Uneasy Heavens Await Those Fleeing, 2009, acrylic, ink, glitter, 30 x 60"
Jennifer Borges Foster is bringing together writers, musicians, dancers, painters, photographers, performance artists and more to re-interpret the title of her first completed poetry manuscript, Uneasy Heavens Await Those Fleeing.
This project is made possible through the generous support of the Mayor's Office of Art & Cultural Affairs and 4Culture.
From Ten Tiny Dances, performed in Seattle, September 2007. Choreographed and performed by Amy O'Neal, Music by Zeke Keeble.
On a tiny stage in the round Amy O'Neal is my current favorite time-based kinetic sculpture. A stretch perhaps, but it won't be the last time you catch me showing disregard for the boundaries which are rumored to separate performing and visual art. As part of One Tiny Dance, this piece was originally performed in the lobby of Pacific Northwest Ballet during their Celebrate Seattle Festival. Amy says, "At that time it was untitled with a slightly more playful energy. There were a lot of kids around me dancing with me while I was performing--it was so great!" The piece took on a new vibe and gained a title at Ten Tiny Dances, "It became about owning my anger and channeling it positively, to move forward . . . . embracing my history as a woman and as a dancer."
From Locust website: Amy O'Neal is a performer, choreographer, teacher and the co-director (along with Zeke Keeble)of locust (music/dance/video company) based in Seattle. Amy teaches contemporary dance technique and funk regularly at Velocity Dance Center and has taught and/or conducted residencies at the University of Washington, University of Idaho, University of Oregon, Lane Community College (Eugene, OR), Northwest Vista College (San Antonio, TX), and Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle, WA). Her work has been commissioned by Spectrum Dance Theater, Moving Current in Tampa, FL, and Seattle Theatre Group's Dance This . . . where she collaborated with Sonia Dawkins and Savion Glover. As a performer, she worked with the Pat Graney Co. for 3 years, was a 6-year member of Scott/Powell Performance, was the lead singer of the Seattle band Marrow for 3 years, and performed in Mark Haim's acclaimed Goldberg Variations. Amy also frequently collaborates with musician/comedian, Reggie Watts. For locust, Amy has received funding from the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the international DanceWEB scholarship, the Mary Levine Fund, Artist Trust (Fellowship '05, GAP '04,'06), 4 Culture, the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation of the Arts, the National Performance Network, and the Creative Capital Foundation. Amy holds a BFA in dance from Cornish College of the Arts and will choreographed for Cornish Dance Theater in Spring 07. In 2007, she was also a guest lecturer at the University of Washington and will conducted a residency at Texas Women's University.
Locust is the dance/music/video performance brainchild of musician/composer Zeke Keeble and performer/choreographer Amy O'Neal. Since 2000, locust has created 5 evening-length works Leave me Inside (2001), Left-out (2002), DEFACE (2003), convenience (2005), and mockumentary (2006). They have toured to Jacob's Pillow (Becket, MA), The Myrna Loy (Helena, MT), PICA's TBA Festival (Portland, OR), and Joyce Soho (New York, NY). locust invites performers on a project to project basis and has worked with some of the most distinctive and talented performers in Seattle. locust has been described as the avante guard garage band of the Seattle dance scene.
Using acrylic, ink and immodest amounts of glitter my work is the balance between two opposing approaches. One, loose painting techniques such as dripping, pours, splatters, which I use to create effective representations of natural elements—weather, water, clouds, smoke, flora, erosion, growth, galaxies . . . . The other approach, that of the tool user, with pen and ink and architects' templates, drafting implements and compasses, I fastidiously draw controlled lines, concentric circles, grids and repetitive dots; these reflect structures and infrastructures that we build.
I am influenced by the look of outer space, computer chips, dramatic weather, electric circuits, decay, rock-n-roll glamour, plans and diagrams, b-rate sci-fi control panels, urban environments, fluid turbulence, engineering schematics and architectural drawings. In the end my dominate subject matter remains the human condition; why and where we build, how we feel, what we do, and what happens when these things intersect.
By the way, musicians IOU. Someday, with my lines, dots, colors and sparkles, I hope to do what you do with an eight letter alphabet.
—Counsel, 2009
Native to the Northwest, Counsel Langley's award-winning work has been exhibited regionally in numerous solo and juried shows, published in select book projects, such as, Jennifer Borges Foster's Filter II and Visual Codec's One Shot, and is held by Seattle City Light's Portable Works Collection. Langley received a BFA in Metals from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston in 1999. Metalsmithing’s emphasis on small-scale details and rich surfaces directly impacts her technique as a painter.
At present, she resides happily in the Pacific Northwest with her commercial fisherman husband and two children.
WHAT THEY SAID
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." —Robert A. Heinlein
"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work." —Chuck Close
"There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!" —Coco Chanel
COPYRIGHT
Counsel Langley. All rights reserved. Please do not use my photographs, artwork or writing without my permission. Communication makes it all more fun anyway!
Uneasy Heavens Await Those Fleeing, 2009, acrylic, ink, glitter, 30 x 60"
