from press release:
An innovative arts program kicks off this November, under the direction of the new non-profit organization Essential Arts. The program (like its producer) presents art with an eye on social impact. In this case, the intention is to create new work about the nature of community, and to take action to help the Gulf.
Says producer Bob Redmond, "Rather than navel-gazing about our Seattle selves, we decided to partner with another city to make something more dynamic happen. And what better city than New Orleans, who knows what it means to build community from the ground up?"
The program features, from each city: 6 writers, 6 graphic designers, a musician, and a filmmaker. A host of Seattle chefs will provide hospitality. All artists are creating new work on the theme of "community/home/location." Town Hall Seattle will host events on November 12 and 13, with an art exhibit at Tether Design Gallery the month of November. In April, New Orleans ("NOLA") will return the favor by hosting the same artists in performance in the Big Easy.
Some of the marquee participants are songwriter and pianist Robin Holcomb (Seattle); cajun music forerunner Zachary Richard (NOLA); Seattle writers Molly Wizenberg, Megan Kelso, Riz Rollins, and Jonathan Evison; NOLA writers James Nolan, Dedra Johnson, and Asia Rainey; Seattle artists Jeff Kleinsmith and Jeffry Mitchell; NOLA artists Ness Higson and Daniela Marx; Seattle filmmaker Ben Kasulke, and NOLA filmmaking ensemble Court 13.
_______________
November 4 - 26
Exhibit: 12 Designers on Writing
when: Thursday, November 4 through Friday, November 26
cost: Free
time: Monday through Friday, 10 am - 5 pm
first Thursday opening 6 pm - 9 pm
where: Tether Design Gallery
323 Occidental Ave South (at Jackson)
Seattle, WA
info: www.bilocal.org
featuring: (Seattle) Chelsea Conboy, Karen Ganz, Louie Gong, Jeff Kleinsmith, Jeffrey Mitchell, and Carlos Ruiz; (NOLA) Nancy Bernardo, Ness Higson, Melanie Innis, Lizzy Margiotta, Daniela Marx, and Justin Shiels
Friday, November 12
Reading and Performance: Writers on Location + Zachary Richard
Pre-funk reception with food and drinks
when: Friday, November 12
where: Town Hall Seattle
1119 - 8th Ave (at Seneca)
Seattle, WA
pre-funk: 6:30 pm
show: 8:00 pm
tickets: $20, $15 advance; all ages
featuring: writers (Seattle): Molly Wizenberg, Alex Kuo, Swil Kanim
writers (NOLA): James Nolan, Dedra Johnson, Jamar Travis
filmmaker: Ben Kasulke (Seattle)
musician: Zachary Richard (New Orleans)
host: Denise Jolly, poet (Seattle)
Saturday, November 13
Reading and Performance: Writers on Location + Robin Holcomb
Pre-funk reception with food and drinks
when: Saturday, November 13
where: Town Hall Seattle
1119 - 8th Ave (at Seneca)
Seattle, WA
pre-funk: 6:30 pm
show: 8:00 pm
tickets: $20, $15 advance; all ages
featuring: writers (Seattle): Megan Kelso, Jonathan Evison, Riz Rollins
writers (NOLA): David Rutledge, Anne Gisleson, Asia Rainey
filmmaker: Court 13 (NOLA)
musician: Robin Holcomb (Seattle)
host: Denise Jolly, poet (Seattle)
______________
12 DESIGNERS ON WRITING
Having worked with Curator Daniel R. Smith on the successful Seattle-Havana, Tehran, and Moscow poster shows at Bumbershoot, Bilocal producer Redmond invited Smith to help create and curate a Seattle-New Orleans exchange of designers and artists.
Smith came up with an idea to commission new works that would be inspired by the participating writers, and invited New Orleans designer Tom Futrell to help identify talent. Silkscreen prints of the work will be generated in limited quantity and sold to benefit the cause (investigative journalism in the Gulf).
Seattle artists Chelsea Conboy, Karen Ganz, Louie Gong, Jeff Kleinsmith, Jeffry Mitchell, and Carlos Ruiz are joined by NOLA artists Nancy Bernardo, Ness Higson, Melanie Innis, Lizzy Margiotta, Daniela Marx, and Justin Shiels. In addition, former UW professor Michael Spafford has donated prints from his landmark "Labors of Hercules" series for sale to benefit the cause.
PROCEEDS TO HELP THE GULF
Net proceeds will benefit The Lens, a New Orleans non-profit doing investigative journalism in the Gulf. The Lens, the first non-profit journalism venture in New Orleans, boasts a staff with veteran investigative reporters from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Portland Mercury, and other publications.
"The project is all about stories," says Redmond. "And we want to support not just metaphors, but facts. The Lens tells the real story of the Gulf from the people who are there, and getting these stories out is absolutely essential to doing the right thing in the Gulf."
Says Ariella Cohen, journalist and cofounder of The Lens, "At a time when the Internet has made more information readily available than ever before, communities must have sources they can rely on for relevant, accurate reporting on the issues that affect them most and that is why we at The Lens do the work we do." Find out more about the Lens at www.thelensnola.com
AMAZON.COM AWARDS GRANT
"This project would not be possible without the support of Amazon.com," says Redmond. They believed in it from the start—not just in our capability to make something happen, but also in our community-building goals. Amazon.com is making a real difference in its hometown by supporting writers and new writing."
The creation of new work is a feature of Bilocal, says Redmond. "All the writers are generating something new for Bilocal; even Holcomb and Richard—both accomplished lyricists—will present new work for the program." The writers' stories will be used as inspiration for graphic designers and filmmakers from each city; the writing and artwork will be published online and in a book.
"Amazon.com is proud to be a part of the inaugural Bilocal program,” says Jon Fine, director of Author and Publisher Relations for Amazon.com. "Essential Arts and Amazon.com share a deep commitment to supporting the creation of new works, and we look forward to the contributions to come from Bilocal’s impressive lineup of talent."
Bilocal joins a diverse range of regional and national not-for-profit author and publisher groups receiving support from Amazon.com for programs dedicated to developing new voices and new works. Other recipients include 826 Seattle, Poets & Writers, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, One Story, Pen American Center, ACT Theatre's Young Playwrights Program, Artist Trust, Clarion West, Copper Canyon, Hedgebrook, Richard Hugo House, Seattle Arts & Lectures and dozens of other groups nationwide.
WRITERS ON LOCATION • FUTURE CITIES • VIRTUAL SPACE
Bilocal: Seattle/New Orleans is the first of an annual series; future events will pair Seattle with other cities from around the nation. Do we know where? Yes...cities in some kind of decay, if not trouble, with rich cultural and social histories. Future projects will also benefit a targeted charity in each partner city. Bilocal 2011 will be announced within the year.
Writing from participating communities, and other locations as well, will be solicited via bilocal.org; selected work will be published on the site, and collected in a forthcoming book.
CREDITS
Bilocal is produced by Essential Arts, and co-presented by Town Hall Seattle and Tether Design Gallery, with the participation of University Bookstore, Chin Music Press, and the NW Film Forum.
The program is made possible with a generous contribution by Amazon.com, with additional support from Tully's Coffee, the Seattle Weekly, KBCS 91.3 FM community radio, the Sorrento Hotel, Girlie Press, and 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax).
The program is curated by Bob Redmond (producer and director), with Daniel R. Smith (curator, "12 designers on writing" and Tom Futrell (co-curator, "12 designers on writing"). Thanks to Wier Harman (Town Hall) and Stesha Brandon (University Bookstore) for overall guidance.
Creative design provided by Tether.
***
BILOCAL PARTICIPANTS
MUSICIANS
Robin Holcomb (Seattle)
www.robinholcomb.com
Pianist, composer, singer and songwriter Robin Holcomb has performed extensively in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia as a solo artist and the leader of various ensembles. Living in the Lower East Side of New York in the 1980s, she was a founder of Studio Henry, a venue for maverick composers, and the New York Composers Orchestra. Living in Seattle since 1989, she continues to compose and record songs and music for solo piano, chamber ensembles, dance, theatre and film.
Her work has been called "remarkable" (CMJ), "stunning" (Option), "entrancing" (Billboard) and "sensitive, descriptive, adventuresome and full of soul" (Washington Post). "Hers is an unsettling, utterly original vision." (Entertainment Weekly) According to The New York Times: "Ms. Holcomb has done something remarkable here: she has created a new American regionalism, spun from many threads - country, rock, minimalism, Civil War songs, Baptist hymns, Appalachian folk tunes, even the polytonal music of Charles Ives. The music that results is as elegantly simple as a Shaker Quilt, and no less beautiful."
Her most recent recording is The Point of It All (Songlines), a collection of songs and instrumental collaborations that confound categorization with Talking Pictures (Ron Samworth, Peggy Lee, Bill Clark and Dylan van der Schyff) and Wayne Horvitz.
Zachary Richard (New Orleans)
www.zacharyrichard.com
Zachary Richard is a Cajun singer/songwriter and poet, who is credited as a major influence in the preservation and popularization of Cajun music worldwide. In his 35-year career, he has released sixteen studio albums of which five were declared gold albums in Canada with 1 double platinum (Cap Enragé). In addition to his musical works, Richard has published three books of poetry: Faire Récolte earned the Prix Champlain (Québec) in 1998 and Feu received the Prix Roland Gasparic (Bucharest Roumania) in 2002. He has also published three children's books, and produced "Against the Tide: the story of the Cajun People of Louisiana," which was awarded Best Historical Documentary by the National Educational Television Association (NETA) in 2000.
In 2009 Richard released LAST KISS, his first English-language album in 15 years. Co-produced by Richard and the celebrated New Orleans pianist, David Torkanowsky, the album was recorded in Montreal, Paris, Brussels, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Lafayette, Louisiana; and features a recording of Robbie Robertson's classic "Acadian Driftwood" in a duet with Céline Dion. This August Richard he released two new tracks, the sale of which will benefit efforts in the Gulf through his charity Gulf Aid Acadiana.
WRITERS
WRITERS - SEATTLE
Jonathan Evison
www.jonathanevison.com/
Jonathan Evison is the author of "All About Lulu," which won the 2008 Washington State Book Award, and the forthcoming novels "West of Here" (2011, Algonquin) and "The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving" (2012, Algonquin). He is the executive editor of "The Nervous Breakdown" and a chief contributor to the lit blog "Three Guys, One Book". In 2009, he was awarded the Richard Buckley Fellowship from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.
Denise Jolly (host)
http://www.myspace.com/denisejolly
Denise Jolly is a writer, performer, educator and community builder. She is currently Co-Executive Director of Seattle Youth Speaks and a member of Salt Lines Spoken Word Collective. She has served as co-host and facilitator of the Seattle Poetry Slam, Poetry Curator for The Round (a live multidisciplinary collaborative arts show), member of Eleventh Hour Productions Board of Directors and Vice President of Stronghold Productions. Denise was the 2009 San Francisco Grand Slam Champion and member of the 2009 San Francisco Slam team who ranked 3rd in the nation. She has performed, taught, and/or collaborated in venues as large as Coachella and as small as Cook County Detention Center, Cleveland High School, and Seattle Youth Speaks writing circle. She likes doing great things with amazing people and being moved by art, community and how the two work together.
Megan Kelso
www.girlhero.com/
Megan Kelso began in comics with her 1993 Xeric award winning comic, Girl Hero. She continued the series until all six issues were compiled in the Highwater books publication, Queen of the Black Black in 1998. She has continued in comics, with the release of her environmental minded comic, The Lost Valley in 1999. In 2006, Fantagraphics released a collection of 15 of her short stories in Squirrel Mother. And in 2007, the New York Times Magazine ran her weekly narrative comic strip, Watergate Sue. Over the last decade she has worked on her graphic novel, Artichoke Tales, released this year on Fantagraphics.
Alex Kuo
www.alexkuo.org/
Alex Kuo has published more than 350 poems, short stories, photographs and essays in serials in the last 50 years. His most recent books are WHITE JADE AND OTHER STORIES, and the novel PANDA DIARIES. His LIPSTICK AND OTHER STORIES won the American Book Award. His big doppelganger novel and political manifesto THE MAN WHO DAMMED THE YANGTZE will be out in March 2011, as well as A CHINAMAN'S CHANCE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS.
Riz Rollins
Riz Rollins spent his first 25 stormy years in the city of his birth, Chicago. 25 years of trouble, heartache, and ordinary pain led him to move to Seattle and he's been feeling much better thank you very much. A world-renowned DJ, Rollins currently is celebrating his 20th year of being an on- air host for KEXP 90.3 FM, where he is the originator of that station's electronic + program called "Expansions." He also hosts a weekly variety show. In this same 20-year period he has also enjoyed some notoriety as a writer, publishing first in The Rocket and The Stranger, featuring in the Jack Straw writers program, and contributing to NPR's "This American Life" and so many other events that he couldn't possibly recount them all.
Swil Kanim
www.swilkanim.net/
Swil Kanim is a world class virtuoso violinist, storyteller, popular keynote speaker and actor. He intertwines his music with storytelling, poetry, and audience interaction. He starred as "Mouse" in Sherman Alexie’s highly acclaimed movie The Business of FancyDancing. In April of 2008, Swil Kanim was invited to perform for the Dalai Lama at Key Arena in Seattle for The Seeds of Compassion event and in November of that same year Swil Kanim performed four "sold out" shows at the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. This year he was asked to open for the entire summer concert series at the Tulalip Amphitheatre, which included The Temptations, Blake Shelton, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Billy Idol, Chicago and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
[editorial note: "Swil Kanim" is the artist's whole name and should always be written in full. The name is a sentence, meaning (in the Lummi language) "Works for the Spirit of the People."]
Molly Wizenberg
www.orangette.net
Molly Wizenberg writes the monthly column "Cooking Life" in Bon Appetit magazine, and her first book, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, was a New York Times bestseller. She is the voice behind Orangette (www.orangette.net), named the best food blog in the world by the London Times. Her work has also been published in Best Food Writing 2009, Town and Country, and on NPR.org, PBS.org, NYTimes.com, and Gourmet.com. She lives in Seattle, where she and her husband Brandon Pettit own the restaurant Delancey.
WRITERS - NEW ORLEANS
Anne Gisleson
www.press-street.com/
Anne Gisleson is a New Orleans native and chair of the writing program at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Louisiana's arts conservatory for high school students. Her writing has appeared in The Believer, Oxford American, The Mississippi Review and other magazines and has been selected for inclusion in several anthologies including Best American Non-Required Reading, Best Music Writing, Life in the Wake: Fiction from Post-Katrina and Paul Chan's Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide.
Gisleson also helps run Press Street, a non-profit collective that promotes art and literature in the city through events like the 24 hour community arts extravaganza Drawathon and collaborative publication projects. Press Street also operates the downtown gallery Antenna, which hosts art shows, readings, workshops, free screenings and other activities. She lives with her husband artist Brad Benischek and their two sons in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans.
Dedra Johnson
A native and current resident of New Orleans, Dedra Johnson received her MFA from the University of Florida-Gainesville, where she was a finalist for the Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Award for College Writers. She also earned undergraduate degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Southern Mississippi. Her stories have appeared in Product and Bridge. Her novel, Sandrine’s Letter to Tomorrow (Ig, 2007), was a finalist for the 2006 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Award. Some of her post-Katrina online writing appears in A Howling in the Wires: An Anthology of Writings from Postdiluvian New Orleans (Gallatin & Toulouse, 2010).
James Nolan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Nolan
James Nolan's most recent book, Perpetual Care, was awarded the 2007 Jefferson Press Prize and the 2009 Next-Generation Indie Book Award for Best Short Story Collection. The manuscript of his novel Higher Ground won the 2008 William Faulkner-Wisdom Gold Medal. His collections of poetry are Why I Live in the Forest and What Moves Is Not the Wind, both from Wesleyan University Press. A regular contributor to Boulevard, his poems, stories, and essays also have appeared in The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, Utne Reader, North American Review, the anthologies New Orleans Noir and The Gastronomica Reader, and the Washington Post, among many other places.
Nolan has translated Pablo Neruda's Stones of the Sky (Copper Canyon) and Longing: Selected Poems of Jaime Gil de Biedma (City Lights). He is the author of Poet-Chief (University of New Mexico Press), a study of the Native American poetics of Whitman and Neruda, and a collection of his personal essays, Fumadores en manos de un dios enfurecido, has come out in Spain (Enigma Editores). He has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and two Fulbright Fellowships, and has taught literature and creative writing at universities in San Francisco, Florida, Barcelona, Madrid, and Beijing. Recently he was Writer-in-Residence at both Tulane and Loyola Universities in New Orleans, where he now directs the New Orleans Writing Institute at the Arts Council. A fifth-generation native of the Crescent City, he lives in the French Quarter.
CONTACT
Asia Rainey
www.asiarainey.com/
As an award-winning spoken word artist and vocalist, Asia Rainey has been invited as a featured and guest performer at countless events, festivals, benefits, and educational institutions around the country. She has shared stages with artists such as the Last Poets, Mos Def, Suheir Hammad, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Charmaine Neville, and many more. Asia has appeared in several theatre productions, as a recording artist (Jena Six Project, No Rainbows for the Colored, Her Name is New Orleans, Poet's Collabo), in television (writer, special co-host of Between the Lines), and recently in film, in a lead role of Flood Streets (www.thehatcherymedia.com). She is presently working on both her second book and a new CD which will include her original music and spoken word, and is completing two original poetic stage plays (Shut Up and Fly; Neutral Ground).
David Rutledge
www.chinmusicpress.com/
David Rutledge is now in his twelfth year of teaching English at the University of New Orleans. He has taught American literature, Shakespeare, New Orleans literature, among other classes. His book on Vladimir Nabokov, entitled Permanent Mystery, will be published next year by McFarland Press.
Rutledge is the co-editor and a contributor to Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? (Chin Music Press, 2006), a post-Katrina anthology that celebrates the culture of the city. The book release party at the Saturn Bar, in February of 2006, was the most remarkable evening in his eleven years of evenings in New Orleans.
He has also edited and contributed to Where We Know: New Orleans as Home, the second collection of New Orleans essays and stories from Chin Music Press/Broken Levee Books (2010). It explores the joys, difficulties and challenges of choosing to make New Orleans home.
Jamar Travis
Jamar Travis is a youth poet from New Orleans. Jamar was first introduced to spoken word by National Slam champion Karama Sadaka. He represented New Orleans at Brave New Voices, a national event of youth poets, from 2007 through 2010, serving as team captain 2009-2010. Says Jamar: "The experience changed me not only as a writer but a person, and forced me to see the importance of life, love and faith."
DESIGNERS
DESIGNERS - SEATTLE
Chelsea Conboy
http://doublefelix.carbonmade.com/
Chelsea Conboy is a Seattle-based illustrator and designer. She grew up in Southern California, went to high school in Las Vegas and studied literature at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her first foray into graphic design was a college job with a small on-campus design studio, designing posters and print materials for school events. Not wanting to stray far from the Pacific, she moved to Seattle after college and immediately took a liking to the persistent moss and salty air. Chelsea cut her teeth in the Seattle startup world and struck out on her own in 2009 with Double Felix Industries, a creative studio. Chelsea works primarily in a digital medium, but strives for the craftsmanship of traditional printed arts. She finds inspiration in the uncharted regions between nurture and nature.
Karen Ganz
kganz.com
Karen Ganz was born in Riverside, California in 1963. She received a BA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and MFA from the University of Iowa in 1988. Her work is influenced by 1900-1920s cartoon and comic strips. She works mostly with large, constructed canvases and collage, using ink drawing overlaid with paint. Her paintings and drawings invoke a sense of nostalgia, humor and concern for the predicament of "the common man". Her work has been shown in over 40 exhibitions and in several public collections—notably a 110 x 5 foot set of paintings at the North Terminal of Sea-Tac airport. Her work is in the collection of Microsoft, Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Boise Art Museum, and the True collection. She received a residency at the MacDowell Colony and has been awarded numerous grants and purchase awards during her 20 years in Seattle.
Louie Gong
eighthgeneration.com
Louie discovered the power of art to express ideas when he used crude, but well placed, graffiti to effectively woo a girl. Around the same time, he started seriously exploring Northwest Coast Salish art by painting drums in preparation for the 2006 Canoe Journey. He started seeing the world in crescents, ovals and formlines. In 2009 he found his groove as an artist when–on a whim–he took a sharpie to a pair of Vans. The resulting merger of Coast Salish art and pop culture perfectly represented his complex cultural identity. While many are drawn to his work because it represents the confluence of multiple worlds, others simply appreciate Coast Salish art or the shoes’ freshness and originality. Either way, Louie is honored that people find value in something he loves to do.
Jeff Kleinsmith
jeffkleinsmith.com
In 1990, Jeff Kleinsmith moved to Seattle and started freeloading around the offices of local music rag The Rocket. He was drawn to artists and designers like Lisa Orth, Art Chantry and Mike King, and was influenced especially by the design of The Rocket. He worked there for four years, including a year-long stint as art director, until Sub Pop hired him away as their first and, as of yet, only in-house art director. In 1992, Kleinsmith started BSK Screen Printing in his basement with two friends which later became Patent Pending Printing. In 2000, Patent Pending Design was formed as a creative outlet for producing and marketing silkscreen posters and freelance design work. His work has appeared in design books and magazines too numerous to list, ditto with gallery shows. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively scheduled for release in 2010.
Jeffry Mitchell
http://www.thestranger.com
Jeffry Mitchell's exhibitions, both solo and group, have drawn critical praise and include the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards at the Portland Art Museum, 2008, Western Bridge, 2006, the World Ceramic Biennial in South Korea, 2003, the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 2001, DiverseWorks, Houston, 2001, White Columns, NYC, 1997, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, 1992 and the Seattle Art Museum, 1990. His works are in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the Philadelphia Art Museum, the New York Public Library, the Portland Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum and Western Bridge among others.
Carlos M Ruiz
cmrtyz.com
Carlos Ruiz never went to art school. In fact, he openly admits that he never studied graphic design techniques, doesn't know a thing about computer design programs and doesn't even own a computer. With a good eye for composition and a bit of intuition, he often designs posters while riding the bus and completes layouts within an a few hours using sharpies, collaged images and copy machines. His black and white and two-color posters are simple in the sense that they are bold and raw, pixelated and hand-drawn, possessing an organic edge that is rarely seen in the work of contemporary designers. When he's not designing a poster or drawing in his sketchbook, you'll likely find him smoking, listening to garage-punk records, or drinking his coffee black.
DESIGNERS - NEW ORLEANS
Nancy Bernardo
www.nancyabernardo.net
Nancy Bernardo, trained as a graphic designer (MFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago), currently resides in New Orleans and teaches design at Loyola University. Her work focuses on the relationship between text and interpretation of messages. The messages she experiments with are from observations in everyday life as well as appropriating image and text from the Victorian era through the 1950′s. She uses typography to visually enhance and communicate alternate meanings.
Ness Higson
www.iamalwayshungry.com
Nessim Higson runs IAAH (I Am Always Hungry), which functions on the core belief of good design = good business, and that design has a responsibility to not only contribute to the economic market but also to the social fabric of society. The studio has been recognized nationally and internationally by organizations including, but not limited to, Communication Arts, Print, Graphis, DGV and was recently named a "young gun" by the Art Directors Club of New York.
Melanie Innis
www.melanieinnis.com
Melanie Innis is a designer and founder of Mac Stanley & Co., a multidisciplinary design studio in New Orleans, LA. Melanie spent her childhood tearing it up in her father's print shop art room and her early design career submersed in the world of print design. Now, she's primarily focused in interactive design and obsessed with studying user experiences alongside her biggest support team, Mac (the cat) and Stanley (the dog).
Lizzy Margiotta
www.sodizzymisslizzy.com
Lizzy Margiotta was born in Florida, but lived most of her childhood on North Island of New Zealand. She received degrees in both Advertising and Graphic Design from Loyola University New Orleans. Currently she designs for I Am Always Hungry studio in New Orleans and Sandbag in LA. Biggest influences include Swiss design and surf culture. She sees design as a tool that when used properly can cause outstanding effects.
Daniela Marx
http://www.postersofdiscontent.com/artist9.html
Daniela Marx is a designer and an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Loyola University New Orleans. She is currently on sabbatical researching, reinventing and revisiting the power of design in the city of New Orleans.
Justin Shiels
http://www.curioustribe.com/design/index.html
Justin Shiels is a creative thinker, artist, communicator and self-proclaimed New Orleanian.
FILMMAKERS
Ben Kasulke (Seattle)
www.benkasulke.com
Ben Kasulke is an award winning Director and Director of Photography based in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. Ben graduated from the Northfield-Mount Hermon School and received his BS in Cinema Production from Ithaca College following additional study at the Filmová a Televizní Fakulta Akadmie Muzickych Umní in Prague.
Ben's professional experience includes employment as an Instructor at Northwest Film Forum, a film archivist with The Image Treasury, programmer with London's Raindance Film Festival, and as a staff projectionist with the Olympia Film Society. While employed as the staff cinematographer for the Seattle based Film Company, he was fortunate enough to work with award winning filmmakers Guy Maddin and Lynn Shelton. Kasulke has also worked in music video and performance documentation with various acts including Andrew Bird, Einsteurzende Neubaten to Built To Spill.
In 2006, he received two awards for his Cinematography on Shelton's "We Go Way Back" from the Slamdance and Torun Film Festivals. The Seattle Stranger shortlisted Kasulke for its Genius Award in Film in 2007. In 2009 Ben was fortunate enough to lens the Sundance Special Jury Prize winning "Humpday" which eventually went on to win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards. Kasulke's work has been screened at multiple film festivals including the Toronto, Berlin, Sundance, and Cannes Film Festival Director's Fortnight. His feature film work has been released by Zeitgeist Films, IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, and The Criterion Collection.
Court 13 (NOLA)
www.court13.com/
Court 13 is a grass roots, independent filmmaking army—a collective of artists and animators of junk that seek to tell huge stories out of small parts. The Court made its first film, "egg," when its creators were still in college. Shorts like "Jettison Your Loved Ones" and "Death to the Tinman" (Ray Tintori, director) also came out of Wesleyan University to play at festivals such as Sundance and Cinequest.
The Court truly found its roots in New Orleans in the spring of 2007, when it created "Glory at Sea" (Benh Zeitlin, director) a short film about a community responding to loss in the wake of a near-apocalyptic storm and flood. "Glory at Sea" received 15 festival awards, including the Wholphin Award at South by Southwest, Best Short Film at the New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival, and the Best Short Fiction Film at the New Orleans Film Festival.
In 2010, Court 13 commenced production on its first feature film, "Beasts of the Southern Wild," after being accepted and going through the Sundance Institute's Directors, Screenwriters, and Producers Labs, respectively. "Beasts" also received the NHK International Filmmaker's Award, and was a recipient of a generous post-production grant from the San Francisco Film Society and Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
Michael Gottwald, director of the Bilocal film project, is proud to call himself a founding member of Court 13.
CURATORIAL
Bob Redmond [producer/curator]
Founder of Essential Arts (producer of Bilocal), Bob Redmond is a writer, community organizer, and beekeeper. From 2004-2010 he was Arts Program Manager at the Bumbershoot Festival, and before that helped start the Capitol Hill Arts Center, did programming and production at Experience Music Project, worked in community radio and journalism, and founded and ran the Seattle Poetry Festival from 1998-2000. A former writer-in-residence for Richard Hugo House at the Belltown P- patch garden, Bob also runs the Urban Bee Company, which operates the Honeybee Sanctuary program in Seattle.
Daniel R. Smith
www.thunderbitch.com target="_blank"
[curator, "12 Designers on Writing"]
Daniel R. Smith is a designer, artist and sometimes curator. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1994 with a BFA in Graphic Design and a BA in fine arts. Currently Design Director for Tether, a design firm and gallery in Pioneer Square, he has worked for NBBJ Architecture, Experience Music Project (EMP) and Starbucks Coffee Company. His work has been chosen for inclusion in Seattle City Light’s public art collection and EMP’s permanent collection. Curatorial projects include The Seattle-Havana Poster Show, The Seattle-Tehran Poster Show, The Seattle- Moscow Poster Show and Thunderbitch: Women Designers in Northwest Rock 1966-2010.
Tom Futrell
www.tomfutrell.com
[co-curator, "12 Designers on Writing"]
Tom Futrell is a designer and educator living in New Orleans. With 10+ years of print and interactive design experience, Tom has worked with a wide range of clients that include Centurylink, Intel Labs, Louisiana Economic Development, New Orleans Tourism, Seattle Arts & Lectures, and the University of Washington. His work has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the American Institute of Architects, and the American Advertising Federation. An active member of the New Orleans design community, Tom is an adjunct professor of design at Loyola University of New Orleans and also serves as Development & Community Outreach co-chair for AIGA New Orleans. Tom received his MFA in Visual Communication Design from the University of Washington in 2008.
PARTNERS
Essential Arts (Producer)
www.essentialarts.org
Essential Arts develops creative work for the Common Good. Through events, educational programs, and artist support, we focus specifically on community development, local agriculture, and education. With artistic work that has social impact, and social work that has creativity, we aim to address constructively the urgent needs of our global and local communities.
Tether (Co-producing partner)
www.tetherinc.com
Dedicated to promoting emerging artists, designers and visionaries. Tether is a group of friends that are passionate about one thing. Telling stories that matter. Tether operates a design shop in Pioneer Square in Seattle, as well as a gallery and retail store.
Town Hall
(Co-producing partner)
www.townhallseattle.com
Town Hall Seattle is home to many of Seattle's fine cultural and civic organizations, which use the facility for a busy schedule of concerts, lectures, meetings, and fundraising events. It also rents space to many individual users, from small meetings of 40 to full-building, multi-floor events for 1,000.
As a nonprofit organization with deep roots in Seattle's civic life, Town Hall's mission is to serve as a common home for dozens of Seattle's mid-sized nonprofit organizations.
Located in a renovated church dating to 1922. The building is one of the landmarks of First Hill, Seattle's first suburb and still a neighborhood of distinguished and varied older buildings. Continuously used and well-maintained over the last 80 years, Town Hall was purchased in 1998 from the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist by a group of 16 civic-minded Seattle citizens for conversion into the community culture center it is today. It opened its doors in March, 1999.
University Bookstore
www.bookstore.washington.edu
Washington State's oldest independent bookstore, University Bookstore is an indispensable resource in support of UW's vision and an unforgettable attribute of the UW experience. The bookstore is also a tremendous community asset, providing over 450 author readings throughout the year (most of them free), supporting numerous community events, and creating unique local benefits such as 110|110, a book that featured 110 local writers on the occasion of the bookstore's 110th birthday.
Chin Music Press
http://chinmusicpress.com
Chin Music Press is dedicated to the art of storytelling. As we ride the digital wave cresting at the beginning of the 21st Century, we’re searching for new ways to tell stories about our world.
Bruce Rutledge and Yuko Enomoto founded Chin Music Press in 2002, sensing that the time was ripe for small presses willing to publish risky books. Designer Craig Mod joined in 2003, adding an important layer to the press: Chin Music books would not only be risky, they would be beautiful.
After the levees broke in New Orleans, David Rutledge, a professor at the University of New Orleans, spearheaded Chin Music’s effort to publish one of the first books about those early days. The success of that book — Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans — led the press to begin another imprint, Broken Levee Books.
Northwest Film Forum
www.nwfilmforum.org/
Northwest Film Forum is Seattle's premier film arts organization, screening over 200 independently made and classic films annually, offering a year-round schedule of filmmaking classes for all ages, and supporting filmmakers at all stages of their careers.
Founded in 1995 by filmmakers Jamie Hook and Deborah Girdwood, the Film Forum now operates the region's first and only non-profit center for the film arts. The Film Forum's programming embraces film production as well as film exhibition, with two cinemas, film production and post-production facilities and equipment, educational workshop space, filmmaker offices, a film vault containing over 1,000 titles and a filmmaking.
SPONSORS
Bilocal is made possible with a generous contribution by Amazon.com and with additional support from Tully's Coffee, the Seattle Weekly, KBCS 91.3 FM community radio, the Sorrento Hotel, Girlie Press, and 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax).
