Poetry & Collage Residency – Round 1

COLLAGE RESIDENCY

Kolaj Institute Announces the First Round of Artists Selected for the Poetry & Collage Residency

Kolaj Institute is pleased to announce the twelve artists selected to participate in the first round of the Poetry & Collage Residency.

It says something that in the Poetry Foundation’s Glossary of Poetic Terms, “collage” is one of the few visual art terms they define. Perhaps this is because so many poets have also been collage artists. In recent years, we’ve seen exhibitions from John Ashbery and Marc Strand, whose collage “dates back to his student days at Yale in the 1950s where he studied with Josef Albers, the renowned Bauhaus artist and color theorist, and also Bernard Chaet.” Arthur Solway recalled, “Though we were eight thousand miles apart we would have weekly Skype calls, and he was always eager and excited to show me the latest batch of collages he was working on.” A 2017 book of Helen Adam’s collages, which fellow poet Robert Duncan referred to as “pleasing weird”, has sold out. Keith Waldrop, Barbara Guest, John Wieners, Norma Cole, the list is long.

Participants will work together to investigate the intersection of collage and poetry by exploring concepts of found poetry, blackout poetry, collage poems, haikus, centos, response collages, response poems, word scrambles, concrete poetry, scatter collage poems, and other poems and artwork that inhabit this world. Together we will create working definitions and document techniques. 

Guest speakers will share their practice, knowledge and experience. Portland, Oregon-based Kevin Sampsell is an editor, publisher, bookstore employee, collage artist, and author. His forthcoming book of collage art and poems, I Made an Accident, is being published by Clash Books. Renée Reizman is an interdisciplinary curator, artist and writer specializing in social practice and civic engagement. Her workshop, “Deconstructing Legalese”, uses found poetry to examine contracts and codes imposed upon us by bureaucratic systems, and reconstructs the language to reclaim our personal histories. Rod T. Boyer creates art and poetry under the moniker our thomas, exploring themes of redemption, mystery, and transformation. In Kolaj #32, his article, “Mind the Gap,” explored how collage and haiku share similar mechanisms of juxtaposition and disjunction.

In several virtual meetings over four weeks and through ongoing, online discussion, artists will leave the residency with a deeper understanding of the intersection of collage and poetry. Individual participants will each create multiple page spreads that will be included in a forthcoming book of collage and poetry from Kolaj Institute. The pages may be entirely text, entirely images, or some combination of the two.

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PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Anthony D Kelly is an illustrator, writer, visual artist and integrative psychotherapist. He is currently based in Castlebar, County Mayo located on Irelands West Coast. He has extensive experience as a gallery administrator, curator and project facilitator from his time at Basement Project Space, an artist led initiative which was part of the cultural fabric of Cork City, Ireland. The aim of this initiative was to generate an exhibition/project space independent of established institutions, to provide development opportunities for emerging artists and to encourage cutting edge experimental practice across a broad range of disciplines. He has studied arts administration, arts participation and global development, and humanistic integrative psychotherapy. Anthony is greatly interested in the Arts as an effective method for engagement with social, political and global development issues; and for seeking beyond the known to formulate the new. He works mainly with illustration, collage, and assemblage techniques to create hopeful, humorous, and sometimes unnerving and deeply satirical imagery. He has exhibited across Ireland, Europe, and in the U.S.A. and has delivered workshops at the Collagistas Festival in both Dublin and Brussels. His work has featured in many publications including Art Reveal, Creativ Paper, Murze Magazine, Kolaj Magazine and the recently released Empty Columns are a Place to Dream book.

Carla E. Reyes is a mixed-media painter and visual artist who has exhibited her artwork in New York City and along the East Coast in commercial galleries, non-profit, and alternative spaces, since 2000. She received her BFA in Restoration and Fine Arts from FIT, NYC, her MA in Art Education from CUNY City College of New York, NYC, and is completing her MFA in Painting at Lehman College, NYC. Carla has also worked as a decorative interior finisher, theater scenic artist, community muralist, and art educator. Her artwork has been featured in a variety of publications and media including The New York Times, The New York Daily News, BBC World News, The Queens Chronicle, and more. Her work has been represented by Raandesk Gallery of Art in NYC, and Leche Vitrines Art Alliance in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Carla currently works out of her studio at Brooklyn Art Studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; and lives in Astoria, Queens with her husband and two young daughters.

Cathy Greenhalgh is an artist, film-maker (director-cinematographer), lecturer and media anthropologist living in London, UK. She makes ethnographic essay documentaries and short art films for cinema and gallery spaces. Her feature documentary Cottonopolis (filmed in the UK and India), about the cotton industry, is being completed in 2022. Cathy publishes on film-making practices and communities of practice, and cinematographic phenomena and aesthetics. Much of this is based on her long term fieldwork with feature film cinematographers over twenty years. After retiring from working full time in higher education and the film industry, she continues on a freelance basis and returned to art practice, specifically collage, during the pandemic. She currently teaches at the National Film and Television School and the London Film Academy in the UK. Her ongoing visual anthropology project Covid Collage Chronicles was shown at the Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival in March 2021. Cathy gave academic papers on the project at the RAI / Folklore Conference in October and the Visual Research Conference (American Anthropological Association) in November 2021. She presented the project (online) at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia in February 2022.

Cheryl Chudyk is a Canadian artist currently based out of Seattle. She studies collage and writing under Larry Calkins and Dianne Aprile. She has a background in wedding photography, ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance and dabbles in painting, poetry, and comics. Her collage work has been published in {th ink} Publication, Cults of Life, OLTRE, transitional MOMENTS: restoring equilibrium through the art of collage, and 4 issues of Cut Me Up Magazine. She has exhibited her work in galleries in the US and Europe. She is a co-curator and co-founder of Sharp Hands Gallery, the newsletter editor of The Northwest Collage Society, and is a member of @thecollageclub on Instagram.

Doriana Diaz is a storyteller, shapeshifter, multidimensional artist rooted in Philadelphia’s soulful rhythms. Diaz is the self-published author of Mami Calls Me Gabriella and Sunphases, both released in 2018. Her words have appeared in platforms such as; Nappy Head Club, Black Women Radicals, GROW/N Mag, Saddie Baddies, SYLA Studio, Black Girl Magik, We Heal Too, The Kraal, and many more. Her work is an exploration of cultural agency, archival documentation, and rhythms of resistance and expansion.

Jake Weigel is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in object making and installation methods that combine his research in architecture, ecology, theoretical physics with personal experiences. Working for his father’s construction business in Wisconsin at an early age has led to an interest in the role of the artist’s hand in “fine craft” traditions including emerging digital fabrication methods. By combining traditional art methods with new technology, he continually expands his experimental practices and teaching opportunities through contemporary dialogues. Weigel is Associate Professor of Sculpture, the Founding Director of the Warrior Fab Lab, and a Faculty Fellow on the Council on Sustainable Futures at California State University, Stanislaus. He brings his expertise of digital design and fabrication to the campus community through pedagogical practices specifically for the integration of digital technology into existing curriculum. Further emphasis on STEAM activities including trans-disciplinary collaborations, innovation for sustainability, and equitable access to technology are goals as director. Previous teaching experience included Visiting Lecturer of Sculpture and Director of the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas. In addition to his university teaching, Weigel has worked for and taught summer workshops at Anderson Ranch Arts Center outside Aspen, Colorado and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He has received numerous grants and awards for his art and research and has published exhibition reviews for Numbers Inc., Temporary Art Review, Eutopia and International Sculpture Center. Weigel has served as chair of the Public Art Committee for the city of Odessa, Texas and on the steering committee for the National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices. Weigel has exhibited in over 100 exhibitions across the United States and abroad.

Living in eight cities before high school, Janice McDonald‘s affinity for collage may have come from piecing together all those early experiences. McDonald remembers making her first collage in second grade and feeling empowered that she could rearrange reality at will. Art always helped her find her purpose and place as the “new kid.” After graduating from Oregon State with a BFA in art and a concentration in design, McDonald became a graphic designer, eventually establishing a design consultancy in Denver, Colorado. Studying the details in photos she art-directed for clients, McDonald felt some were so intriguing that they should be salvaged, so she started a collection of inspiring elements. Her interest in collage was rekindled by those collected scraps, plus the advent of the computer in design. She writes, “I wanted a way to continue working with my hands.” McDonald has worked in the collage medium for about 25 years now. She’s a signature member of the National Collage Society. She presented a workshop at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2018 and made a presentation about working in a series in 2019. McDonald was affiliated with Spark Gallery (Denver’s oldest cooperative contemporary gallery), where she was able to curate shows of her work regularly, from 2010-2021. Her collages find homes with individual collectors, and are included in site-specific commissions and in corporate collections, including those of the Adolph Coors Foundation, IMA Financial, CoBank, Beaver Run Resort, Castle Rock Adventist Hospital, Denver Health, Denver Seminary, Aspen Arbor Animal Hospital, and Boulder Community Hospital among others.

Jennifer Roche is a poet, writer, and collage artist who lives in Chicago. She is Pushcart Prize-nominated and the author of two chapbooks: The Synonym Tables (The Poetry Question, 2021) and 20, erasure poems from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Alternating Current Press, 2020). Her poetry work has appeared in SWWIM; Storm Cellar; Tule Review; Footnote: A Literary Journal of History; and Oyez Review. She was named a “Writer to Watch in 2019 & Beyond” by the Guild Literary Complex.

Laura Tafe is a physician and collagist who works as an anatomic and molecular pathologist in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Analog collage has been the focus of her creative work for the past two and a half years. She has enjoyed discovering the collage community through Kolaj and Instagram and has participated in Februllage (2021 and 2022) as well as the collaborative project Collage Castile, through Kolaj Magazine in the Fall of 2020. She has previously published analog collages in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine and Lifelines, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Literary and Art Journal, had a collage selected as Cover Art, Honorable Mention, for the Academic Medicine journal and has shown her work in three group shows at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, NH.

Rosemary Rae is a creative director/designer, artist, and educator. A graduate of Moore College of Art & Design (BFA) and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA), she currently works in publishing creating book covers, calendars and kits that are sold nationwide. In addition to designing her unique line of letterpressed greeting cards, she also creates collages and artist books, which have been featured in many juried exhibitions. Her creative work provides the arena to play and experiment with letterpress, book structures, paper ephemera, pop ups, paint and random typography. She currently lives in San Diego, California.

Samantha Brown is a London born photographer and visual artist living in Ireland. She studied Fine Art Painting in Camberwell University of Arts, London. Relocating to Ireland opened a new relationship with the landscape using photography and computer aided design to create paintings as a combination of these mediums. Returning to education to study Multi Disciplinary Design at the University of Ulster, 2008. She explored documentary photography, light installations, video and drawing. With continued exploration of varying photographic mediums from analogue, color, cyanotypes, and collage incorporating research into subject matters as the slave routes across the Atlantic, the position of women in the workplace. Analog photographic series explore the self through the landscape. Further examination into how collage is expanding her own practice combining her own photography with history, text, social media and archival source material to explore various narratives and storytellers. The online project Middle Passage hosted by the Centre for Creative Practices delves into the enslaved transportation routes from Europe to Africa to the Americas. Researching documentation into the slave trade spanning works of fact and fiction. Working within the current local government restrictions taking photographs of the local beaches, combining text created a collage moving image work.

Thomas Mayer is a Berlin based multimedia artist and performer from Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. His focus is on creating live art performances which integrate music, video, sound and movement. Mayer graduated in Devised Theatre and Performance at the physical theatre school Arthaus. Berlin in 2019. There he co-created and organized the first Arthaus.Berlin performance festival and received a full scholarship. Prior to this he trained extensively in puppetry, clown and mime with various renowned teachers across Europe. Mayer currently co-runs a collective art space, make-up-11.org, where he organizes regular events and focuses on the development of time-based media, visual art and live performance material. His recent work includes Countless Lives, an interactive performance installation of embodied collage creation. He has created and performed work for PAF Berlin, CTM Festival, Fete de la Musique, Arragua, Emergency Festival Manchester, OPAF, and Festival del Dia de l’Art, Catalunya.

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FACULTY & GUEST SPEAKERS

Kevin Sampsell’s books include the memoir A Common Pornography, the novel This Is Between Us, and a forthcoming book of collage art and poems, I Made an Accident (from Clash Books). He has written about collage for The Rumpus, Kolaj Magazine, and elsewhere. He co-curates (with Cheryl Chudyk) an international collage website called Sharp Hands Gallery. In 2021, he was featured in The Weird Show. He lives in Portland, Oregon, USA. www.kevinsampsell.com

Renée Reizman is an interdisciplinary curator, artist and writer specializing in social practice and civic engagement. Working within diverse communities, she studies the ways infrastructures shape our culture, policy, and environment. She is currently the 2019-2022 Creative Catalyst, an Artist-in-Residence situated within the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and a professor at Pepperdine University. Renée has organized a number of exhibitions, performances, interactive installations, and workshops for organizations like Kolaj Institute, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, The Feminist Center for Creative Work, 826LA, the University of California, Irvine, and Machine Project. She has exhibited work at Access Gallery (Vancouver, British Columbia), the Irvine Fine Arts Center (Irvine, California), Unit 5 Gallery (Los Angeles), UCLA Broad Arts Center, California State University Long Beach, and the Museum of Human Achievement (Austin, Texas). Her writing appears in Art in America, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Vice, Teen Vogue, InStyle, Chicago Magazine, Slate, Hyperallergic, ARTNews, The Awl, and more. Renée has been an Artist-in-Residence at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, NAVEL, Art Farm, and the Museum of Human Achievement. Renée holds an MFA in Critical & Curatorial Studies at the University of California, Irvine. www.reneereizman.com

Rod T. Boyer creates art and poetry as our thomas, exploring themes of redemption, mystery, and transformation. Like the rest of the world, he’s trying to make sense of the endless and overwhelming stream of flotsam (physical and metaphoric) that accompanies his life. His collage work has been exhibited in his local area and his haiku have recently appeared in the journals Modern Haiku, Acorn, is/let, Sonic Boom, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Trash Panda, and Failed Haiku, among others. His article, “Mind the Gap: Collison and Context in Haiku and Collage” appeared in Kolaj 32. He was named a finalist in the first annual Trailblazer Contest and has had work selected for the forthcoming The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, 2021.  He can be found wandering the streets in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA and, online, at ourthomasart.com and on Instagram @our.thomas.

Christopher Kurts is a storyteller, artist, and the Coordinator for Kolaj Institute. Kurts is also the co-founder and lead organizer of The Mystic Krewe of Scissors and Glue, a group of creatives in New Orleans who meet monthly to collage, converse and foster community. His work appeared in “The Heart of a Dark Universe” at Bar Redux and in “Unfamiliar Vegetables”, a group show and book Kurts helped organize for Kolaj Fest New Orleans at Artisan Bar & Cafe in Summer 2019. In the fall of 2019, Kurts curated, “The Lifting of the Veil: The Optimist’s Apocalypse”, a group show. He was the art director for the collage illustrated edition of Oh, Money! Money! by Eleanor H. Porter, published by Kolaj Institute and Maison Kasini. His art was also featured in issue #4 of Loner Magazine. www.christopherkurts.com

Ric Kasini Kadour, a 2021 recipient of a Curatorial Fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, is a writer, artist, publisher, and cultural worker. With the Vermont Arts Council, he curated “Connection: The Art of Coming Together” (2017) and Vermont Artists to Watch (2018, 2019, 2020). In New Orleans (2018-2019), he curated “Revolutionary Paths” at Antenna Gallery and “Cultural Deconstructions” at LeMieux Galleries. As Curator of Contemporary Art at Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vermont (2019-2020), he curated “Rokeby Through the Lens”, “Structures”, and “Mending Fences: New Works by Carol MacDonald”. At the Southern Vermont Arts Center (2019), he curated “Contemporary American Regionalism: Vermont Perspectives” and “Where the Sun Casts No Shadow: Postcards from the Creative Crossroads of Quito, Ecuador”.  With Frank Juarez, he co-curated “The Money $how: Cash, Labor, Capitalism & Collage” at Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (April-September 2021). For the 52nd Annual Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival in Ireland (August 2021), Kadour curated “Empty Columns Are a Place to Dream”, which will travel to the Knoxville Museum of Art in early 2022. Kadour is editor and publisher of Kolaj Magazine. His writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, OEI, Vermont Magazine, Seven Days, and Art New England (where he was the Vermont editor). In Winter 2020, he was artist-in-residence at MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar, Scotland. He holds a BA in Comparative Religion from the University of Vermont. www.rickasinikadour.com