finding a more authentic, playful life --- finding your story


Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Return to Guanajuato...

Brand new ARTIST RESIDENCY in Guanajuato Mexico coming in May. All disciplines are welcome!

The mission is to create a space for visual, literary and performing artists to be inspired by the Mexican Caribbean or the thriving cultural metropolis of Guanajuato to imagine and develop worthwhile work in their field, while in conversation with the community about diverse art and ideas; thus creating an environment where each nurtures and learns from the other.

Mexico is my happy place and I'd be happy to share it with you if you are an artist interested in travel and respite, community and culture.

See www.akumalresidency.com for more details.

And for your reading pleasure, here is the final exhibition text I created for the last residency. Hope you enjoy!



Akumal International Artist Residency in Guanajuato
SALMON HERO/HÉROE SALMÓN

This first season of the AIAR residency in Guanajuato gathers two female artists, both of them mixing the disciplines of visual art, performance and text. Influenced by the majestic mountains, tiny roads, bright colors, vibrant music and the pure life force that is Guanajuato, how can one not be transformed?

These two artists: Césan d’Ornellas of Canada and Irene Nerys of Italy found immediate connection with each other, sharing strangely similar experiences and histories, despite their age gap. They seemed to experience one another as themselves at different points in life. And both women, while in residency, like the salmon, are swimming upstream on a hero’s journey of their own, exploring the unknown. Everyone is the hero of his or her own myth.

Césan chose to work visually from a text she wrote some 25 years ago (about the same age Irene is now). Salmon Mother is the title of the text she has brightly illustrated for an artist book. It is Césan’s story, but it explores the path we all take on these unknown journeys upstream, fighting the currents. Although it references the many salmon legends sacred to many traditions, her work is deeply personal and vividly portrayed in a delicate, almost private way. It is as though we are peering into a personal journal.

Irene has been inspired for her work here by the hero’s journey in her search into the unknown. Joseph Campbell identifies The Hero’s Journey as a pattern of narrative that appears in drama, storytelling, myth and religious ritual. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as “the hero”, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization. This journey involves a “call to adventure,” a “crossing of a threshold,” and the eventual “return with the elixir,” transforming the hero. According to Campbell, the hero’s inner journey (and our heroine’s) includes the awareness of a need for change, overcoming the accompanying fear and accepting the consequences of this new life, thus writing a new story. Through Irene’s emotional dance, music, video and text, we share her varied and visceral journey, ourselves somehow transformed. 

Both of these artists are embracing their journey: a younger women bravely evolving into the older woman skillfully reflecting on her past, while creating the present. Through transitions manifesting as divergent rivers or pathways, unsteady, swerving, they find themselves not quite where they were and certainly not where they will become. Nonetheless, they answered the call that brought them both here at this moment to Mexico, on this balcony—in a literal balance between Heaven and Earth—a 25 year old and a 50 year old simultaneously exploring the past and the future, excavating their story, discovering their path.

Will we heed our own “call to adventure” or will we let it slip like a salmon through our fingers, unable or unwilling to thrust our spear into it? The salmon are ultimately swimming to their death, but the Salmon Hero must not. She must return with the elixir, the treasure, to transform the world. 

Kim Schultz, Residency Director

Monday, September 15, 2014

Back in Mexico


Here I sit on the shores of the Mexican Caribbean writing you. I know. Shut up Kim.

I am beginning another session of the AKUMAL INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCY. Four wonderful new artists will be arriving on Wednesday for five weeks. They will be creating, teaching, sharing and engaging with the community. I'm here to make sure that happens.To follow more about the residency and to virtually meet the artists, see the blog at www.akumalresidency.com

I am excited for the possible connections that will happen between artists and between artists and community, all in magical Akumal.

Gratitude.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Artist Residency in Mexico!

Are you interested in a creative escape? Interested in paradise? Applications are now being accepted for the AKUMAL INTERNATIONAL ARTIST RESIDENCY in Akumal, Mexico for the fall. It is a 5-week session. Artists of all stripes encouraged to apply. It is bliss. Hope to see you there!


The Akumal International Artists Residency was a transformative experience. I found the physical and culture environment incredibly stimulating. I was able to realize a number of projects that I had been thinking about for some time. It was also fantastic being with other international artists working with a variety of media and subject matter. The ideas formed during this residency continue to inform and impact my work and process. Aaron Putt, visual artist, U.S.

@akumalresidency on twitter

Akumal International Artist Residency on facebook





Saturday, April 26, 2014

transitions

Sorry for the radio silence!

I'm back in Chicago from my three months in sunny Mexico. Woe is me!
(honest to God, I sat on this beach. ridiculous.)

I was happily directing the brand new international artist residency in Akumal aptly titled the Akumal International Artist Residency. (Click on the link if you want to know more about that wild and crazy experience. There is a blog on the website as well, tracking the adventures!) I met wonderful artists and helped them share themselves and their work with the sleepy seaside community of Akumal and its neighbors. Many wonderful events and happenings occurred for which I am grateful-- Cesan showed us how to paint with the sun, Katarina showed us young confidence, Magda introduced us to a mermaid, Naomi made us see with our eyes closed, Aaron taught us perspective and Sarah stood in the water for 12 hours making us think and more, more, more! So many vivid experiences on the Mayan riviera. Such a 10 weeks! And now I'm back.

It's a little cold.

I'm getting resettled in my new home in the midwest. Transitions are hard.

Improv shows us that transitions can be important and not something just to blow past on the way to what's next, that the transition can have meaning and maybe even...lead to whats next -- a different "what's next" than you thought. That's why I love long-form improv -- transitions can be fun! So, let's look at what you have to do to make that work on stage.

First of all, you have to be present, pay attention -- look, listen.

You also need to say yes to what you're gifted. Just take it.

And perhaps most importantly, you need to play. You have to be willing to play.  Play the game, play the ride, play the impulse.

Just follow the flow, and voila! you're in the next scene. Magic.

So, maybe that's true in life's transitions too! Maybe at these points in our lives that are uncertain, wobbly even, we just need to look and listen, say yes to what the universe presents us...and play.

Let's both try it and see what happens. Deal?

As always, your comments and questions are welcome. Would be nice to converse...

(not Converse---the running shoes. Just to be clear. Ah, ocean brain.)

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

my mexican residency

So here I am...Akumal, once again. This time to direct an international artist residency. (www.akumalresidency.com) Fun!

The artists are all here and lovely---5 women this first round--lovely chicas!

It's such a joy to be around the creative spirit, let alone 5 creative spirits. Intelligence, creativity, passion, drive---these are all things I enjoy surrounding myself with. They make me more of all of them myself! I am very lucky.

Today I swam in the ocean, saw a friendly turtle a few feet away who I'm sure greeted me with a nod, ran errands up and down the beach to make the artists lives here easier as well as create awareness in the community and lay in a hammock as it began to rain. But also I already have some sort of stomach thing going on. So...nothing is perfect. :)

Next up is the first Sunday Salon, where we invite the community in to partake of wine and a lively themed discussion, accompanied by works-in-progress by the artists. Should be an interesting night. If you live nearby, come say hello. If not...stay tuned for more updates!