Shooting for a world record in Sammamish!

(Photo above by Anne Lindsay) On Saturday, July 17, 2010, the first annual "Largest gathering of people with natural red hair" will happen in Sammamish, Washington at the Skyline High School Stadium (1122 228th Avenue Southeast, Sammamish, Washington) - right across the street from Sammamish City Hall.

A fine artist, portrait photographer and chronicler of redheads, Anne Lindsay has decided to go for the title of largest gathering of redheads for the Guinness Book of World Records.

I am one of the lucky photographers to join her team for this event. And today Anne told me it's not too late to sign up and be in the shot if you're a natural redhead: just come early and get in line. Gates open at 2 p.m. and the record winning shot is scheduled for 3 p.m. Or if you're not a redhead and want to cheer on the wild ginger madness there is a $5 admission fee. Be there or be square.--ams

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.

Reception for opening of the 4culture electronic gallery 09-10 season

Above: frames from Ann-Marie Stillion's "Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity", about the life and times of Eva Washington, a 77-year-old woman who has lived on the street for almost 30 years. The video will screen for a year in downtown Seattle at the 4Culture Gallery.

Update: You are invited to the reception for the opening of the 4culture electronic gallery 09-10 season at 101 Prefontaine Place South, Seattle. The reception is Thursday, Sept. 3 from 6-8 p.m., part of the First Thursday Art Walk in downtown Seattle. Thirteen artists, including myself, representing a range of video and animation have been selected to screen in their cool street gallery.

Many thanks to all the people who have helped get Eva's video off the ground including Ali Hobbs, Joe Shapiro, the folks at Northwest Film Forum, and the Mt. Baker Senior Center.

Throughout the year, the works will rotate, including one from my ongoing project on Eva Washington. "Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity" is a five minute piece which visually explores her clothes, hands, face and a night bus shelter where she sometimes sleeps.

In the video, Eva tells some of her story and life. She was born in Seattle, raised in the Central District and now at 77 years old has lived on its streets for almost 30 years. Despite the enormous obstacles and challenges that she faces everyday, Ms. Washington's story is hardly a tale of woe. She combats her circumstances with style and a rich connection to culture and others.

You see and learn more about Eva and my journey with her over the last year here.

I have continued to explore solutions to finding her housing. As always, if anyone reading this post can lend a hand, please contact me at annmarie@arttrek.com. Eva lives on a small social security payment from her many years of office work; she has no interest in public housing and does not take any form of public assistance. She is a proud woman who would most likely be honored in some societies. In ours, sadly, she cannot find a home. Her dream is to go to Africa.

Rewarding passions

I have probably told Jimmy Mirikitani's story a hundred times since I had the chance to meet him through my job as a writer for the Northwest Asian Weekly in 2006. The film about his life was already beginning to win awards and touch people everywhere it was presented. Nothing could take away his passion for drawing, not wars or homelessness or loss of everything and everyone. This fall, when I won third place in Best Art Story for the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association competition with my story about him, the full circle of the modern day battle cry--follow your passion--spread over my thoughts. No one sent me to meet him. I had pushed to do the story, as I had with all the awards I have won in journalism--each one earned with the itchy edge of desire and curiosity that fuels my days.

Another award for that competition was for Best Page Design, the small, small thing I love doing. I recalled the picture on the page of spelling bee winner, Jason Pu. How beautiful and stunned he looked when he won the competition in Seattle. I had fallen in love with the moment I witnessed in the picture of him and his mother, and fussed with the edit of the picture--way too long. I reworked the type and bugged the editor for a better headline, called for more images. And won, for everyone, in the end.

So I go on digging and pushing and revealing these moments in our lives with words, pictures and those small, small things that grow big and flower in the sunlight of our hearts and minds. Thanks Jason and Jimmy. I am there with you.

Si se puede

Yes, we can!

The feeling of 25,000 chanting, waving people was amazing. The day before, the immigration rally was slated to gather only around 5,000. But, by the time it hit, something had changed.

I have learned to get up high to shoot crowds, otherwise you miss a lot. George, the office manager where I work, offered to park the delivery van instead of using the ladder I requested. I climbed on top and waited. The marchers came down 12th and turned onto King Street at the top of the hill. Because of my vantage point I could see the banners and people long before they reached me. There was an invisible energy coming from the crowd--the intensity of it was beautiful. I shot a lot that day laying flat as possible on the roof of the van and as close to the crowd as I could. Lots of people passed close to me and gave me a high five. The word was that people "came out of the shadows" that day, and you could feel that if you choose to. That day, I saw democracy as a living thing, not as an abstraction.

We used this picture because of the baby in the stroller and "dream act" for the front of the newspaper. That night when the rally was over and people were returning home, the sound of Norteno music was pulsing everywhere in the streets in Chinatown.

The picture won second place in the general news category in our division for 2007 at the Society of Professional Journalists.

This picture shows the biggest immigration rally in the Seattle to date--though later rallies tried-- they haven't reached the sheer numbers or enthusiasm that this one had on April 11, 2006.

The thrill of victory

Fun for me is creating new things, solving problems well -- overcoming challenges with images, design, and even writing -- is my experience of fun.

At my job, I often do all these things at once.

The most fun you can have with your clothes on is creating something that satisfies your own aesthetic and ideas, that is new, that is "yours"and then discovering that others enjoy it as well. This happened this year for me when my illustration, "year of the dog" won first place at the regional Society of Professional Journalists annual awards ceremony.

My blue dog springs from my love of using certain computer tools to draw, studies and research of Chinese astrology images, and then many drawings honed to this spectacular little fellow.

When I submitted it to my colleagues, they just shrugged. Some thought it was nice, good enough to stick on the newspaper where I work but nothing special. Others criticized and laughed at me to the point of cruelty. Still, I loved it.

When they called my name at the awards dinner it was sweet revenge. Walking home that night I was singing to the stars, which seemed somehow to be shining brighter.