Lookout Arts Quarry
Artist in Residency Program
2013-2021 Prior Program Artists:
2021
Joel Skavdahl (Olympia, WA)
“Fake Sick ‘gigantic hand’ visual album”
While in residency, Joel worked to create an art object/book to be released in conjunction with the musical album, Fake Sick “gigantic hand”, created to accompany the band’s newest record. The piece involved visual works by Joel and Shopping Spree and a host of friends. “gigantic hand” was conceived as a visual album, created as a compelling physical object meant to enhance the temporal, personal experience of listening to the recorded music.
The book was produced in collaboration with Neoglyphic Media, printed with a Risograph GR-3770 using Teal, Burgundy, Marine Red, and Black inks. Edition of 50.
The album is available from bandcamp HERE!
Sulai Lopez (Topanga Canyon, CA)
“In Favor of a Softer World”
An interactive installation/performance which weaves together my background as a yoga teacher and clown with my work with wool and natural dyes. The intention of this project is to facilitate an experience where the participant can remove some of their armor and connect deeper to themselves and each other in a safe environment through the structure of a performance. A combination of sensory stimulation such as organically shaped structures of felted and woven wool dyed with the subtle color vibrations of nature’s pigments, along with messages delivered in soft hypnotizing ASMR whispers, movement, humor and voluntary participation. The first presentation of the work will take place on the grounds of the quarry.
Allison Michelle (Las Vegas, NV)
“Healing Through Art in Nature”
I plan to explore my deep emotions and memories through a meditative practice, creating paintings, sculptures and mixed media works. I will draw and paint from observed nature, working geological aspects into my pieces helping to bring symbolism and deeper understanding to my series. My preferred mediums are gouache and colored pencil on primed paper or salvaged wood. In addition I plan to create sculptures with air dry claystone modeling clay and found material on my nature explorations.
I want to share this self reflective experience with the community through once a week collaborative doodle night, creating an intertwining, visual narrative of trauma and healing. I hope to hold a 3-4 hour reception the last week of the residency to exhibit all personal and community work created during the 4 weeks. The reception “Healing Through Art in Nature” would also include a piece for guests to collaborate on serving as a vessel to express their reactions to the show. If needed, additional art supplies for Doodle Night and the Reception will be manifested through community donations or second hand stores in nearby towns. (pencils, colored pencils, crayons). I hope to prepare and serve refreshments at the reception, which will be locally sourced and able to be composted. All refreshments prepared by me in the Quarry with help from others if offered.
2020
“In Pursuit of Weightlessness: The Training of a Zero Gravity Dancer”, Allegra Searle-LeBel, Scott Lawrence Kirschenbaum, Asheville, NC: training in zero gravity dance technique and omnidirectional cinematography preparing an interactive dance/photo exhibit
“The Swifts”, Anni Küpper, Portland OR: Object manipulation and contemporary club juggling inspired by migrating swifts. The birds’ formations they build in the air are a source for the research of an explosive and powerful movement quality in order to break with the traditionally stringent nature of juggling patterns.
“Reclaiming the Void” Knowhere Design, Neil Manchon, Pacific Northwest: a Tetrahedral Lattice sculptural installation using waste to show the space between spaces.
Jon Bennett, Melbourne, Australia: Improvised storytelling interview style, finding forgotten stories
“Goodnight, Absalom!”, The Fox & Beggar Theater, Nat Allastair, Marysia Kochac, Camellia Nieh, Cureum Jackson, Karen Kunkle, Daniel Sloan, Yej Keat, Jimmy Austin, Mickey Stylin, Pete Irving, Keara Scannell, Bellingham WA, Boise ID, New Orleans, LA, Brattleboro, VT, San Francisco, CA: Theatrical comedy about a patriarchy that has game-ified our world, obsessed with winning more and more wealth until the world’s resources are gone; be they land, minerals, fuel…or human beings
“Move to Dream” Ira Echo, Wonder Phallen, New Orleans, LA / Bellingham WA: A collaborative choreography and music composition exploring moving as one living breathing organism
2019
The BIG HEART Circus: A Clown and Circus Migration, Faeble Kievman, Oakland, CA: A social circus project fundraising and performing for Mexican migrant workers between the Pacific Northwest and the Mexican border
Colectivo Entrecejo, Carla Torres, Leo Gonzalez, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Creating a sight specific performance act for public spaces that passes through clown and drag characters in combination with improvisation techniques, costume puppetry and circus art.
“Tooth and Nail”, Amica Hunter, Portland, OR: Exploring themes of taboo, femme power, & misunderstood creatures. Crafting, creating, dancing, experimenting, towards a full producible show.
“INK”, Jon Lachlan Stuart, Alastair Knowles, Vancouver BC: 10,000 feet of paper. One Pen, A physical comedy that draws you in. A roll of paper suspended high above the stage descends upon a single sketched character, providing the sustenance for his world. Putting pen to paper, his ink creations become his companion, his home, his muse.
Cookie Tongue, Omer Gal, Jacquelyn Marie Shannon, Brooklyn, NY: Site specific performance with new songs, instruments and ritual movement developed in response to the natural surroundings at Lookout Arts Quarry and in dialogue with its spirit.
Scantily Glad Theatre, “Gitch”, Sarah Grummett, Vancouver, BC: A solo-show that centers around a Trump-supporting alt-right red-neck from the deep south, named Gitch and his liberal catfish, Bernie. Bouffon, and shadow puppetry, mask, burlesque and physical theatre tell this story and examine white-privilege
“Love: A Tennis Comedy”, Jake Simonds, Portland, OR: putting the squirm of romantic love and intimacy on the stage in the form of a clown/storytelling/experimental theatre-fusion solo performance incorporating a three-tennis-ball-and-cannister juggling routine, and a tennis racquet contortion routine
James & Jamesy, “Who Am I” Elias Faingersh, Alastair Knowles, Aaron Malkin,
Malmo, Sweden / Gibsons, BC: A three-person clown/physical theatre/trombone show that uses live feed video and audio gathered from the audience to create a show that explores the transition from life to death, & how memories shape identity.
“Planned Obsolescence”, Mattea Holtzinger, Heather Sparks, Cullen Beckhorn, Laurillac, France / Bellingham WA: Transmuting trash into illumination, scribbling out the distorted landscapes of our internal and external waste. Waves of plastic undulate, displacing water with false mirage. This, no oasis – merely synthesized illusion. Music video and performance exploring shadow, light, plastic, and industrialization.
Nayana Fielkov, Aaron Malkin, Stephanie Morin Roberts, Alastair Knowles, Vancouver BC: Exploring new technological mediums in relation to performance including live-feed projections with audience involvement
“Eye Candy”, Stephanie Morin Roberts, Montreal, QC: Sharing the stage with her real life baby, one- eyed MOTH STORYSLAM CHAMPION and multiple BEST OF FEST winner recounts her pregnancy and epic 56 hour labour as she mines laughs from her most embarrassing sex story yet.
Marc Bell (Vancouver, BC)
“Loogout” & “Boutique Mag #4”
Marc Bell joined us during our annual Sh’BANG Festival to produce a large painted board throughout the duration of the festival, combining text and visual motifs that include riffs from Marc’s personal oeuvre along with conversational fragments and comical wordplay from the weekend festival.
During his stay, Marc also worked with Bellingham-based publisher Neoglyphic Media to publish an art zine, Boutique Mag #4
2018
Beside Ourselves Collective, “Just Don’t Do It”, Kate Mounce, Eleanor Young, London, England: ‘Female sexuality and Christianity: are they as uncomfortable bedfellows as they appear to be? Two clowns and their vaginas stumble into the confusing, the painful & funny in asking is ‘Just Don’t Do It’ the sum of the Church’s advice on premarital sex?
“Neo Mongoloids 2” Ryuta Iwashita, Japan / New Orleans, LA: A performance project engaging with racial, ethnic and cultural mysteries and puzzlements over a vast concept of being Asian. Inspired by reoccurring encounters with citizens from different nations saying “Ni hao (hello in Chinese)” to me (a Japanese national). Hovering between comfort and discomfort, the project will playfully render racial and ethnic identification even more obscure and insignificant.
Hannah Mayree, Ashland, OR/Sacramento, CA: furthering compositions musically, leading groups in community singing and discussions about dismantling oppression. Creating a program that can be shared with people that encompasses this therapeutic opportunity for self reflection, mind work, body work, philosophy, meditation and expression.
“Medicinal Things / 600 Whale” Soren Olsen, Minneapolis, MN: An exploration of gesture and embodiment of otherwise imaginary beings and things that have been bestowed power by humans. Interlaced and sewn together performance content, face paced, image driven, a collage that strives to humor
“Hotel Vortruba” Ragmop Theatre, Matthew “Poki” McCorkle, Nayana Fielkov, Vancouver BC / Bellingham WA: A 50 minute theatre piece about time, space, a haunted hotel, and quantum entanglement. Uses magic, puppetry, clown, music, dance and circus to weave a story out of time and place.
“Body Landscape” MomoButoh, Maureen Momo Freehill, Whidbey Isl. Butoh and nature based embodiment arts, as a way of transformation and healing. Being embodied on the LAND…exploring somatically and sensually the variety of landscapes.
“The Emergency Labyrinth”, Arrington de Dionyso, Olympia WA: A 40’ long scroll of sumi ink drawings, and the stop-motion animation that captures every second of the enormous drawing’s creation.
“Flute Loops”, Devon Moore Vancouver BC: a 2-person postmodern rock opera epic told through live original music, political poetry and sharp dialogue. Journeying through a world fraught with gender politics, social media minefields, and half-baked click bait, Magic Café explores the hope and security of simple human connection.
Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre. “Resonance”, Dara Silverman, Jaren Feeley, Oakland, CA: A Bicycle Touring Musical Theater. Children (and adults) living with ever-increased recognition of climate change and our diminishing resources are going to need new stories to help understand the new world we find ourselves in.
“Holy People”, Leah Wishnia-Peña, New York, NY: creating a new interactive performance that fully integrates live music with physical movement, theatrical performance, video work, sculptural props, costume, and if possible, other performers.
“Disaster Fantasy”, Jeffrey Desautels, Emily Newton, Portland, OR: “Through fear, nightmares reveal our deepest desires.” “Disaster Fantasty” is an original devised performance in the style of popular theatre exploring this thesis through eccentric character work and audience participation.
“A Volume of Handheld Recordings”, Eliot Eidelman, Atlanta, GA: Recording a volume as part of a multi-volume series of albums utilizing a ‘95-style approach” of self-imposed constraints, severely limiting the use of editing, effects and mixing in my production techniques in order to place an emphasis on raw performances recorded directly in real time.
“Allie Odds and The Allie Odds Squad”, Natalie Fedak, Bellingham WA: A Fantastical Audio Drama, distributed as a podcast. Set in a fantastical medieval land where elves and ogres gather over a mug of ale after a long day of subduing grumpy toadstools, the world is one riddled with magic, but grounded in reality in terms of the conflicts, collisions and tensions that arise between beings sharing space. That’s the real power of fantasy– we inherently know it’s not “real,” so we’re willing to engage with topics usually too difficult to process in everyday life.
Elsa Hoffman, Efland, NC: an installation of illuminated plasma cut drawings inspired by the surrounding flora and fauna.
2013- 2017
Cirque En Deroute, Faeble Kievman, Jonah Katz, Laurie Roger, Le Mans, France: Acrobatics
“Billie Holiday Impersonation Show”, Faith Faucet, Karla Mi Lugo Oakland CA: Performance
Kirsti Schmidt, Olympia WA: Metal smithing
“Shoestring Rocking Horse”, Laura Stokes, Islando Sparks, Heather Sparks, Mathew McCorkle, Clay Letson, Ember Bria, Karla Mi Lugo Bellingham WA / Peñasco, NM: Aerials, contortion, whistling, performance and installation
Esther de Monteflores, Bellingham WA: Slack line performance
Victoria Jacobs, Victoria BC: Dance Troupe
Bemya Nymh, Bellingham WA: Loop music album creation
Mattea Holtzinger, Yakima WA: Trapeze aerial performance
“Prairie Rose the Cowgirl Gospel”, Whitney Fliss, New Orleans, LA: Gospel music performance
James & Jamesy, Alastair James Knowles, Aaron Malkin, Winnepeg, MB: Comedy
“Odds Are”, Justin Therrien, Noa Schnitzer, Islando Sparks, Heather Sparks, Mathew McCorkle, Bemya Nymh, Nayana Fielkov, Bellingham WA / Seattle WA: Performance
“The Incredible Incredible”, Justin Therrien, Matthew “Poki” McCorkle Bellingham WA: Performance
Linnea Wilk, Anchorage, AK: Lino prints
Rachel Gillespie, Boulder CO: Mixed media photography
“Shadow Sail Theater,” Sparks Designs, Heather Dawn Sparks Vancouver BC: Shadow Theater
“BLIND SIDE”, Stephanie Morin-Robert, Montreal QC: Performance
“Bushel and Peck”, Stephanie Morin-Robert, Alastair Knowles, Montreal QC: Performance
Sadye Osterloh, Asheville, NC: Aerial trapeze
Bella Culpa, Amica & David, Portland OR: Acrobatic comedy
“Falling Awake”, Ragmop Theater, Mathew McCorkle, Nayana Fielkov Bellingham WA / Vancouver BC: Magic, dance, illusion performance
“Westward Ho’s”, Naked Comedy, Deanna Fleysher, LA CA: Spaghetti Western group performance
George Longshadow, Vancouver BC: Partner fusion dance
“Tradition”, Noa Schnitzer, Israel / Seattle WA: Shadow theater and aerial trapeze performance
“Feebleminded Mayhem”, Brittny Rebhuhn, Kate Tobie, Erin Johnston, IL / CA / OR: Physical comedy and shadow theater
“Habitats”, Nayana Fielkow, Isabelle kirouac
Vancouver, BC: Stilt acrobatic, and puppetry performance
Sticks + Bones, Mika Laulainen, Nico Dicecco, Vancouver, BC: Performance
Merkin Sisters, Stephanie Morin Roberts, Ingrid Hansen, Montreal QC / Victoria BC: Performance
Faith Faucet Talent Agency, Karla Mi Lugo, Oakland CA: Interactive talent agency installation
Gift Horse, Islando Sparks, Heather Sparks, Mathew McCorkle, Bemya Nymh, Nayana Fielkov, Janessa Johnsrude, Ezra Gabriel, Vancouver BC / Blue Lake CA / Bellingham, WA: Performance
Ashley Whitehead, Natalie Tin Yin Gan, Kelly McInnes, Rianne Svelnis Vancouver, BC: Dance
Pomona Lake, Vancouver, BC: Partner clown fusion dance
“Sun and Hand Story Circle”, Jessica Roxann Baca Jones, Seattle WA: Cranky Theater
Sulai Lopez, Los Angeles, CA: Natural dyes, costume design, video performance
Justin Neal, Los Angeles CA: Television play writing
Lost & Found Puppet Co, Maggie Winston, Naomi Moon, Emma Lee Iverson, Kaeridwyn Eftelya
Vancouver BC / Montreal QC: Mask and puppetry theater
Ariel Schmidtke, Bellingham WA /Paris France: Shadow theater