Fink, Simon 7/2 to 7/27, Musician

A Chicago-based musician whose interests include composing chamber music, electronic music, multimedia collaborations, and rock’n’roll. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, studying with Marta Ptaszynska, Shulamit Ran, and Kotoka Suzuki. His original compositions have been performed in concerts and festivals by renowned groups, such as Eighth Blackbird, across the country and in Berlin. As a singer/songwriter and band leader, he has performed extensively in clubs, bars, and festivals in many parts of the country as well.

Simon earned a BM in Music Composition from Rice University in 2002. After graduating, Simon coordinated an NEA-funded arts education program, traveling across Texas and collaborating with the state’s best traditional musicians such as Alvin Crow and Santiago Jimenez, Jr. He has collaborated on multimedia projects with the NYC arts groups Uniondocs, Counts Media, and Peter Stuyvesant’s Ghost, and his works have been played on radio stations across the country.

From the artist’s statement: As an undergraduate composition major, I had a professor who once described the process of composition as a continuous and progressive act of self-discovery. In a kind of extension of the tradition of Charles Ives, I believe that anything is and should be possible in music. Therefore when I sit down to think about what kind of musical expression I want to create, I must reach past an infinite number of possibilities in order to grab the one that truly feels like “me.” As someone with a wide diversity of musical influences – which include European and American modernism, rock music, Baroque counterpoint, and Appalachian fiddle music – searching for a kind of expression that seems to “fit right” is a constant and invigorating challenge.

I have had a recurring dream that has returned to me many times over the past several years. I find myself following a path in the woods that twists and turns through a gorgeous and continuously varying natural landscape. Every new surrounding seems to fit perfectly into the succession of sights and sounds, so as to somehow enrich all that came before it or that will follow after it. I find this exhilarating image highly suggestive in my thinking about how my music should move through time.

Every moment should be intriguing in itself, and also contribute to an absorbing, ever-evolving overall shape and direction.

Foley, Rebecca 7/2 to 7/13, Visual Artist

2005 MFA, Photography: Indiana University, Bloomington, IN and 2002 BA, Art and Art History/English: Rice University, Houston, TX. Currently part-time instructor at Columbia College, Chicago, IL, teaching 19th Century Photographic Processes and Experimental Photography / Graphic Techniques.

From the artist’s statement: I come from a long tradition of collectors. Almost everyone in my family has specific objects they ritualistically purchase or save. Individually, each object speaks to a specific moment, but as a collection they represent a developing history.

My black and white prints combine nostalgic images of my family with photograms of dishes I inherited from my great-grandmother. In my work, I am interested in using historical photographic methods to create images because I feel they evoke a reference to time. I am interested in my own history, as well as the history of the medium I work with.

The other images are photographic quilts, each a composite of individual photograms of objects, digitally arranged in Photoshop. After making a digital print, the surface is decorated with stitching patterns, either inspired by the objects or borrowed from traditional quilting patterns. The idea of a quilt is the framework, where formal elements like patterning and stitching are used to organize objects like slides, stamps, or gum. That organization contributes to a visual layering of personal history, the history of the medium, and the history of the objects themselves.

Marshall, Jonathan 7/2 to 7/27, Visual Artist

From the artist’s statement: I have always been influenced by films, pop music, literature, historical events, and the current pandemic uneasiness involved with the possible destruction of our planet via the American way of life. Recently however, I have combined these ideas to create my own mythological narrative.

The basics of this mythology follow:

-The story takes place in a world whose present is not unlike our possible future.

-A large storm comes (called El Nada), and wipes out most of civilization.

-Several seafaring protagonists are left behind to make sense of the rubble and massive flooding, and search for the Fountain of Youth (a spaceship at Cape Canaveral, FL that travels at the speed of light, thus promising eternal life.

These icons and characters reference aspects of public consciousness and our culture. Aside from a narrative of my own design, the images are a picture of what our collective cultural consciousness might look like. In this capacity they function as a document of our culture, filtered through my own understanding as a consumer of our shared present and comprehension of the past.

Vargas, Bart,7/2 to 7/27, Visual Artist

Bart Vargas is from Bellevue Nebraska. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where his research focused on sculpture, painting and installation works created from discarded materials. His aesthetic is dominated by the universal form of the circle and the sphere, found through out the natural and manmade world. Vargas has exhibited widely, including at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Bellevue University and the Omaha Public Library. His work can be found in many private collections in the Omaha and Kansas City areas, including the University Foundation Collection at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

From the artist’s statement: The geometric star is an ancient human symbol invented in antiquity. It has been used by every culture, in every time throughout the world to represent the lights of the night sky. Even today this geometric shape is commonly used to represent what astronomical science has revealed to be spheres. Astronomical science has also revealed that all the complex elements that make up our world and even our bodies were made in the life cycles of the stars themselves. In essence, we are all made of stars.

I paint geometric stars and circles. I embrace the star as a positive symbol of creation and the circle as a universal form throughout existence. My paintings are made up of many layers of line, circles and color that overlap and interact, creating energy and movement. I achieve this through the simple use of color, pattern and repetition to make complex imagery made up of many simple parts. Just as everything in existence is made of smaller parts, as our bodies are made of cells, that are made of molecules, that are made of atoms, that are made of… on and on, until science believes that matter and energy are the same.

Groff, David, 7/2 – 7/27, Writer

Rowell, John 7/2 to 7/ 27, Writer

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 1979-1983 BA in Dramatic Art, and Radio, Television and Motion Pictures; Spring, 1983; Creative Writing workshops with Max Steele and Daphne Athas; Writer’s Voice – West Side Y, New York City, 1995-97 Fiction workshops with James Wilcox, Wesley Gibson; 92nd Street Y Poetry Center, New York City, 1996-2001 Fiction workshops with Jonathan Dee, Benjamin Taylor, and Joshua Henkin; Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington College, VT, 2001-2003 June, 2003 Graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program; Instructors: 2001-2002: Jill McCorkle, Susan Cheever, Alice Mattison, April Bernard; 2002-2003: Amy Hempel, Sheila Kohler, Askold Melnyczuk

From the artist’s statement: I will be working on one of my books-in-progress. Overachievers is a coming-of-age novel told in two sections; the first section is set in the South of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the second takes place in New York during the 1980s and early 1990s. Section One, entitled “Li’l Bucko,” (North Carolina, 1969-1983), follows the early life of a young man named Bowman Ragsdale, who is North Carolina-born and bred, but who dreams of eventually moving to New York and becoming a Broadway actor and stage star

The second half of the novel, entitled “Bowman of Manhattan” (New York, 1983-1999), picks up Bowman’s life at the age of twenty-one, in which this former child star, of sorts, who has already experienced the highs and lows of fame (however briefly and of local variety) finally moves to the Manhattan, circa 1983

The other project is entitled Prep School Diaries: A Baltimore Story, about a gay man in his late thirties who leaves his life of a writer and theater critic in New York to take a job teaching English and drama at a prestigious all-boys prep school in Baltimore. Partly based on my own experience and also deeply influenced by my lifelong love of novels about prep schools, colleges and teachers (Pictures From An Institution, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Up The Down Staircase, et. al.,) I intend it to be a comedy of manners, with serious overtones, with a nod to the wonderful novels cited above.

Suzuki, Sayaka , 7/30 to 8/10, Visual Artist

Fall 2005-Present: Adjunct faculty: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA teaching Introduction and Advanced Glass Kiln-Working, Introduction to Glass Blowing

Selected exhibitions/publications in 2006 “Dispersal Tactics” Artspace, Richmond, VA; “Fluff My Pillow” Inns of Virginia, Richmond, VA; “That Moment and This Moment: Works by Marya Roland and Sayaka Suzuki” William King Regional Arts Center, Abingdon, VA; “The Provincial Spirit Exhibition” Grand Forks Art Gallery, Canada; “3 Cities Against the Wall” Montreal, QC, Canada; “EnvironMent” Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA; “Chance Encounters” School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; “907” Anderson Gallery, Richmond, VA; “Activist Art Show” University of Richmond, VA; “Food Activism” Sustainable Eating Magazine, Volume 2 professional studies

From the artist’s statement: A quintessential modern person living in the global age: criss-crossing borderlines and flying across the great oceans. I have moved around all my life, having uplifted my roots from Japan twenty years ago. Through this physical mobility and the mobility of cyber space, I have come upon many places, lives, and worlds. Always on the other side looking in: partially involved, partially left out.

My work is based on these investigations, investigations of my world and in turn, how we live as a society.

My work is a theatrical space, an experience that is created for personal discoveries. At times my work is commemorative, at other times it reflects urgency, and often times it provides a reflective moment. But all of which hopefully transforms a space into a moment of discovery. The works capture the processes of remembering, celebrating, and acknowledging, while simultaneously imagining our capacity to function as philanthropists. All reflect the world of possibilities. Through using materials that reflect the sensibility and sensitivity of human hands, such as hand worked glass and fabric, I work to give concrete proof of our existence.

Like the silent movies of the past, I hope to create experiences that resonate, experiences that remain personal to the viewers.

Perrine, Jennifer, 7/30 to 8/10, Writer

Author of The Body Is No Machine, Jennifer has been the recipient of the 49th Parallel Poetry Award from Bellingham Review, The Ledge Poetry Award, and a Writers at Work Poetry Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Nimrod, RATTLE, River Styx, and elsewhere. She holds degrees in Religion, Art, English, and Creative Writing and currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa, where she is an assistant professor of English at Drake University.

From the artist’s statement: My work in poetry up to this point is perhaps best illustrated by the poems in my recently published first book, The Body Is No Machine, which is centered on the theme of bodily transformations, from the involuntary changes of illness and aging to the voluntary ones of plastic surgery and gender reassignment. The poems in the collection signal the vast breadth of subject matter possible under this loose rubric, as the poems take up, sometimes tangentially and sometimes in a more straightforward manner, the transformations associated with tattooing, drug use, surgery, pregnancy, and even the quotidian acts of eating and sleeping. The poems engage both scientific discourse about the human body and religious and philosophical understandings of what the body is and how it functions, and many of the poems are concerned with the tensions and compatibilities among these ideas and seek to understand the human body as both a cultural and a natural entity.

I hope to use my two weeks at the Center to continue to work on a book-length poetry manuscript for publication. Tentatively entitled Apologia, the manuscript explores the connections among domestic violence, torture, gender, and religion. Of primary concern in these poems is an exploration of the language used by both domestic abusers and torture advocates to justify violence and the ways in which these defenses of violent behavior become embedded in the discourses of their victims.

Goodman, Henrietta ,7/30 to 8/10 , Writer

University of Montana, Missoula, MT. M.A. Literature, May, 1998 and MFA Poetry, May, 1994

University of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC. BA English, 1991

Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte, NC. AA, 1989

From the artist’s statement: I consider my poems to be in the post-confessional mode. I often apply an analytic, even clinical approach to personal narrative and to the boundaries between inner and outer landscapes. I’m interested in the connection between—but also the distance between—emotion and situation and the way that this junction/disjunction leads from personal experience to the creation of the poem. I sometimes use persona to deliberately undercut the personal elements of my work, and my juxtaposition of imagery exerts cinematic pressure on subject/theme. My central themes are familial and sexual love, motherhood, and loss. Many of my poems explore the often inexplicable ties of one individual to another through the use of elements drawn from fairy tales, physics, and visual art.

[During a residency] I will focus upon a series of poems in contemplation of and response to suicide, having lost two loved ones in this way. I am also interested in the ways in which the ghazal is both similar to and different from the sonnet, and intend to continue working in both forms as writer and reader.

Longstreth, Jake ,7/30 to 8/10 , Visual Artist

I was born in Sharon, Connecticut in 1977. I grew up in Southbury, Connecticut - a town which once maintained an authentic sense of New England ambience, but now has been largely transformed into a tame, contemporary exurbia. It certainly has been an influence on my work. I went to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Studied art, economics and international affairs, graduating in 1999. Moved to San Francisco in 2003 to attend the California College of the Arts, graduating in 2005. Had first solo show at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco in December 2006. I plan to continue to living and working in the West, as it feels right and is a beautiful and diverse region.

Manriquez, Bonnie 7/30 – 8/3, , Visual Artist

Kirchoff, Keith 8/6 to 8/17 , Musician

Keith Kirchoff, 26, is a pianist and composer, who works towards enhancing the status of classical music in American culture by educating audiences before and during performances, lecturing internationally, and stressing the importance of modern music to keep classical music alive and current. His programs focus on unusual and neglected works and his repertoire ranges from the 18th to the 21st centuries.

As a composer, he has received commissions from tuba player Jeffrey Meyer, organist Mathew McConnell, and soprano Christine Keene. As a pianist, Kirchoff has played in New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Portland, as well as major cities throughout Italy and The Netherlands.

Kirchoff has two CDs in pre-production: an album collecting his chamber pieces, the composer at the piano (Albany Records), and a solo piano album featuring the work of Frederic Rzewski (Bridge Records). He has also recorded for Mode Records and Zerx.

From the artist’s statement: As a pianist and composer, I work towards enhancing the status of classical music in American culture by educating audiences before and during performances, lecturing nationwide, and stressing the importance of modern music to keep classical music alive and current. My programs as a pianist focus on unusual and neglected works and my repertoire ranges from the 18th to the 21st centuries. As a composer, I strive for a new, unique, and original sound that breaks new ground while simultaneously incorporating elements from older musical traditions: my music is influenced by the counterpoint of the 18th century (Bach), the expressionism and virtuosity of the 19th century (Liszt), and the avant-garde use of extended technique (Cage).

I believe in the importance of a unique musical voice, while keeping the music accessible to the general listener. I also seek to challenge the players of my music: both physically and technically, as well as emotionally and mentally. My work frequently asks the performer to leave their “comfort zone” and engage in unorthodox performance techniques (for example, playing multiple instruments at once, using all parts of the instrument body as an instrument, or preparing a piano (placing screws and bolts between the strings) and then striking the preparations with mallets). However, all sounds created are always for the betterment of the music itself - never sound simply for sound’s sake.

I [plan to] work on the composition of my musical Passion The Death and Resurrection of Christ. The work is scored for string quartet, organ, four soloists, and amateur chorus (SATB). To the best of my knowledge, there are few (if any) major liturgical choral works that could feasibly be performed by the average modern-day church choir. They are much too difficult for the average church singer and few churches have the resources to hire a full orchestra. This is a piece that is designed for the practical performance by amateur ensembles. The choral parts will be generally simple; not silly or trite--likely not even tonal--but steeped in the “classical” tradition of Bach, Liszt, and Messiaen. Furthermore, this is a piece that can be presented on a reasonable budget. Aside from the choir, only nine professionals are required: a string quartet, an organist (often onhand at most churches), and four soloists.

Baddor, Suheil 8/11 to 8/ 24, , Visual Artist

Suheil Baddor’s U.S. visit is co-sponsored by The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and Creighton University's Center for Asian Studies. Suheil will exhibit his artwork, photos of which may be seen at www.baddor.com, hold an extended workshop, and be a guest lecturer at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska during the weeks following his stay in Nebraska City.

A master of art and Arabic literature in the Syrian tradition, Suheil Baddor has created over five thousand works of art during his thirty-five year professional career. His art has been featured in over thirty-five solo exhibitions and at least twice as many group exhibitions, including four times in the Sharjah Biennial and every year since 1985 in the annual Syrian professional artist exhibition.

His creations include characterizations on stage and screen, and original Arabic poems and short stories, but he is best known for his sculptures and paintings in acrylic, oil and watercolor. His sculptures in wood, bronze, granite and marble have been recognized as major contributions to the field of sculpture. Suheil has been the subject of and has contributed to numerous art and culture commentaries in the Arabic press.

Gordon, Meghan 8/13 to 9/14 , Visual Artist

Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Expected Graduation 2007) BFA in Painting with a Concentration in Literature.

From the artist’s statement: I explore the use of complex interior spaces that depict furniture and objects that my family owns or has owned. I am interested in the bizarre aesthetic of luxurious American interior decoration that approaches a salon or museum ambience. The differentiation of space and the way in which space is observed and utilized are considered within this context. I supplement the psychological effect of the rooms by presenting them in a way that forces the audience to slowly navigate and inspect the particular qualities of the objects that inhabit them. This alludes to the role of the artist as a docent.

My visual and philosophical interests include the representation of nature in these spaces, specifically the intersection of boundaries between an indoor and outdoor space, as well as the idea of luxury manifesting itself as exoticism. I attribute this interest to the reality of the importation of cultural objects from places such as Murano or Bombay as a sign of wealth and intellectualism within the sphere of American luxury. I have been researching Japanese tea ceremonies and the Japanese garden as a result of this interest and contrasting some of the notions of the Japanese aesthetic of beauty with the aesthetic of beauty that I grew up with. This research has informed my work, but has not found its proper placement.

I am also interested in the representation of luxury and its relation to the American dream. As a product of these ideals, I want to create a theatrical setting where human actors are not present, as opposed to the romanticized notion of this dream taking the form of a personal narrative. The rooms exist in the present and although they are a record, they are not intended to connote an air of nostalgia. They have been preserved, but were rearranged like a stage set that does not age.

Vote, Melanie 8/13 to 9/7, , Visual Artist

MFA 1998 Painting, The Graduate School of Figurative Art of the New York Academy of Art, (cum laude) New York, NY; BFA 1995 Craft Design Iowa State University, Ames, IA

From the artist’s statement: My Little People series, which began mid-2006, is in an early experimental stage. Borrowing from the alluring visual qualities of white porcelain objects and sculptures of antiquity, I have begun to cast these dolls in plaster to recreate the same visual appeal. The casts are then used as maquettes to paint from. These first compositions are simple and straightforward, in order to make the dolls seem iconic in nature. By casting them in plaster I am attempting heighten the viewer’s curiosity of the simple doll shapes from childhood, thus imbuing it with statuesque importance, an icon perhaps of childhood past.

I aim to heighten the viewer’s sense of curiosity by altering things slightly, inviting revaluation of seemingly mundane objects from the past.

Additionally, I desire to return to the mid-west this summer to paint a series of landscapes studies. As a native of Iowa living in New York for over ten years now, I long for the openness of the plains. While in residency I would execute a series of landscape studies with the focus on the vast skies and iconic images such as water towers and grain elevators indicative of the region. These in turn would serve as research for future work.

The new paintings will depict rural landscapes with objects such as water towers, replaced with the shape of the iconic doll form. These human forms recall grandiose monolithic sculptures seen in Ancient cultures such as the Olmec and Mayan civilizations that do not exist in contemporary culture. I wish to ask, in our ephemeral landscape what will remain to tell of our civilization?

Yocum, Katy 8/20 – 8/31, Writer

Budd, Kathy 8/27 – 9/28 , Visual Artist

Johnson, Wesley 9/3 to 9/21 , Musician

Wesley Johnson most recently completed a masters program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in Music Composition in May of 2007. He received a BS in Music Theory/Composition from William Jewell in 2002. Wesley grew up in Japan and graduated from high school at Canadian Academy in Kobe in 1998. In October 2006 his work was performed at the Electronic Music Midwest festival in Joliet, Illinois. The topic of Wesley's master's thesis is the first half of American-style musical, which he will complete in July.

From the artist’s statement: My music has hints of modernism, bluegrass, neo-classicism, Asian influences, jazz, chance music, and rock. In recent years I discovered humor provids limitless inspiration in my compositional style, as humor is simply a large part of my life. Joseph, my roommate stirred up inspiration to write “Tuba Joe” about a tuba player detective consisting of film noir allusions.

My theatrical background plays a large part of my writing. My piece “Murphy’s Law” choreographs several things going wrong (on purpose, of course) among the instrumentalists, as well as their departure (they give up because the music is too difficult - again, on purpose). Currently, I am synthesizing nearly all my interests: I am writing a science-fiction musical comedy.

In answer to the question of whether I can take things seriously: I composed the piece “Beneath the Serenity.” Beneath all my humorous and silly exterior there is a shaky past, and in this case, it is literal. I experienced a major earthquake while living in Japan as a teenager, and in my music attempted to capture the intensity and chaos I felt during those following days/weeks/years.

Windler, Jenny 9/10 – 10/19 , Visual Artist Jenny Windler was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, but spent her formative years in Macomb, Illinois. She earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Western Illinois University in 2001 and her Masters of Fine Arts in Metalsmithing and Jewelry from Colorado State University in 2006. Jenny was nominated as a finalist for the Niche Student Awards, awarded the Kennedy Center Art Scholarship and won a work-study scholarship to Penland School of Crafts, studying with Robert Ebendorf. Jenny has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, and can be seen in the book Modern Jewelry from Modular Parts published by Lark books.

Her work is heavily inspired by functional bits and pieces of found hardware. These parts and pieces are incorporated into sleek silver settings that serve as miniature monuments to functional design. Her interest in functionality of hardware sparked her interest in the way jewelry functions in people's personal lives. She believes that each and every jewelry piece has a history that is connected to a time, place, person, or memory. Her latest work explores how jewelry is connected to memories and uses the ring form as an interactive, functioning piece of hardware, inviting the viewer to enter into a new physical space while provoking an emotional response.

Waltemath, Joan 9/17 – 11/9 , Visual Artist

Born 1953 Nebraska Lives and works in New York

2001-07 Assistant Professor Adjunct, I.S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union, NY

Education

Hunter College, CUNY, M.F.A., 1993

Recent Solo Exhibitions

2007 "Torso/Roots", Galerie von Bartha, Basel Switzerland

2006 "Infinity: Notes on the Sublime" with C. Wulffen, Galerie Niklas von Bartha, London

2005 "Two & Three", Victoria Munroe Gallery, Boston, MA

Charkey, Stanley 9/24 to 10/19, Musician

Stanley Charkey was born in Brooklyn N.Y. in 1948. He holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and the University of Massachusetts. For the past twenty-five years he has been a member of the faculty at Marlboro College in Vermont where he teaches Music Theory, Composition, and History. His compositions include works for a variety of chamber ensembles, including the Apple Hill Chamber Players, cellist Paul Cohen, pianist Luis Batlle, and violist Michael Tree. In addition, he has written works for dance, theater, and television (PBS). He is a winner of the 1998 Renée B. Fisher Composer Award, 1997 VMTA Composer of the Year, and a frequent Fellow at the Ragdale Arts Foundation in Lake Forest Ill. His 3 Small Inventions for Piano have been recorded by Michael Arnowitt

He is also well known as a lutanist, who has performed extensively in the United States and Europe and can be heard on a number of recordings.

From the artist’s statement: Cellist Paul Cohen has asked me to write a work of about 15 minute duration to be performed on a series of concerts of new music for solo 6 String Electric Cello. I have also been asked to write a work for the Claremont Duo. The duo consists of Cello and Guitar. The duo performs regularly in Germany and the United States. The work will be performed during their 2008-2009 season. If there is remaining time, I hope to finish a work for Soprano, Baritone, Clarinet, Strings and Percussion on alternating texts of Troubador verse and contemporary (21st century) poems by women. This work was requested by Soprano Jane Bryden in 2000 but never completed.

As a professor at a small liberal arts college with an intensive teaching schedule, I have little time, except for summers for my composition projects. I am on sabbatical in the Fall of 2007 and hope to use this time to sustain writing begun during the spring semester or during the summer 2007. This residency would guarantee uninterrupted creative work and give me the opportunity to finish some projects and develop some new paths for my compositions.

Burmeister, Jamie 10/1 to 10/12, , Visual Artist

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, MFA, 2005

University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, MS, 1995

Creighton University, Omaha, NE, BA, 1992

Currently a full-time art instructor, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE

From the artist’s statement: As I go through my everyday life, I am drawn to seemingly uninspiring observations and experiences, such as watching a bug walking across a leaf, riding a bike, taking apart a machine to see how it works or pondering a question from my child which I just cannot answer. These simple occurrences inspire me to explore these ideas further through art. Through experiments with sculpture, installation, mechanics, electronics, computers, the Internet, interactivity, sound and video, I have put together a diverse body of work that revolves around my conscious experience of the world. All of these pieces have elements of humor, absurdity and the mundane. Many of the pieces are interactive, creating situations where the viewer becomes a part of the piece. The experience of the work is unique depending upon how the viewers choose to interact with it. I place common everyday items in situations that give them characteristics of human behavior. By merging new digital technologies with old mechanical technologies I animate these humble materials seeking to change their context. The resulting videos, sculptures and installations are metaphors for various aspects of the human condition.

While at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts I plan to work on a series of interactive animation installations. These video animations will interact with viewers as well as the specific spaces in which they are installed. Various sensors and related electronic systems will be developed for viewer interaction. This residency is important to me at this stage in my career because it would allow me time and space to explore how animation can become a part of my installation work. I hope to make work specific to my experience at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for Arts and the Nebraska City area.

Williams, Ian 10/1 – 10/12, Writer

Ian Williams is a professor of ethnic-American literature in

Massachusetts and co-founder and editor of the Toronto-based literary

journal, Misunderstandings Magazine. His poetry and fiction have

appeared in MARGIE, Callaloo, Vox, and Pebble Lake Review, and in

the Canadian publications, Dalhousie Review, Descant, and Nashwaak

Review.

Liberto, A J 10/15 – 11/2 , Visual Artist

This wannabe wildcatter was born and raised in Houston, Texas. AJ entertains the notions of parallel worlds and cosmic matchmaking through drawing and sculpture. His work has confused audiences in places as far-flung as Houston, London, Istanbul, Miami, and Los Angeles, and New York. He has an MFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and is loved and supported by his hirsute little man, Toby Krinklepants, a chihuahua-poodle from Rappahannock, VA.

Schneider, Evan 10/15 – 10/26 , Writer

Evan P Schneider is the author of Sincerely, a collection of letters to unsuspecting recipients (Wolverine Farm Publishing, 2005). Having recently completed a Master’s Degree at the University of Rhode Island, he is working on a book about bicycles. Evan is soon moving to Atlanta, but currently lives in Providence where he sells bread.

Skeen, John 10/22 to 12/14 , Visual Artist and Musician

Currently a freelance composer/artist and part-time librarian, in 2007 Skeen was invited to attend the visual music symposium "Sight and Sound" at Univ. of Texas, Austin. His music/paintings will be viewed/performed at the recital. He has been in several juried art shows and performances in Morgantown, West Virginia. In 2005 his commissioned songs were performed at the women's festival, "Kaleidoscope". He has been an independent piano tuner/rebuilder and for ten years was in a monastic/service community under Holy Orders. He taught composition and piano at Syracuse University in the mid- to late-sixties.

From the artist’s statement: I am fascinated with the relationship between music and painting. In exploring this, I paint abstract pictures and set them to my own original music, and write the music manuscript on the same surface with the painting, so these two otherwise distinct media are experienced together. I call this art form music/painting. The forms are abbreviated and compressed, as haiku poetry is, and for the same esthetic reasons. I am exploring and developing the equivalent of haiku poetry in these other media, (haiku music and haiku painting), and how they inform each other as an integrated expression, as synergy. Sometimes I include original, and extremely brief, poetic expressions on the painting as well.

I try to point to the underlying experience which each art form can evoke individually, but which they nevertheless all have in common. In so doing, I attempt to triangulate, so to speak, a sense within the listener/viewer of the interconnectedness of things, which, despite our individual differences, I believe is fundamental to our humanness.

Jensen, Heidi 10/22 to 12/14, , Visual Artist

Heidi Jensen is originally from Wisconsin and now lives and works in Clemson, South Carolina. She is an Associate Professor of Drawing & Foundations at Clemson University. Heidi received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her BFA from the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Heidi’s work takes the forms of representational charcoal, pastel and graphite drawings. The subjects are currently hybrid human/animal mixtures that enact open-ended narratives. Recent exhibitions include Deviant Behavior at Artformz Gallery in Miami, the Southeastern Juried Exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama, and her work is to be included in Drawing is a Fine Art, an invitational exhibit at the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in Tallahassee. Heidi has participated in several residency programs, including the Oregon College of Art & Craft, the Eastern Frontier Society, the Hambidge Center and Art Farm.

From the artist’s statement: My drawings investigate the violent and insalubrious strains of human behavior that haunt the hopeful idea of a progressive, utopian society. I am interested in the ways that seduction, reward, humiliation, and punishment are employed and exercised. Waitresses, pin-up girls and other characters become entangled with the perverse and take on the role of co-conspirator, sycophant or grudging participant. Indulgence in bad behavior is portrayed as a twist on the cautionary tale; not in a manner that attempts to moralize, but in an ambiguous presentation recognizing the human tendency to indulge in unwholesome or self-destructive acts.

The figures in these drawings hold visual references to Victorian era illustration, cartoon imagery, mythology and the work of politically driven artists such as Honore Daumier. I use animal/human hybrids to depict my human subjects as grotesque, hapless and humorous; their bodies are often cumbersome and roly-poly. I have an unabashed love of narrative structure and prefer to pepper it with dark humor. Particular drawings are constructed to look like a single frame animation still, offering an incomplete but compelling context.

On a trip to Italy several years ago, I became interested in frescoes by painters such as Masacchio, Giotto and Lorenzetti. The Lorenzetti frescoes of Good Government and Bad Government exhibit the artist’s comparison of an ideal society and a depraved society. This type of didactic narrative offers substantial fodder for my drawings, which play with power dynamics and the unpredictable reactions of complex characters to such structures. My interest in these artists is also driven by the narrative devices employed in their work and by the damaged, fragile and eroded images that are left for the contemporary viewer. I would like to experiment further with fractured, interrupted narratives and juxtapose realized/unrealized forms and spaces.

Balcita, Angela 11/5 – 11/16 , Writer

Angela received her M.F.A. in nonfiction writing from the

University of Iowa. Her essays have recently appeared in The New York

Times, The Utne Reader, The Wilson Quarterly, The Iowa Review, and

Geez Magazine and have been included in anthologies such as Waking

Up American: Coming of Age Biculturally and /The Fourth Genre:

Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. Her memoir, Moonface,

will be published in 2009. She lives in Baltimore.

Freeman, Julia 11/5 – 12/14 , Visual Artist

Julia Freeman is originally from Kansas City, Missouri. She went to

Roanoke College, University of Helsinki, and the Kansas City Art

Institute for her undergraduate and post-baccalaureate degrees. During

her time in Kansas City in the fibers program cloth became an important

part of her work. After Kansas City, Julia worked in South Korea and

traveled in Southeast Asia for two years, which has heavily influenced

her aesthetic. She recently graduated from the fibers program at the

University of Washington and now resides in Seattle, Washington.

Injoo Whang, 11/12 – 12/ 7 , Visual Artist

InJoo Whang received her B.F.A from Hong-Ik Univ. in Korea in 2000 and M.F.A in Fine arts from Parsons School of Design in 2004. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues including Queens Museum in Queens, NY, Pro Art gallery in Oakland, CA, LA artcore in Los Angeles, CA, Cambridge multicultural art center in Cambridge, MA, Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, MN. She had her first solo exhibition, "Memories of Reconstruction" in Dec 2006 at T-Space in Seoul, Korea. She has received fellowship from Jerome foundation in 2007. She has been in artist-in-residency in Anderson Center for Inter-disciplinary Studies in 2007. Upcoming artist-in-residency is at KHN Center for the Arts in Nov 2007. Upcoming group shows will be at Meatspace gallery in LIC in Oct 2007 as a part of 'Project Diversity Queens' sponsored by Queens council on the arts and at Go-yang Cultural Art Center in Dec 2007 in Korea.

Ko, Lisa 11/19 to 12/14, Writer

Lisa Ko is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in the Asian Pacific American Journal, Brooklyn Review, Bullfight Review, and Sassy. A former New York Foundation for the Arts fiction fellow and a recipient of the Van Lier fellowship in fiction, she is currently completing a collection of short stories.

From the artist’s statement: Writing is an act of preservation for me, a survival tactic, a tool to counter cultural amnesia. I am motivated to breathe life into realities seldom seen on the printed page. My fiction is traditional, no-nonsense stories about characters who often slip between the literary cracks, who are rarely read in American literature despite a readership hungry for representation. My writing challenges perceptions and reflects the true diversity of Asian America, an umbrella term that includes much more than ethnicity and extends to class, sexual orientation, and geography. As the definitions of urban versus suburban—and now, exurban—America has shifted, as immigrant communities have moved into and beyond their second and third generations, so have the demographics of race, culture, economics, and land, as well as the nature of Asian American suburban life. Blending history with storytelling, I aim to unravel a new way of writing post-immigrant American fiction.

My collection of eleven linked short stories, Ain’t No Street Like Home, follows a group of Asian American friends who arrive in New York in their twenties, during the late 1960s. The stories span more than 30 years and touch on the personal ways that urban planning in post-war New York City irrevocably altered the face of the city and the landscape of its surrounding suburbs. The history of the city and its suburbs is far more complex than black versus white, rich versus poor—New York City has always been a first home for immigrants in America, and as economic disparities the area have reached an all-time high, nearly eliminating the city’s middle class, the traditional populations of the outlying suburbs have shifted to reflect this.