Arts in Nature Festival - Visual Arts
2019 VISUAL ARTS LINEUP
In alphabetical order
AMANDA JORGENSON • AMY WANG & NADINE EMMONS • CONSTANCE MEARS
DUANE GEORGES • ELI LARA • FRANCESCA UDESCHINI & ANGIE YUSUF • HAEIN KANG
JOSELYNN TOKASHIKI ENGSTROM • JULES HEPP • JULIA SWENSON • KELLY MITCHELL
KEVIN HALLAGAN • MONIQUE DURAN • ORION MISCIAGNA: SEATTLE LIVE PAINTING
2019 ARTISTS
Participants will create a drawing/painting of themselves – but in their animal form – by using their personality traits and the surrounding plant life at the camp.
Amanda Jorgenson is a natural science illustrator and artist, who strives to bring elements of the wilderness into the commotion of city life. Her art focuses on native plants and animals found in the Pacific Northwest.
Amy Wang & Nadine Emmons: Waiting Tides
Dream Hatching gives you an opportunity to help create an enchanting 5-foot wide nest, find your flock, and rekindle your Dream.
Constance Mears is an artist, a writer and mystic, who shares bird wisdom in workshops and at festivals. She is author of Dream Hatching: Bring Your Dream to Life and The Bumbling Mystic's Obituary. Her paintings of birds' nests can be seen at www.constancemears.com
I'll be live drawing the performers and attendees.
Finding inspiration in the energy of the living psyche, Eli is interested in capturing the forms and figures of the natural world in a tactile, visceral manner. When he paints, he does so in a gestural and spontaneous fashion, capturing the emotions and movements of the living form, in turn revealing the psyche of both the subject and the observer.
Eli graduated from the University of Washington's School of Art with a BA in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts in 2013. His focus is in drawing and painting. He currently lives and works in Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA, USA.
Two canvas banners will become cyanotypes - an early form of photography with a distinctive cyan blue color. Different items collected from nature (leaves, flowers, pinecones) as well as our own drawings will be used on acetate to make "impressions" of their silhouettes on the canvas. Visitors can take part in an interactive workshop where they'll be able to make their own cyanotypes to take home
Francesca and Angie are interdisciplinary artists and scientific illustrators interested in drawing connections between nature and the human condition as a way of reflecting on our collective future.
Wind is rising.
The tree trunk is swaying in the wind.
Trembling twigs make the leaves rub against each other.
The soft rustling leaves go around the tree,
and they are following the wind.
Wind from Nowhere is a data-driven installation that mechanically represents a beautiful moment of wind rising in a tree. The title comes from Samuel Butler's novel, Erewhon, which paradoxically symbolizes Utopia. If you spell ‘Nowhere' in reverse order, it becomes ‘Erewhon.’ The book is famous for predicting the emergence of artificial intelligence. In the fictional land of Erewhon, people destroy machines because of the fear that they could become conscious and threaten the very existence of human being.
Contrary to the novel, Wind from Nowhere takes the development of machine civilization positively and uses it as an aesthetic tool. It utilizes the pre-collected weather data from the weather site, www.wunderground.com. Hourly wind speed data from a particular day and place is applied to motor speed control. Numbers indicating wind speed become breeze or gusty wind.
Fluttering a series of vellum paper represents a moment when the leaves sway in the wind. Mechanical parts of soft material such as elastic linkages produce the organic movements of paper. The paper flapping by mechanical devices evokes the wind by appealing to the visual, auditory, and tactile senses. Wind data creates wind phenomena!
Haein Kang is a Korean-born multi-disciplinary artist who explores the infinite possibilities of artistic expression. Kang adopts cutting-edge technology to surprise you with the novelty and beauty of her artwork. She is researching the brain-computer interface for communication between body, mind, and machine in a doctoral program at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Kang began her artistic career by winning the grand prize in the installation art competition held by the San Francisco Arts Commission in 2002. She has been exhibiting her works in various venues in Korea and the U.S. including SOMA Museum, Seoul Museum of Art, Southern Exposure Gallery, Gallery 4Culture, ISEA, ICMC, etc.
Joselynn Tokashiki Engstrom: The Boys in the Barracks
The Boys in the Barracks – Found photographs: A rare look into one man’s snapshot of the Vietnam War.
“The Boys in the Barracks” consists of found photos and memories. When my father died unexpectedly 10 years ago, I went to Alaska to pack up all of his earthly belongings. I discovered a box of photographs squirreled away. Hundreds of little black and white polaroids from the 1960’s documenting his time living and fighting in the Vietnam War. Images of the bunkhouse, standing with friends, smoking, drinking, flirting with girls – just trying to be “normal” teenagers. I have spent hundreds of hours with these pictures looking for clarity and clues. I have found some answers and raised many more questions. These images haunt me – who were they? Did they survive the war?
When I found these photos, I knew that I had to share them – display them for people to reflect on, as I have; to breathe life into them and show a rare look into one man’s snapshot of the war. It seems that most everyone has someone in their family that fought somewhere.
I was raised listening to the bootleg records he bought while living in Asia. The music you will hear filling the bunkhouse are digitized songs from his vinyl collection, the soundtrack of his days in the war; the soundtrack of his youth.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to create this installation at a remote arts festival in the woods of Northwestern Washington. I have always wanted to show this in Seattle so that more people could view it. I am honored to have the opportunity to reimagine this installation at Camp Long and the Arts in Nature Festival.
Manipulating natural materials based on relationships with place and space.
Jules is an Artist, Environmental Educator, Forest Therapy Guide and Owner/Operator of The Art of Connection. Jules does their work in partnership with humans and the environment through intentional education/guiding and artistic expression.
Vibrant and abstract acrylic paint pours inspired by patterns and movement observed in nature.
Julia Swenson is a modern abstract artist who works in her studio in Bellevue, WA. Specializing in large and vibrantly colored abstract acrylic paintings inspired by movement and patterns seen in nature. Her artwork communicates a range of emotions from spiking the viewer's curiosity, providing inspiration and joyful energy to creating a mesmerizing, meditative effect with more calming and neutral pieces.
