet, playwright, teacher, interdisciplinary artist Storme Webber creates blues infused, socially engaged texts about Two Spirit identity, art activism and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, memory and spirit. Her performances are an innovative melding of text, performance and a cappella vocals. She’s featured in the award-winning documentary “Venus Boyz”.
Katie Woodzick is Hedgebrook’s External Relations Manager. She is also a writer, director and actress.
Hedgebrook is a global community of women writers and people who seek extraordinary books, poetry, plays, films and music by women. A literary nonprofit, our mission is to support visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture. We offer writing residencies, master classes and salons at our 25-year-old retreat on Whidbey Island, and public programs around the country that connect writers with readers and audiences.
About Lit Crawl Seattle:
Lit Crawl Seattle is literary mayhem at its finest: an entire evening of free readings by some of the Seattle area’s most groundbreaking and beloved writers in bars and cafés, bookstores and art galleries, performance spaces and dance halls. On Thursday, October 24, Seattle lit lovers will Crawl in three hour-long shifts beginning at 6 p.m., progressing toward an afterparty at Richard Hugo House.
Now in its second year, Lit Crawl Seattle is among the constellation of literary pub crawls that started in San Francisco as part of the storied Litquake festival and now has a presence in New York, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Iowa City, and London. Each location organizes its own version of the Crawl, reflecting the unique literary makeup and talents of that city.
Last year’s Seattle Lit Crawl featured more than 60 writers, actors, dancers, and musicians in 15 different venues across Capitol Hill. The 2013 event promises to be just as exciting, with fiction, memoir, poetry, art, and more from the likes of Ivan Doig, Nicole Hardy, Will Self, Kathleen Flinn, Sean Beaudoin, Ellen Forney, and many, many others.
For updates on author appearances and other news, follow Lit Crawl Seattle on Facebook and Twitter. Look for maps to appear early in October; they will be available at the Elliott Bay Book Company, the Richard Hugo House, and at various locations on Capitol Hill.
Above photos (L-R): Katie Woodzick by Kathryn Parrott, Anastacia Tolbert by Zorn Taylor, Wendy Call by Rosanne Olson, Storme Webber by Jack Straw Productions
Begins Tuesday, September 10
at Town Hall Seattle
7:30-9pm
Tickets: $5
LISTEN TO AUDIO HERE
The Project Room’s Founder Jess Van Nostrand hosts Town Hall Seattle’s new visual arts series titled “Inside Art.” Created by visual artist Juan Alonso and featuring four evening events that each feature three artists and a moderator, this series will open up a conversation about how, when and why visual artists do what they do. Jess will moderate events #1 and #4 based on The Project Room’s first two “big questions”: Why Do We Make Things? and How Are We Remembered? Actor and singer Sarah Rudinoff and writer Brangien Davis will moderate the other two conversations, rounding out the series with their perspectives as makers from different art forms. This first evening features Seattle artists Marita Dingus, Rodrigo Valenzuela, and Margie Livingston.
The schedule of programs is as follows:
Oct. 15: Inspiration, featuring Laura Castellanos, Dan Webb, and Sharon Arnold in a conversation moderated by actress Sarah Rudinoff;
Nov. 19: Imagery & Art, featuring Barbara Earl Thomas, Stephanie Hargrave, and Alan Lau, moderated by writer Brangien Davis
Dec. 10: How are We Remembered? featuring Diem Chau, Alfredo Arreguin and Ronald Hall and moderated by Jess Van Nostrand
To read more, go here!
Inside Art, curated by Juan Alonso, is presented by Town Hall and The Project Room as part of Town Hall’s Arts & Culture series. Media sponsorship provided by City Arts.
Note that this event takes place at Town Hall Seattle, not at The Project Room
Remembering Allen Ginsberg’s LGBT Poetics and Activism
Part of the 12th Annual Allen Ginsberg Marathon
Sunday June 2, 10am
TPR is pleased to present one hour of the 12th Annual Allen Ginsberg Marathon with the poetry organization, SPLAB. As part of TPR’s new big question How Are We Remembered? Nadine Antoinette Maestas, PhD; Andy Meyer, PhD; and Gregory Laynor will discuss the poet Allen Ginsberg’s contributions to LGBT culture and activism. The presentations will include select Ginsberg poems and discussion with the audience. Whether you are attending the Marathon or just curious about it, this will be a great event that shines a light on the legacy of one of America’s most important cultural figures.
About Allen Ginsberg
One of the fathers of the Beat generation, and an influential 20th century American poet, Allen Ginsberg was a major contributor to modern poetry. He rose to fame during the counter-culture era of the 1950’s and 60’s, challenging the norms of society. While most poets of the time used eloquent language and spoke of things such as the natural world, love or death, Ginsberg’s poems could come off as violent rants, filled with vivid images and obscenities. Not surprisingly, this confrontational method of poems wasn’t necessarily well recieved by the general public. However, Ginsberg would find his place alongside other disillusioned artists of the era, helping shape the Beat generation, alongside fellow poets like Jack Kerouac, Carl Solomon and William Burroughs. These poets expressed anger with modern society, capitalism and the conformity of post-war America.
The wild writing style of Allen Ginsberg and his rebellious personality can be partly attributed to his upbringing in Patterson, New Jersey. His parents were Jewish, although far from traditionalists. His father, Louis, composed poetry as well and his mother, Naomi, was an active communist. She also suffered from mental illness and eventually was committed to a mental asylum, an experience that would have a great effect on Ginsberg. As a young man, he studied in New York, where he would meet the friends that would shape his future, through rebellious acts and discussions on poetry and society. Moving between the counter-culture centers of New York and San Francisco, Ginsberg would develop his poetic style. In 1956, he wrote and performed his most famous work, Howl, explicitly expressing the frustrations of his generation and sub-culture. Ginsberg would go on to play a role in inspiring and propelling the revolutionary spirit of the late 50’s and 60’s. He worked with artists like Bob Dylan, worked to spread awareness of LSD with Timothy Leary and appeared at countless protests and movements. Ginsberg would go on to help evolve poetry, bringing it into the ‘post-modern’ world, and challenging traditions. Throughout his life, Ginsberg would advocate free speech and left-wing ideals and also worked for gay rights, himself being a homosexual. The poems and personality of Allen Ginsberg are essential to understanding the Beat generation and the evolution of modern poetry. His pioneering style changed the structure and norms of poetry in America and across the world.
About SPLAB
The SPLAB mission is to promote spokenword performance, develop the audience for poetry, develop resources to support poetry, to do public outreach, and build community through shared experience of the spoken and written word.
The SPLAB membership includes poets, poetry organizations, and individuals that maintain a distinct presence in field of poetry both in the United States and internationally. As the SPLAB gathers support, finances, and staff to deploy its resources it will first concentrate its efforts in the Pacific Northwest, extending to other regions of the US and eventually reaching into Latin America.
Read more about SPLAB here
About the Program:
Photo by Cliff Despeaux (2009) of showing dancer Ying Zhou performing with digital drawings by Keeara Rhoades
The Susie J Lee Ensemble prepares their innovative dance/music/digital technology performance for the Beijing International Fringe Festival. Stop by during a rehearsal or come to see the only Seattle public performance in conjunction with a discussion with the performers. As part of TPR’s next “big question,“How Are We Remembered?” this program will include conversation about legacy, and how professional artists envision and plan for what is often beyond their control. Featuring Beijing-based dancer Ying Zhou, Minneapolis-based composer Emily Greenleaf, and Seattle visual artists Keeara Rhoades and Susie J Lee.
About the Work:In 2009 and 2011, Stranger Genius Award winner Susie J Lee fused dance, technology and live music to present an imaginatively intense and fantastical journey of creativity throughout a routine day. FOR THESE UNCLOSINGS and SWIMMING THE LIST were presented in sold-out runs at New City Theater and Theatre Off Jackson. SWIMMING THE LIST now heads to Beijing for the Beijing International Fringe Festival.
SWIMMING THE LIST merges cutting-edge technology with physical artistry, in which dancer, music, and drawn light move together as one twirling, breathing, and dynamic body. These elements come together in a work about dovetailing creative and everyday actions. The work features choreography by Beijing dance artist Ying Zhou and musical composition by Minneapolis composer Emily Greenleaf. The live digital imagery is drawn by emerging local artist, Keeara Rhoades. The technology is provided by Andy Wilson of Microsoft Research.
SWIMMING THE LIST explores legacy through the perspective of the many working artists who are not recognized by “history” but who endeavor, balancing creative and more mundane obligations through their entire career. How do these artists define how they are remembered?
Saturday October 12, 12-5pm
Printmaker Charles Spitzack is completing his nearly two-year project of following TPR’s themes in a woodblock print series. Begun during our Beginning’s topic in 2012, Spitzack has been creating new prints in his studio and at TPR in front of an audience. Read about the first six prints here, and stop by on one of the following Saturdays to see what he’s up to!
To view the first six prints in this twelve-print series, go here.
And save the date for Charles’ Print Party on November 14 from 6-8pm, when he finished the final print on-site and shares the stores behind each one. More info coming soon!
As the final phase of Veit Stratmann’s work for our Failure topic, the artist visited from France to present a proposal for the abandoned city of L’Aquila to TPR’s audience. L’Aquila is fascinating because it embodies a cyclical mess of an empty city, regulations, unhappy former residents, and no solution in sight. TPR has been following Veit’s research, which you can read about here:
In response to L’Aquila’s difficult state of being neither here nor there, so to speak, Veit drafted a plan for a “people counter” that would calculate individuals who enter the city. The failure in this, as he stated, is that if it were to be produced with the city’s permission, it would then negate itself as a subversive act- it only works if no one knows it’s there- yet it can’t be done from a practical sense without the city’s permission.
With this in mind, below are images of the city itself and Veit’s proposal:
A People Counter
by Veit Stratmann
Presented at The Project Room
February 6, 2013
Above: The city of L’Aquila
Some premises:
An artistic gesture in L’Aquila cannot be oriented around its potential public reception – for there is no public. It cannot, therefore, be construed as an “artwork”, which draws upon the fact of being out of the ordinary.
This artistic gesture can neither formulate questions nor constitute a proposal because there is no one on the receiving end of such an invitation, nobody to take any questioning into consideration.
An artistic gesture in L’Aquila can only be effective if it is stripped of the privilege of being considered artwork and becomes autonomous, inventing a functional objective in the city (which may or may not be taken into account).
In order to be efficient, an artistic gesture carried out in L’Aquila should be both discrete and plausible within its environment. Its artistic origins should never come into question.
The functionality of such a gesture cannot target an improvement of the situation in L’Aquila because that again would suggest the taking into account of information disseminated by the work by a given public.
An artistic gesture in L’Aquila should integrate the the part of the city that was the most densly populated of the city. In this way, the work can take shape not in the sculptural, self-contained sense but within the materiality of the city itself. In being limited to the materiality of the city itself, the work can be detached from the amorphous societal structure of L’Aquila and avoid becoming “extraordinary”.
Description:
Double photoelectric barriers will be installed at each of the 70 entrance points to the core zone of L’Aquila. This was the most densely populated area of the city before the 2009 earthquake. The frequency and the direction in which the infrared beams forming the barriers are interrupted will allow the number of by-passers entering and exiting the city to be counted. The number of people within the given zone will be accounted for at all times.
The photoelectric barriers will be installed at a height of 120 cm (approx. 4 ft.) off the ground to avoid counting wild animals (especially stray dogs, which are extremely numerous in the old city center). With similar logistical reasoning, the barriers will be installed at intervals of 150 cm (approx. 5 ft.) in order to distinguish between people moving in cars and pedestrians. A person on foot cannot span the same distance as a moving car and therefore he can only block one sensor at a time whereas a car can block two simultaneously. Since car circulation in the city center is nearly exclusively that of official vehicles (police or army) carrying two passengers, moving cars will be counted as including 2 people per car.
A display screen indicating the number of people present in the delimitated area in “real time” will be placed in the delimitated zone in the “Gazebo”, a structure made of glass and wood that served as an annex to the “Dolce Vita” bakery. This building is located in front of the old Hotel Sole on the corner of a little square formed by the intersections of Pizzo Doca, San Crisante and Tre Maria streets. The display screen is to be situated on this particular building because of its transparent structure and its familiarity to the public. However the building will not add any symbolic layer to the project. Because the Gazebo is at a significant distance from Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the main street of the historic city center, its non-central location serves to diminish the importance of the installation.
Map showing gazebo location there the people counter would be installed
The “People Counter’s” small size and location may thus be perfectly ignored. Furthermore, the display screen and photoelectric barriers the people counters/motion sensors only quantify a marginal aspect of the city. They do not intrinsically modify L’Aquila nor constitute any inherent potential of influencing the current situation there. And in referencing a purely “material” reality, the “People Counter” remains detached from the now shapeless society that surrounds it.
Nothing indicates the origins of the “ People Counter”. It is simply there, without any commentary. This is the only way in which it can avoid taking an “extraordinary” status. Because the information provided by the
“PeopleCounter” remains factual, the installation can slip, without resistance, into the non-system of l’Aquila.
- Because of the decentralized location of the Gazebo, the “People Counter” can go completely unnoticed and unread. To read the screen, two choices are necessary. A decision to enter the delimited zone and leave the main streets to reach the site of the Gazebo must be made. Then another decision has to be made to stay for some time in front of the display screen, observing the changing numbers. If choice-making can be considered the basis for political action, then reaching the site of the “People Counter” and taking the time to watch the display represent decisions and actions that could result in the first embryonic step towards making political gestures in L’Aquila, creating the seeds of politics itself.
The “People Counter” is neither oriented towards the collectivity nor towards an individual. It simply records the presence of individuals within a given area. Yet, because of its location, each individual who takes the “People Counter” display into consideration automatically constitutes himself as a group member within the designated zone. Each individual who stops to watch the “People Counter” triggers – at least temporarily – the emergence of the nucleus of a society.
Filmmaker Lucy Hanna interviews Valerie Agnew and Elizabeth Davis of 7 Year Bitch for our ongoing oral history interview series in conjunction with THESE STREETS. Read more here!
oin singer Carrie Akre (Hammerbox, Goodness) for a conversation in The Project Room Wednesday, February 20 from 6-7pm. And watch her oral history interview here:
About the Presenter:
In the early ’90s, Akre was the lead singer of Hammerbox, a potent alternative rock outfit with guitar hooks as sharp as Nirvana’s but without the record label push the group deserved. In August 1993, Hammerbox performed at Endfest in Washington State to an audience of more than 14,000 fans, sharing the stage with well-known college-radio favorites like X, Social Distortion, and They Might Be Giants. The group was dropped, marking the beginning of Akre’s difficulties with major labels, one that would motivate her to start her own label, Good-Ink Records. Akre formed the band Goodness in 1994 whose self-titled first album was first released on Y Records and then later re-released onLava, an imprint of Atlantic Records. Their second LP, Anthem, for Atlantic in 1998 was shelved after failing to produce a “single”. The label dropped the band soon there after. Goodness disbanded in 2000. In 1999, Akre joined the Rockfords with guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Rick Friel (bass), and ex-Goodness members Danny Newcomb (guitar) and Chris Friel (drums). Akre released her solo debut, Home, in 2000 (on GoodInk Records), Invitation in 2002 (on self owned My Way Records) and Last the Evening in 2007 (on Loveless Records).
More events around The Making of THESE STREETS can be found here:
This week’s oral history interview for THESE STREETS features Stephanie Emery (Wicker) of the bands Algae and Like Lightening.
See Stephanie perform live in TPR on Thursday February 28, 6pm!**
Musicians Steve Moriarty (The Gits, The Pinkos) and Emily Marsh (Faster Tiger, Black Cat Orchestra) are the next installment in this continuing series about the Seattle rock music scene from the 1990s. Read more about THESE STREETS, the larger effort behind this that includes a new play, here.
This week’s oral history interview features Gretta Harley and Tess Lotta of the Seattle band Maxi Badd (later named Danger Gens). Harley is also co-creator of THESE STREETS, the new play that is behind this interview series. To read more about how TPR has followed the making of this extraordinary play and community education project, go here.
The Project Room is happy to welcome Seattle printmaker Charles Spitzack back to TPR for another open studio on Saturday February 9 from 1-6pm. As part of our current topic, Failure, Charles will work with “failed” wood blocks from previous prints to see what he can make of them- anyone is welcome to stop by and see how it’s going!
Charles began the series of twelve prints during our Beginnings topic in response to TPR’s different topics. Below are the first six completed prints, which are available for sale individually or in a set of twelve. For more information about purchasing a piece, email jess@projectroomseattle.org
1 564: “Introduction” (2011). Read more about how Charles approached making the first print in the series.
2 565: “Disjointed” (2012) came from original feeling of overwhelmed when approaching the project and the questions this presented- Read more about that here.
3# 567: “Child’s Play” (2012). Working off TPR’s big question, “Why Do We Make Things?” I thought of how the child’s construction toy– in this case–a the backhoe that you often see at playgrounds– reminds us that in the future (when the child has grown), our landscape may be drastically different from today. It is also saying we make things to do just that, change our landscape, change & alter our environment so it meets with our ideals & perspective better.
4 568: “The Futurist’s Manifesto” (2012) came from a series of obstructions/challenges that a friend gave me to work around: read more about that here.
5 569 “Extension Bridge” (2012) is another response to Tim’s assignment of “obstructions.”
6 570: “Leviathan” (2012) is the third print made from Tim’s assignment of “obstructions”, number 1.
Continuing our weekly release of oral history videos, this week features guitar player Peg Wood from the band Girl with 100 Heads- take a look!
And read more about THESE STREETS at ACT and The Making of THESE STREETS at TPR next month!
In our next online installment of the Oral History Interview series, we present the funny and articulate women of Capping Day, Bonnie Hammond and Laura Vanderpool. This is a segment of the full-length interview that was filmed at TPR in 2012 and will be archived at the University of Washington after the completion of the project in 2013. To read more about THESE STREETS and buy tickets to the show that opens at ACT in February, 2013- go here:
I am trying to undo the knot I am finding myself in with L’Aquila.
I am including an image of a protest of the citizens of L’Aquila, having hung their house keys on a construction site barrier as a demonstration against being forbidden to return to their homes and– in my interpretation– as a sign of the difficulty in being able to simply DO something. It is the only protest action I have ever seen that is a gesture of giving up.
This text is the continuation of my reflections initiated in “An Introduction to L’Aquila, Empty City”. This should not be taken as an independent text but rather as the further development and honing of – but also the deviation from – the ideas evoked in the first text. To read more about this project, click here.**
- The freezing of time and the dissolution of political space, which took place in the aftermath of the earthquake in L’Aquila on April 6th 2009, transformed the city into a “non-lieu”. A gaping black hole opened up where the city once was. And that black hole aspirated the meaning and purpose of the city, absorbing any notions of coherence, organization or social structure. As society itself was aspirated, all that is left is a carcass – of urban, architectural and security structures – devoid of life and disconnected from normal temporality. L’Aquila is no longer. All that remains is a “un-city” (I use the expression “un-city” in echo of the German word for vampires and zombies, Untote, which means the “not-dead”).
An “artistic gesture” carried out in this “un-city” would become the only structure capable of indicating the presence of life in a lifeless environment. It would be the only apparatus capable of underlining the passage of time in this city that has fallen out of time. The “artistic gesture” would echo the traces of life and societal structures. Effectively, it would become their replacement. But, by its very nature, an “artistic gesture” cannot replace something and this condition of “replacement” would annihilate any possibility of the “artistic gesture” actually being art.
In other words, any artistic gesture introduced in the “un-city” of L’Aquila is stuck in an indissoluble and paralyzing contradiction. As “art”, it is alive – or at least a trace of life. Yet in the “un-city”, it is lifeless and devoid of justification, dead. Art in L’Aquila would, like the city itself, become a zombie.
- Not being able to avoid this reasoning, I began to accept that the two words that I chose as a starting point, “gesture” and “artist”, needed rethinking because linking them together made them seem pointless in the zombie-like zone of L’Aquila.
Yet the status of this “un-city” continues to fascinate me, and I feel that I need to keep trying to DO something. I realize that I need to dissolve the link between the terms “gesture” and “art” and then link each word separately to the “un-city” itself. The initial duality becomes a triangulation composed of “gesture”, “art” and “un-city”.
A triangulation does not allow for an artistic gesture in L’Aquila, but it does allow me to differentiate and modulate the relationships between the different components. This triangulation allows me to play with the various starting point combinations and their manifest or tacit presence. At least I can act.
- For the moment, there seem to be two paths of modulation and potential action:
On one hand, I can carry out an action – make a gesture – in the urban and architectural carcass of the city, specifically in what was its public space. However this gesture must be plausible in its environment. The question of its artistic origin should not be posed.
On the other hand, I can carry out an action that is fully inscribed in the realm of art. However this gesture cannot be carried out in the city’s public spaces due to my issues with responding to L’Aquila’s current state by making art about it.
- Even if these two possibilities are functionally opposite they are linked by an underlying condition. Neither possibility can be productive if it is capable of contradicting its surrounding or of constituting a corrective element:
⁃ If an action carried out in the public space of L’Aquila has the capacity of correcting or contradicting the surrounding situation then it becomes extraordinary (perhaps even a work of art). It will then lose plausibility.
⁃ If an action carried out outside L’Aquila has the capacity of correcting or contradicting the situation from a distance then it becomes a proposal for solving non-art related problems and loses its status of artwork. It will likewise be nullified.
My current possibilities for action seem to only be potentially productive if they are exclusively attached to the materiality of the city, measuring that which is quantifiable. At the same time, I can operate on the principle that in measuring, my potential actions delimit the field of possibilities and create forms. If these forms are based on measurement, they have a function and cannot be completely devoid of meaning. But this meaning appears, in given context of cause and effect, as a byproduct or a parasitical phenomenon. The notion of “meaning” as parasite may indeed have its place in the “un-city” of L’Aquila. It may even be plausible in its environment.
Veit’s research continues during a visit to The Project Room on Wednesday February 6 at 6pm. Join us to see what he proposes to do about the empty city of L’Aquila.
Military personnel stand beneath holidays lights in a deserted L’Aquila, December 2012
Leading up to the premier of the play THESE STREETS at ACT Theatre in February 2013, TPR is releasing weekly online interview segments from the oral history portion of this project. The full length versions of these interviews will be archived at the University of Washington. This second interview, filmed at TPR, featuresSally Johnson and Mike Katellof the former band, Faster Tiger.
See interview #1 here:
To learn more about THESE STREETS, follow this link:
Filming by Wes Hurley
Interview conducted at The Project Room.
Tickets on sale now!
These Streets is an unconventional theatrical play and history project, inspired by women rock musicians in Seattle during the infamous “grunge” years. Spearheaded by rock guitarist, Gretta Harley (faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, and guitarist who played in several bands during the era) and Sarah Rudinoff (Actress, Writer and The Stranger Genius Award Winner), These Streets is inspired by over 35 interviews conducted with and about the many women rockers who were integral to the Seattle music scene but have been overshadowed by the familiar bands and retrospectives.
This original piece of theatre is not a documentary, but a gritty, funny and powerful fictional story with characters that represent an amalgam of the real women rockers upon which it is based. The show is filled with music from that era, as well as a few new original songs (by Harley and Rudinoff’s We Are Golden), all played and sung by the characters 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 will have 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.
For more information, please contact Amy Poisson at amypoissonrocks@gmail.com.
What does failure look like to an accomplished writer? How does an architect use failure as a productive tool? What can be learned from successful people who have managed daunting problems, and where are specific industries falling short? Join the conversation as we pick the brains of highly imaginative people by focusing on a topic most of us try to avoid. This program is part of TPR’s Failure series.
Wednesday, December 12 @ 6pm: Trimpin, Sound Artist
Trimpin is a Seattle-based kinetic sculptor, sound artist, musician, composer, and inventor. He has combined these varied disciplines into his extensive body of work since the 1970s, often creating kinetic sculpture installations that include the production of sound through the inclusion of mechanically or computer-driven instruments or entirely new sound sources. Trimpin has pioneered the development of computer-driven instruments and sound sculptures, including many built prior to the advent of the MIDI interface, but his work almost always includes acoustically produced sounds, and he has created devices to play every instrument of the orchestra. Most of his pieces integrate both sculpture and music in some way.
Trimpin is a MacArthur Genius Award winner and the subject of a documentary, TRIMPIN: the sound of invention.
Wednesday, January 16 @ 6pm: Jason Dodson and Faustine Hudson of The Maldives
In the great Northwest, The Maldives are more than a band, they are an institution. With a history that goes back more than half a decade (their friendships considerably longer), they’ve played every kind of gig imaginable- from backwoods festivals on the back of a flatbed truck to the inauguration of Seattle’s musically minded mayor.
They have overflowed the stages at SXSW, CMJ, Capitol Hill Block Party, Sasquatch, and Bumbershoot. In 2010, they were featured on MTV’s $5 Cover series which spotlighted the best of Seattle’s music scene.
What started as the personal project for lead singer and songwriter Jason Dodson has at times swollen to a small army of twelve before settling on seven full-time members. At some point, The Maldives became bigger than any one man.
Their debut full-length, 2009’s Listen to the Thunder (Mt. Fuji, produced by Grammy Award-winner Kory Kruckenberg), was the culmination of years of live playing, not a studio piece, but a faithful document of who the Maldives had become as a live band. Their latest release Muscle for the Wing (Spark & Shine) is the opportunity to bring the band’s assembled creativity together in a different way and explore their combined vision. And this time they brought in producer Shawn Simmons (The Head and the Heart, Grand Hallway) to capture it all. It builds on a heritage of cinematic American rock & roll that’s at turns chivalrous and fist-pumping, steeped in tradition but unbound by expectations. Dodson’s words reveal characters set in a widescreen frame, scenes from real life that often portray victims of the heart and casualties to the beast that is circumstance.
Wednesday, January 23 @ 6pm: Barbara Earl Thomas- Visual Artist, Writer & Deputy Director of the Northwest African American Museum
Barbara Earl Thomas a Seattle based painter and writer, and the Curator and Deputy Director of the Northwest African American Museum, which opened in 2007. She is represented in Washington by the Francine Seders Gallery, and her work is currently on view in the Tacoma Art Museum’s Best of the Northwest Exhibit that runs through March 2013. In 1998 & 2000 she received The Seattle Arts Commission award for new non-fiction. In 2007 she completed project coordination on a monograph for artist Joe Fedderson, University of Washington Press, published as part of the Jacob and Gwen Lawrence endowed series on American artists.
Barbara is a confirmed bibliophile. One of her recent best reads is Francisco Goya: A Life, by Evan S. Connell. This book is excellent. Of it she says “Inquisitions are not to be desired. Vote no if you ever have the chance.”
Wednesday, January 30 @ 5:30pm: Tom Kundig, Principal/Owner of Olson Kundig Architects
Tom Kundig is one of the most recognized architects in North America. He has received some of our nation’s highest design awards, including a National Design Award in Architecture Design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; four National AIA Honor Awards; seven National AIA Housing Awards; and an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which recognizes creative individuals whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction. Recently, he was included in The Wallpaper 150, Wallpaper’s list of the 150 people who have most influenced, inspired and improved the way we live, work and travel over the last 15 years.
To date, Kundig has been awarded a total of thirty-seven AIA awards, and over seventy awards total. Olson Kundig Architects received the 2009 National AIA Architecture Firm Award (as Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects) and has twice been named one of the Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Architecture by Fast Company.
Kundig’s work encompasses residential, commercial and institutional and is located around the world. His signature detailing and raw, kinetic construction explore new forms of engagement with site and landscape, which he frames in the workings of unique, building-size machines. In his houses, which are quickly becoming recognized as modern-day classics, brute strength and tactile refinement are held in perfect equilibrium. Recent projects include Art Stable, 1900 First Avenue Hotel and Apartments, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and private residences in Spain and throughout North America, including The Pierre, Shadowboxx, Studio Sitges and Hawaii Residence, Whistler Ski House.
Wednesday, February 20, 6pm: Carrie Akre, Vocalist
In the early ’90s, Akre was the lead singer of Hammerbox, a potent alternative rock outfit with guitar hooks as sharp as Nirvana’s but without the record label push the group deserved. In August 1993, Hammerbox performed at Endfest in Washington State to an audience of more than 14,000 fans, sharing the stage with well-known college-radio favorites like X, Social Distortion, and They Might Be Giants. The group was dropped, marking the beginning of Akre’s difficulties with major labels, one that would motivate her to start her own label, Good-Ink Records. Akre formed the band Goodness in 1994 whose self-titled first album was first released on Y Records and then later re-released onLava, an imprint of Atlantic Records. Their second LP, Anthem, for Atlantic in 1998 was shelved after failing to produce a “single”. The label dropped the band soon there after. Goodness disbanded in 2000. In 1999, Akre joined the Rockfords with guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Rick Friel (vocals), and ex-Goodness members Danny Newcomb (bass) and Chris Friel (drums). Akre released her solo debut, Home, in 2000 (on GoodInk Records), Invitation in 2002 (on self owned My Way Records) and Last the Evening in 2007 (on Loveless Records).
Above image: Train wreck at Montparnasse Station, at Place de Rennes side (now Place du 18 Juin 1940), Paris, France, 1895.
Friday, November 9 7:30pm-12:30am – 18+
Seattle Art Museum Downtown
1300 First Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101-2003
As part of SAM’s monthly REMIX event, THESE STREETS co-creators Sarah Rudinoff and Gretta Harley present live music from the upcoming show featuring the show’s on-stage band and other musicians who have been key to telling Seattle’s rock n’ roll story from the 1990s. This is a great opportunity to preview the fantastic music from this show before its premier at ACT Theatre in 2013! More about the evening’s event is here.
Leading up to the premier of THESE STREETS at ACT Theatre in February 2013, TPR is releasing weekly online interview segments from the oral history portion of this project. The full length versions of these interviews will be archived at the University of Washington. This first interview, filmed at TPR, features Vanessa Veselka of the former band, BELL.
About Vanessa: Besides being a guitar player, singer and songwriter, Vanessa has been at various times a teenage runaway, an expatriate, a union organizer, and a student of paleontology. Her debut novel,Zazen, won the 2012 PEN/Bingham prize for fiction. Vanessa’s music is featured in THESE STREETS along with songs from other women in forthcoming interviews. As a single mom to a nine year-old daughter, Vanessa talks here about the social stigma that exists for young girls who retreat into solitude to learn how to play an instrument, and how necessary that isolation is for a budding artist. It’s a fascinating interview!
Filming by Wes Hurley
Interview conducted at The Project Room by TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand- October 19, 2012
Sunday November 4, 2-3:15PM
Arts Education Panel Discussion
As part of the Youth Philanthropy Project, PONCHO hosts a panel of local experts to discuss the strengths, needs and issues of the local arts education community. This panel discussion is free (with suggested donation) and open to the public. Panelists include: Karen Sharp (Seattle Children’s Theatre), Randy Engstrom (Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs), Estevan Munoz-Howard (Social Justice Fund) and Elizabeth Whitford (Arts Corps). Reservations are requested for patrons that are not members of YPP to liz@poncho.org. www.poncho.org
Founded in 1963, PONCHO (Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, dedicated to enriching the quality of life in the Puget Sound through increasing resources and community support for the arts. PONCHO acts as a catalyst for change in the arts sector by leveraging relationships with arts, philanthropic and education communities. Launched in 2012, PONCHO’s Arts Education Initiative ensures K-12 students in King and Pierce counties have equitable access to quality arts education.
Any classical musician will tell you: they’ve been trained to believe that mistakes are a very, very bad thing. Most classical musicians have had drilled into them the goal of perfection – that the best performance was one that adheres the most strictly to the score, that doesn’t deviate in any way from what’s written on the page. The performer must get 100% of the notes right in order to get an A+; anything less is an F.
Sounds scary, right? How can any musician actually enjoy this?
On the other hand, the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi celebrates imperfection and asymmetry as key elements in art. It shows that a human being is behind the creation, not a computer program.
As a composer, much of what I do is created in rehearsal, and it’s through the performer’s own interpretations of my music that I feel that the music is given life.
I rarely put in tempo markings, dynamics, articulations. I discover them.
When I first moved to Seattle, I took Indian vocal lessons and was introduced to the Indian raga. I was inspired by this fluid and poetic, yet highly structured approach to improvisation. Since then, I’ve embedded my own “ragas” into my scores, in which the performer is required to be part of the process, as opposed to the end-result. It creates more spontaneous performances; and it excites me to think that there might not be just one interpretation of my music.
My general rule is, make it your own, but be true to the spirit. While I grant the performer a lot of leeway, there are times when I do feel that the performer has veered too far from what I intuitively believe to be the intention – the mysterious intersection between my artistic self and the piece I’m trying to create.
But there are times when, even if the performer tries to change, they just keep going back to the way they were doing it. This is what I call the beautiful mistake. It’s my own version of wabi-sabi. It might not be what’s written or directed, but it’s who the performer is. It’s how they were meant to perform the role.
This way of working extends to other elements too, like production design. With my latest project Magda G, I’ve been working with artist Tori Ellison on a paper dress, to be worn by countertenor José Luis Muñoz who plays the lead. Instead of giving Tori explicit parameters, I’ve given her poetic ones: fragility, filo dough, Nazi, paper, danger. It’s been great to see how she’s developed this and made it her own, while staying true to the spirit.
I’ll be rehearsing Magda next Tuesday (October 16) at the Project Room @ 8 pm, before we perform it at Barca Lounge on Friday, October 19. It’ll be an open rehearsal, so come by! The thing about beautiful mistakes is that they can’t be planned, so I can’t guarantee anything. But a good, if imperfect, time shall be had by all.
Update: we just learned that Magda G (the screenplay) was shortlisted at the 2012 Gotham Screen International Film Festival!
Photo: José Luis Muñoz as Magda. Courtesy of Tim Aguero.
Thursday, October 11, 11am-12pm
The Project Room welcomes New York Times contributor and author of The Joy of X, Steven Strogatz, for some morning mathematics! A frequent guest on Radiolab and ambassador of making math engaging for anyone, Strogatz will present his perspective on different kinds of “solutions” as our final event in the Solutions topic.
If you are a creative maker of things and find little to like about numbers, this is the event for you! Space is limited, so plan to arrive early!
Steve will also be presenting The Joy of X at Town Hall Seattle on October 10 at 7:30pm. Listen to him read, buy your book, and then join us at TPR the next morning for more fun with Steve!
Steven Strogatz is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He holds a joint appointment in the College of Arts and Sciences (Mathematics) and the College of Engineering (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering).
After graduating summa cum laude in mathematics from Princeton in 1980, Strogatz studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He did his doctoral work in applied mathematics at Harvard, followed by a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and Boston University. From 1989 to 1994, Strogatz taught in the Department of Mathematics at MIT. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1994.
Strogatz is passionate about public outreach and loves sharing the beauty of math and science with a wide audience. He has spoken at TED and is a frequent guest on RadioLab. In the spring of 2010 he wrote a weekly blog about mathematics for the New York Times; the Harvard Business Review described these columns as “must reads for entrepreneurs and executives” and “a model for how mathematics needs to be popularized.” His second New York Times series, Me, Myself and Math, appeared in the fall of 2012. Strogatz has also filmed a series of 24 lectures on Chaos for the Teaching Company’s Great Courses series. He is the author of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (1994), Sync (2003), and The Calculus of Friendship (2009). His most recent book, The Joy of x, was published in October 2012.