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Happy Holidays | Year-end | Winter Artists


Farm Dreams, Dawn Sumner, Meredith Tromble, 2014. 

A Year in (Pre)view
My husband and I spend an hour or two each New Year's Eve to review where we've been and what we've done the previous 12 months. We then make some simple resolutions. (This year's are: Read More. Eat Less. Exercise.)  
 
At Djerassi it's easy to make a list of artists and scientists (all 67 of them, see photo below), new sculptures (SEVEN were installed this year), old and new partners (Pace Gallery, National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, Sequoia High School). We can't thank every artist, hiker, partner, donor, Trustee and staff member enough for a very inspiring and productive year.  
 
What ISN'T as easy to describe is the exuberant HOPE we feel as we enter the new year.  (Yes, I know, hope isn't a strategy BUT it IS essential to any successful enterprise). We have three new employees with high hopes: Director of Development Gregory Stock, Environmental Stewardship Associate Felicia Herron and Facilities Manager Tim DeVoe (we bade farewell to Tom Shean a couple of weeks ago as he starts a new adventure up north).  
 
With their help (and YOURS), we will be elevating the preservation of our land and buildings. The soundness of our buildings and the health of our grasslands and forests are inextricably linked to the creativity of Djerassi residents.    
 
With their help (and YOURS)-along with the wisdom of former Trustee and fundraiser strategist par excellence, Kay Sprinkel Grace-we will create a plan to preserve our lands, buildings and programs in perpetuity. For the benefit of art and artists for all time.  
 
With their help (and YOURS), the Djerassi gift of uninterrupted time will continue to coax brilliant ideas to fruition and provide a proving ground for untested concepts. The Djerassi Magic is forever. Artists are squeezed for time, money and space in ways most workers don't experience. I don't think the next few years will be any easier on those counts.  
 
THOSE are resolutions we can keep.  After all,  a plan is nothing but hope held together with a timeline.   
 
Merry EVERYTHING and Happy New Year!
  
Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director
 
Winter Artists 2016
"Winter Artists" are previous attendees (alumni) who apply to return to the Artists Ranch for 1, 2 or 3 weeks in December. Here, they catch up on current work, finish up pieces they may have left behind, or simply enjoy a Gift of Time refresher - without the customary services (chef!) they experienced during their original stay. Our current group:
 
Annie Albagli, San Francisco, CA. Visual Artist
Session Six

Nils Bultmann, Berkeley, CA. Composer
Paola Cabal, Chicago, IL. Visual Artist
Jamie Diamond, Los Angeles, CA. Writer 
Frank Foreman, Santa Cruz, CA. Visual Artist
Howard Hersh, Nevada City, CA. Composer
Sara Shelton Mann, San Francisco, CA. Choreographer
Christopher Patton, Bellingham, WA. Writer
Mark Reeves, Seattle, WA. Visual Artist
Cintia Santana, Redwood City, CA. Writer
Nadia Shihab, Oakland, CA. Writer
Stephen Vincent, San Francisco, CA. Writer
Jeff Walt, San Diego, CA. Writer



   
Winter Artists group 1



 
 
          
Winter Artists group 2
See us on YouTube
Check out Djerassi Program's YouTube channel. See interviews featuring our artists as they experience their Gift of Time on the ranch.
  
Alumni: Double Your Gift
You can "pay it forward!" Pass it on - your unforgettable time on the mountain. Just as you enjoyed your productive session at Djerassi, you can enable others to find their Gift of Time. Please consider a donation to our Djerassi Alumni Campaign.
 
Every gift made by alumni before midnight , December 31 will be matched by Sue and John Diekman up to a total of $10,000! If we can raise $20,000, this will fund two resident artists' entire stay.
 
And keep an eye out for the Djerassi alumni reunions coming up in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Chicago. 

                    

   
 

  
 
 




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Movin' On, Movin' In
We bid "Farewell" to Tom Shean and his trusty dog Hank, as they move on to other pursuits. "Thank you, good luck and stay in touch!"
  
In the meantime, the artists will remain in good hands. We welcome Tim DeVoe who will carry on as our new Facilities Manager. Tim is "a construction manager with an artist's heart." Among many pursuits, he's worked with artist David Best as well as various Burning Man teams.
  
The Oakland 'Ghost Ship' Fire
Our hearts go out to the many family members and friends of the victims of the disastrous blaze that swept through the Oakland warehouse. The building was the home of many artists. The causes of the tragedy point to a multitude of factors including lack of fire inspection, overloaded electrical systems, no sprinklers, 'underground' living produced by high Bay Area housing costs, the desire of artists for personal/anarchical freedom.
  
Two Djerassi alumni, media artists Ashley Bellouin (2013) and Ben Bracken (2013) were on site that night, but managed to escape the building quickly and uninjured. Ben wrote on his Facebook page: "Ashley and I are safe. Sending strength and love to everyone else who was there." https://www.facebook.com/ben.bracken.52
 

 
Djerassi news

Three poems by Mari L'Esperance (2015) were featured at The Margins website, a blog of the Asian American Writers' Workshop in New York City. Read them here.
  
In addition, in September, Mari read her poems for 100,000 Poets for Change in El Cerrito, CA. Read more: http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/09/29/el-cerrito-poets-well-versed-at-100-thousand-poets-for-change-reading/
  
Alison Hawthorne Deming's (1990, winter '04) latest poetry book, Stairway to Heaven, has been published by Penguin. Find it on Amazon. 

Camille Utterback (2012) has been commissioned by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History to create Vital Current - Seeking the San Lorenzo. Located in the lobby, the work premiered in October and will be on exhibit for about a year. See more about Camille in CG&S below.

Lava Thomas (2003, winter '08, former trustee) created Requiem for Charleston and exhibited the work as part of These American Lives, presented at the Rena Bransten Gallery on Minnesota Street in San Francisco earlier this year. As a prestigious honor, the work, commemorating the victims of the 2015 shooting in one of the nation's oldest historically black churches in Charleston, SC, has been acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
 
Scientific Delirium Madness , our yearly convocation of science and the arts, was noted in an article on the scientific blog ReadCube.com. Entitled The beauty and the morbid: fungi as source of inspiration in contemporary art, you can study the pdf here.
 
Ann Fisher-Wirth (2005, 2016) had an exhibit of Mississippi, a collaborative poetry/photography booklet created with Delta photographer Maude Schuyler Clay, displayed at the Ford Center in Oxford, MS. The exhibition included galleys of 22 poems matched with 22 photos. The display was about half of the book-of-the-same-name scheduled to be published by Wings Press in 2017.
  
In addition, a play based on the poems is scheduled to be presented in February. See CG&S below.

Daniel Gwirtzman (2005, winter '12) was featured at the Un Lieu, Une Oeuvre (One Site, One Work) Gallery in Menerbes, France, in July. The gallery features one work of art at a time in their window. His was their first-ever live performance on display. Taken during Daniel's residency in the Provencal city, the dance starts inside, experiences some problems with window reflections, and then moves out of the gallery into the street. See the remarkable 6-minute video here: https://vimeo.com/191983885.

And you can see Daniel and his DG Dance Company in the four-part YouTube premiere of Timebomb 360. Occurring in the round, the dance's structure is an accumulation: solo, duet, trio, quartet. See the new release on the company's YouTube Channel.

Robert Carl's (2000) most recent CD release, The Geography of Loss, is available from New World Records and includes The World Turned Upside Down, which he wrote during his time at the Ranch. Go to http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=94322
  
Women with Class
Classes in progressive movement/voice/acting are available from Joya Cory (1983). See her complete list of offerings in the San Francisco area at her website: http://www.joyacory.com/.
Writing/teaching/editing classes are available via Melanie Bishop (2016) featuring group and solo writing retreats in Carmel-by-the-Sea. See her website: https://melaniebishopwriter.wordpress.com/
Dialog, Roland Meyer, 2004. Photo and design by Rewa Bush.

Kudos
2016 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Awards are in, and Djerassi alumni and partners are in the spotlight. Melissa Stein (2005, '14) of San Francisco received an individual Creative Writing Fellowship grant.

In the category of Art Works - Dance: Deborah Slater (1992, multiple winters, former trustee) and her eponymous Dance Theater's Art of the Matter Performance Foundation received a grant to support the creation of a new work "Love/Over Time." The work will demonstrate life's complexity of change, aging, enduring loss, and how we are transformed by these experiences.
  
Sara Shelton Mann (1995, '02, '11, multiple winters) and her Mixed Bag Productions also in the Art Works - Dance category, received a grant to support the creation and presentation of a new evening-length piece, "The Invitation."
  
A few of our outstanding partners received grants as well. Other Minds, to support a performance project celebrating the life and music of American composer Lou Harrison (also one of the Program's close friends). Other grantees: The Playwright's Foundation, who meet each year at the ranch and the San Francisco Film Festival who help fund residents.

  
Yet more kudos: Fawzia Miirza was chosen to come to the ranch in 2017 as our 3Arts Fellow, at the behest of Chicago's 3Arts Foundation, an organization that supports Chicago's women artists, artists of color and artists with disabilities who work in the performing, teaching, and visual arts.
 
Wait 'Til Next Year
ART///SKY will return in March, 2017.
  

   

 
C G & S
Comings, Goings & Showings
  
"You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you." - Isadora Duncan. Now tell ART///SKYreaders all about your untamed upcoming events, exhibitions, performances, premieres and/or book tours (as far in advance as possible). Email nick@djerassi.org.

To follow our alumni and friends' events, be sure to check the D.R.A.P. Alumni Facebook page.
Coyote at To Market To Market, Weber and Wareham, 2000. Screen capture from video by Erica Mott (2016).


Thru Dec 22   Karen Tam (2011) , exhibition of a herd of piñata versions of Tang Dynasty funerary ceramic statues of horses and camels, alongside cyanotype tiles depicting constellations from the star charts found in the Dunhuang caves. Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, 372 Ste. Catherine O., Montréal.  Hugues Charbonneau Gallery
Thru Dec 23  Freddy Chandra (2009) Slipstream, wall reliefs, Brian Gross Fine Art, 248 Utah St. San Francisco.
 
Thru Dec 23  Paz de La Calzada (2016) Inhabitable Drawing: A Carpet Landscape, aMuse Gallery, 614 Alabama St.. San Francisco.

Thru Dec 30   Basil Twist (2005, winter '11, '15) Christopher Wheeldon's The Nutcracker Ballet, performed by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy, Chicago, IL.
 
Thru Dec 31  Barbara Edelstein (1994, '96) and Jian-Jun Zhang (1995) Under Heaven: Contemporary Art from China in the Ahmanson Collection, Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, CA.

Thru Jan 1  Jessica Dunne (1997, 5 winters) Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here - In Defense of Culture, San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco.
 
Jan 3 and 8  Dusan Tynek (2016), Jumping for the Joy(ce)!, American Dance Platform, The Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth Av., New York, NY.
 
Also appearing:
Jan 4 and 8  Ryan Smith, Wendy Rein (2011) RAWdance, Double Exposure, American Dance Platform at The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Av., New York, NY.
 
Thru Jan 7  Stacey Steers (2014) Phantom Canyon, animation and multimedia. John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Thru Jan 8 Sandra Gibson (2011, winter '13) and Luis Recoder (winter 2013) Celluloid, group exhibition, EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
 
Jan 9 - Feb 18 Sarah Klein (2005, four winters) Global Matrix IV: International Printmaking Exhibition, Purdue University Galleries, Lafayette, IN.
 
Jan 11  Jim Haynes (2012) Meridian Music Presents, with Seth Cluett and Eric Glick Rieman. Canessa Gallery, 708 Montgomery St., San Francisco.
  
Jan 13 - Apr 2   Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder Light Spill, film, solo exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY.
 
Thru Jan 21   Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann (2013) Alloy, new works, Laura Korman Gallery, Bergamot Station, Los Angeles, CA.
Mygon, Ron Fondaw, 1984.
 
Jan 24 - Mar 26  Camille Utterback (2012) Solo Faculty Exhibition at Stanford Art Gallery, 419 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA.
  
Jan 28  Laura Konjetzky (2013) Solo piano recital: "From a Female Pen," 19 th and 20 th century music composed by women artists Mel Bonis, Cecile Chaminade and Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn. Kleiner Konzertsaal, Gasteig, Munich, Germany.
  
Feb 10 - 12  Nancy Karp (1990, 2011, winter '13) World premiere MEMORY/PLACE, Nancy Karp + Dancers, ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco.
 
Thru Feb 12   Karen Tam (2011) "DIY Chinoiserie," including Terra dos Chinês Curio Shop, installation. Musée d'art Contemporain des Laurentides, 101 place du Curé-Labelle, Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, Canada.  http://www.museelaurentides.ca
 
Feb 13  Ann Fisher-Wirth Mississippi, a play-in-voices based on her poetry, in collaboration with Rene Pulliam. Ford Center, Oxford, Mississippi.
  
Thru Feb 19    Joan Perlman (1990, winter '13), "a sky in a palm of a hand" paintings and video. With Lloyd Hamrol. Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 East Union St., Pasadena, CA.

Thru Feb 25  Stacey Steers Night Hunter, solo exhibition, South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota.
 
Thru Mar 17  Chris Fraser (2013) , installation and sculpture group show, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.
 
Thru May 31  Barbara Edelstein and Jian-Jun Zhang "Wu-U Speech: Artists Living in Shanghai." Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China.
 
ART///SKY December 2016
A publication of Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Written and edited by Nick Walsh:   nick@djerassi.org . Farm Dreams photo courtesy of the artists. Alumni photos courtesy of Celia Olsen, Rewa Bush and Anza Jarschke. All other photos by N. Walsh unless noted. Banner art: Pause, Cameron Hockenson (2013, winter '13).