Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity, a video installation

This just in from the pr office at King County's wonderful art institution, 4Culture. Pretty cool to have won a national competition supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. I just talked to Eva today and she will be there in person.

Everyone is invited to the opening reception this Thursday, Feb. 4 from 6-8 p.m. There's a lot going on at these receptions as several artists are being featured. The electronic gallery actually faces the street towards Prefontaine Place. I will be hanging out inside and out, weather pretty much being the determining factor.

Gallery4Culture at 101 Prefontaine Pl S, Seattle WA 98104 at the corner of Third and Prefontaine. IF you are driving, remember it is ART WALK too, so prepare to scout for parking. I would park down by the piers and walk up. Or get there early and eat, drink and be merry.




NEW ON E4C (4CULTURE’S ELECTRONIC STOREFRONT GALLERY)

David Kwan: SOLARIS (Quartet Version)

Ann-Marie Stillion: Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity


(Seattle, WA) – Dynamic new media works by David Kwan and Ann-Marie Stillion will be added to e4c’s rotation this February:

David Kwan

Kwan has adapted his work SOLARIS, a series of sound-generated video projections for e4c. Kwan composes soundscapes from live radio transmissions, related to the electromagnetic waves that form the basis for the ordering of matter in space and that continue to permeate the environment. These soundscapes are fed through a customized video imaging system to reveal their inherent patterning.


Artist Biography: Kwan is a media artist living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has presented work nationally and internationally including Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Kala Art Institute, Headlands Center for the Arts, Artist Television Access, The Lab, and Mission 17 in San Francisco; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); Jack Straw New Media Gallery in Seattle; Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart; and Baracke am Deustchen Theater in Berlin. He holds a BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Electronic Music from Mills College, where he also taught in art, music and intermedia. www.davidkwan.net



Ann-Marie Stillion

Ann-Marie Stillion will present Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity, a project that combines photographs, film and audio to examine and share the story of Eva Washington, a 76-year-old woman who lives alone on the streets of Seattle. Each monitor of e4c will portray different visual aspects of Washington’s life. Stillion writes, “Eva’s personal story is the story of millions of people around the world who find themselves living without shelter.”


Artist Biography: Currently residing in Seattle, Stillion graduated with a BFA in comparative literature from Northern Arizona University and studied art at the Academy of Art College, California College of Arts and Crafts, Laney College and others. Her photographic and design work has been published in national magazines, books, websites and corporate publications. www.arttrek.com


New work by David Kwan and Ann-Marie Stillion join the ongoing rotation of work on e4c, currently featuring pieces by: Sabine Gruffat, Noah Klersfeld Laurel Beckman, Ann Oren, Tess Martin, Heather Dew Oaksen, Tina Aufiero, Stephen Hilyard, Perry Bard and Bennett Morris.


About e4c

E4c consists of four, large LCD monitors adjacent to Gallery4Culture at 101 Prefontaine Pl S, Seattle WA 98104 at the corner of Third and Prefontaine. e4c exhibits can be viewed from the street 6:00 am – 10:00 pm, daily. Eleven artists/artist teams were chosen for the inaugural year of e4c (2008/2009) from a competitive pool of applicants. Works will be added to the rotation throughout the year. Support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Maybelle Barnett 1899-2009

took the pictures above in 2004 when my Auntie Maybelle was 103. We had spent the day out shopping and going to lunch at her favorite diner. There was nothing about her that wasn't engaging and clear. She didn't really want her picture taken but I bugged her and I am glad now. She lived in her own house in Hawaii which she helped build in her eighties until she died this year shortly before her 109th birthday.

Smart and full of laughter, ready to fight to the last, auntie's long life was amazing and simple. The picture of the trees is of the small cemetery next door. She imagined that she and her fourth husband Archie might commune someday there once she had passed on. Below is a story taken from some of our talks together. All the facts are true but of course it is a story in the end.

(Update: one of my aunts noted that she thought that my dates are wrong in this story from my dear auntie. Well, all I can say is that Auntie Maybelle told me that she was born in 1899, which would make her almost 110, not 109 years old when she left us. I can only imagine how one's true age might get jumbled after so many years on earth.)

Morning at 103 by Ann-Marie Stillion, 5.11.2004


Wherever she looks there is the past.


Thirty thousand nine hundred and ten mornings have come and gone. Four husbands. Dozens of cats. Thousands of birds. Only two dogs.


She says that she has only loved one person. She says it was because one person really loved her. It has been almost one hundred years since then.


Every Friday she walked to her Grandma Haynes’ house with her little dog. Two miles.


They walked straight through the quiet, dusty streets of New Haven and on to her grandmother’s grey clapboard farmhouse by the still yellow fields. Cora was that one person who really loved her, she says now. She could see her from the road. Her white dress glowed from the dark, shiny doorway. Holding a solitary rose in between two fingers, her grandmother waved her long arms and shouted.


No matter that 70,000 hours have passed since then. Now a very old woman, she traces her hand along an imaginary road on the kitchen table, millions of heartbeats later.


She has always been slender--shapely but slender. It was never apparent how much she loved sweets. And kisses. There had been thousands of kisses. No one counted those though. It isn’t right, she said.


During three centuries, she has opened and closed her pale blue eyes. Seven million fine blond strands have fallen. Millions and millions of soft champagne strands left in Phoenix and the Panama Canal and later Pearl Harbor. Hundreds of thousands of grey hairs have disappeared in the light, in the rug, in the desert, in the sand. And finally countless white curls.


What was left? One relative made a sculpture with her haircuts. She twisted the strands into flower shapes and curls. The stiff red hair are all that remain of the mother, sister, daughter, wife. Another married only one man. He drank too much, beat his children. But she was sturdy and raised seven boys mostly alone.


She walked into the twentieth century and on into the next without the ponies by the stream or the children tumbling in the dust. She was where she’d hoped she’d be and being there made her forget so that each morning she could remember that one person.

Merry Christmas from Seattle

The carousel is a fixture in Westlake Plaza in downtown Seattle. Sweet memories of photographing children and families with Lisa Ahlberg, watching them rushing to get their photos completed at Nordstrom. Cold and crisp. Wishing everybody infinite peace and joy. Get ready to blast off in the new decade.--ams

Photographing People with Rosanne Olson

(Photo above by Rosanne Olson, www.rosanneolson.com)

The gifted Seattle photographer, Rosanne Olson, who also occasionally shares her talent and knowledge with the community at Photo Center NW has offered to put together an impromptu workshop. Preceding the upcoming Holiday Portrait fundraiser on Dec. 11 & 12 at which pros and students will produce portraits for the guests to take home on a cd, the workshop will cover the all important details of working with portrait subjects:

"How do you work with people to get them to relax and arrive at the best possible portrait? It is an art that takes skill, confidence and experience. In this three-hour workshop, Rosanne Olson will share tips and demonstrate how to work with subjects, including couples, children and groups."

Scheduled the week before the Holiday Portrait fundraiser at Photo Center NW, volunteers and anyone looking for a quick look at shooting great portraits will have the chance to experience the insight of a truly great portrait photographer. Rosanne Olson's three hour workshop begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 5.

Call 206-720-7222 or visit www.pcnw.org to sign up for Photographing People with Rosanne.

Update: The cost of the workshop is $50. The center agreed to waive the cancellation fees for this workshop since volunteers for the Holiday Portrait Event may be attending.

Note: In case you are wondering, I am on the volunteer committee for the Holiday Fundraiser at Photo Center. So feel free to shoot me an email or post them here if you have questions and I will do my best to answer at annmarie@arttrek.com

Photo Center NW Holiday event

Come and join us for the PCNW Holiday Portrait Shoot!
(photo left by Christopher Bachmann)

Sign up to get your portrait done and help the Photo Center raise money here

Sign up to volunteer here here


Everyone needs a great holiday photo and this year the Photo Center is the place to get them! We are hosting our first ever Holiday Portrait Shoot December 11-12, 2009 and need volunteers from our wonderful photo community to help make it happen.

The portrait event will coincide with a holiday celebration at the Photo Center featuring the PCNW Member's Juried Exhibition opening on Friday, December 11th and our annual affordable art print sale. It is bound to be an exciting weekend, so invite your family and friends to join the fun!

Teams of photographers and volunteers are assembling now!
Will you join us by being part of three teams of photographers and assistants who will design sets, gather props and take portraits?


However you want to help - we want you to be part of this fun collaborative photo shoot! You can contact me directly at annmarie@arttrek.com or visit the Photo Center NW web site at www.pcnw.org. Or use the handy sign-up forms above. Whether you want to volunteer or get a beautiful portrait see you there!

Eva's fashion statement

This is Eva's Filipino outfit as she calls it. It was in the front window of the dress shop when she first saw it. I have given up trying to find her a home and must trust that she is fine where she is. Every solution or offering is met with some kind of resistance. Thirty years on the street have molded her to a fierce defiance of everyone, and I respect that. I am trying now to document all of her outfits. She complains a bit now but so far shows up in one of fifty she says she has.

Never lonesome or without a place to go she forces me to stop worrying over her welfare as I sense that is what she wants. She intends to outlive all of us. When she resists my latest idea of photographing her fashion statements, I push back. What is her real life after all? Picking up the out of date dim sum in Chinatown or conjuring up new ways to wear her hair. I say it is both.

The video I shot of her last spring is set to open at 4Culture in downtown Seattle in February. I am looking for a place to hang a selection of stills that I have of her now.

Ann-Marie Stillion: New Paintings & Photographs at Dandelion Botanicals

Slideshow preview of exhibit here
Join us on Sept. 12, 6-9:30 p.m.
Opening reception for
"Ann-Marie Stillion: New paintings and photographs"
Exhibit runs through Oct. 7.

at Dandelion Botanicals, 5424 Ballard Avenue, Seattle, Washington

Part of the Ballard Art Walk

"The shapes and colors in my mind often speak to me as clearly as words. This collection of photography and painting is meant to celebrate what we can see and go deeper into the conversation between color and content."--ams