Limited Edition Narratives of the Lost Chapbook
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Summer 2018 Newsletter
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Spring 2018 Newsletter
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WSU Tri-Cities program allows scholars to live, work — bring inspiration
WSU Tri-Cities program allows scholars to live, work — bring inspiration
BY SARA SCHILLING
sschilling@tricityherald.com
SEPTEMBER 30, 2017 1:29 PM
Laurel Terlesky is a celebrated artist who’s spent years exploring touch and memory.
She’s based in Canada, and she’s worked and exhibited around the world.
She’s about to add a stint in the Tri-Cities to her list.
Terlesky is the first participant in the new Guest House Cultural Capital Residency through Washington State University Tri-Cities.
The program invites creative scholars in varying fields to live and work in Richland for short periods of time, from one week to one month. They conduct research that’s inspired by the area or that seeks to build culture and community in the region, and they make connections with students and community members along the way.
“We hope this will culminate in some fruitful projects,” said Peter Christenson, an assistant professor of fine arts and the residency program’s director.
It’s an opportunity for the scholars to work and research in a new setting, and for the community to get an infusion of new ideas and inspiration, he said.
Terlesky arrives in Richland this weekend.
Like the other resident scholars who’ll come to town over the next several months, she’ll stay at the Guest House, a “living learning community” a couple miles from campus.
Terlesky is staying about two weeks.
She’s based in Squamish, British Columbia, and holds a master of fine arts from Transart Institute and a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Victoria.
In recent years, she’s focused on exploring memory and touch, from installations such as Weighted Strings, which used wires to meditate on connection, and Surface Rupture, which explored the skin’s surface and the power of touch.
She’s completed residencies in other places, but the Guest House Cultural Capital Residency is her first in the U.S. She’ll work on a project about hope.
Terlesky said she’s excited to make the trip.
During a residency, “you’re out of your day-to-day situation. You’re there, you’re focused on your work without a lot of other distractions,” she said.
And it’s a chance to make new connections and be inspired, she said. Terlesky said she’s especially looking forward to working with students.
As part of the program, the resident scholars interact with Guest House students and the community through lectures and other creative activities. They’re also asked to donate a piece of research or art to a GH Cultural Capital Permanent Collection.
Terleksy’s schedule of public events will be posted on the residency program’s website, ghccres.tumblr.com, this week.
People also can inquire about appointments with her by emailing Christenson at peter.christenson@tricity.wsu.edu.
Along with Terlesky, five other resident scholars have been chosen for the program so far. Three more will make trips this fall, and two will arrive in the spring.
But, “we’re hoping to grow that number,” Christenson said, noting the program has received more than 50 submissions from creatives all over the world.
The program is funded in part through the Guest House. Chris Meiers, vice chancellor of enrollment management and student services, and Danielle Kleist, director of student life and services, helped make the program happen, along with former WSU Tri-Cities official Brandon Fox.
Christenson said he’s excited to welcome Terlesky and kick off the residency program.
“The goal, first and foremost, is to give students and the community access to diverse research practices and scholarship,” he said. “More broadly, we’re hoping that this continues to build culture in the Tri-Cities. We want to keep Tri-Cities on the map, and we want these (scholars) to think about how we can enhance the cultural capital of the Tri-Cities.”
Sara Schilling: 509-582-1529, @SaraTCHerald
Lost and found: objects in Squamish
Local artists’ project creates images and poetry of abandoned objects
Jennifer Thuncher | Squamish Chief
April 7, 2016 06:00 AM
Bren Simmers (left) and Laurel Terlesky at Nexen Beach. The women are launching an image and poetry project, Narratives of the Lost. Photo: Bren Simmers and Laurel Terlesky
Laurel Terlesky sees a single black glove along the trail at Nexen Beach. Instead of passing it by as other walkers do, Terlesky takes out her camera and snaps a photo, it is for her Narratives of the Lost project.
Terlesky takes pictures of left items she finds in her travels and poet Bren Simmers puts words to the images.
Terlesky explains the project: “To be able to develop a narrative about our community and try to get a lens back to the owners who might have had these objects, and also objects have been left in certain places, so really finding a sense of identity through the land and the people that are here…
“I feel like our community is transitioning a lot, there’s a lot of new people moving here and even with Nexen and the Oceanfront starting to get developed too.”
A lost pair of socks along a Squamish trail.
“That was a pretty good one,” she said of the trophy, which didn’t have a nameplate.
A collared dress shirt left on a bench out in the rain was another curious item Terlesky found – a “deflated shirt, like someone had just walked out of it.”
The items point to a unique character of Squamish, Terlesky said.
“It is not that they were just left on the side of the path or something. They are carefully hung up on a tree or put somewhere,” she said.
An abandoned trophy at Nexen Beach near the log sort. – See more at: http://www.squamishchief.com/community/lost-and-found-objects-in-squamish-1.2225225#sthash.vTDprG92.dpuf
Rather than just images, Terlesky wanted a narrative added to enhance the project, so she contacted the poet Simmers to develop it more, and along with the photos, “start to create the conversation.”
Simmers, who has lived in Squamish for about two years, says penning poems for each item is an entry point for her into the stories and history of the district.
“I look through the different pictures she puts up and inevitably there will be one that will grab my attention,” Simmers said, adding the discarded trophy was definitely one that got her thinking. “How did it get there? And why didn’t the person put it in the garbage can? They couldn’t actually let go of it and just the whole scene suggested this sort of identity in transition, so I sort of went with it as a larger portrait of Squamish and it changing in terms of its identity in the world.”
The women want to make the project interactive, according to Simmers.
They are asking Squamish residents to send in images of lost objects they have seen, along with the location. Eventually, the plan is to print postcards with an image on one side and a poem on the back, Simmers said. The cards would be distributed around Squamish.
The Squamish Arts Council recently granted the project $2,000 from its 2016 Arts and Culture Enhancement Grant. The funds will help build toward a public show planned for the fall.
To send images or for more information, email Terlesky at lost@laurelterlesky.ca.
@ Copyright 2016 Squamish Chief – See more at: http://www.squamishchief.com/community/lost-and-found-objects-in-squamish-1.2225225#sthash.vTDprG92.dpuf
Inspiring creativity. Artists in residence give quest students fresh perspectives on art.
Mike Chouinard / Squamish Chief
March 3, 2016
A dozen or so students line up in twos and begin to walk a slow lap around a classroom inside Quest University.
At one point, they interlock pinkies, with the aim of becoming aware of how their bodies are moving around the space. At first glance, it might not seem what one would expect inside an art class, but there is a method.
“Different movements require different support systems,” said current artist in residence Amara Hark-Weber. “A shoe is basically a tool.”
In this case, the students are taking a class in making shoes from Hark-Weber, a cobbler whose own creations are sometimes conceptual or unusual and sometimes more familiar.
Over the three and a half weeks of the block at Quest, the students, who represent a range of academic pursuits, are looking at shoes from all angles, with the aim of making a pair of their own as the project for the class.
“It’s interesting. You never really think about how to make shoes,” said student Bayle James, who is focusing her regular course of studies on the social sciences. “It’s a different way of thinking.”
In just a few weeks, Hark-Weber’s cobbling course has managed to cover a lot of ground. Early on, the students were making patterns in paper as models for shoes. One assignment required them to research different types of shoes from different eras, such as moccasins, turn shoes, prehistoric shoes and medieval era shoes. From there, they had to put together a short visual presentation.
They also had to research other aspects of making shoes. For example, in one class, Renée Hall delivered a presentation on an overhead projector about different types of stitching, or at least those she had been able to pick up so far – running, back, whip and saddle stitching. “This is the extent of my sewing knowledge,” she said. “I don’t know anything fancier.”
Unlike full-semester programs during which students take several courses simultaneously spread over a fall or spring, Quest offers block programs. The students take one class full-time for three and a half weeks, which allows them to study something more deeply and with fewer distractions.
Quest tutor of music and humanities Jeff Warren, who oversees the artist in residence program, says this approach is especially suited for arts studies because artists tend to take this approach with their own work.
“Artists are quite often project-based,” he said.
Laurel Terlesky, a Squamish artist who served as artist in residence last year, finds the approach allows classes to explore many new ideas. “The students come from a lot of different angles,” she said.
Her course focused on art, technology and the body, examining how technology extends the body.
“We’re able to connect and communicate in ways we haven’t before,” she said.
The class involved photography, collage pieces and electronics, as students worked on projects such as soft sculptures that included interactive sensors attuned to touch, light and sound.
She had one student, with a focus in neuroscience, working on a project that looked at the “aha!” moment in the brain by taking art theory and mixing it with the technical side to literally show the moment when the thought occurs.
Regardless of what endeavours the students choose, Terlesky thinks the course can only help in their chosen field.
“It makes for creative thinkers,” she said. “That’s the reason I like to teach…. I like to work with people and tease out their personal skill or aptitude.”
Over the first two years, the program has offered a wide variety of opportunities and artists with whom the students can study, such as Whistler-based James Stewart, who was the first artist in residence.
A sculptor who also has worked in the film industry with a background in computer graphics, Stewart’s body of work includes films such as Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and District 9. Over the timeframe of the class, he wanted to get students into the workspace quickly for work ranging from painting nudes to using a scientific approach to abstraction and colour theory, all of
which ultimately led them to a better understanding of art quality.
“You can take something like Picasso or Matisse and really appreciate it,” he said
Stewart agrees the intense period of study allows the class to deeply delve into the work.
“You actually have, in my mind, three chunks of time per day, seven days a week you can use, and that’s kind of the way art works.”
For Stewart, the Quest method offered him a different way to teach in another sense.
“It’s not just the block system at Quest. It’s also the way that the school runs itself,” he said.
Stewart says the university is structured differently from other institutions, which are more hierarchical or centralized. Although he ran his course syllabus by Warren, he basically had the freedom to set up the class how he wanted.
He had the class tackle the question of asking where the line between subjectivity and objectivity in art is.“Instead of me telling the students where that line is, the point was to try and find it as a class,” he said.
Another element of the residency is that it allots the artists time for their own work. Terlesky was able to continue working on her installation piece with the help of Canada Council funding and is adapting her piece for exhibition in Bangkok, Thailand.
Current artist in residence Hark-Weber has taken on a new challenge, working with corsets and printing plates, to explore connections between the body, language and narratives. “I did something that is totally new and outside my comfort zone,” she said.
Her current students have had to quickly pick up new practical skills, as many had not sewn before. For students like James, this meant having to make patterns on paper three times, adding adjustments along the way, before starting to cut into the shoe leather.
As the class approached its completion, the conceptual side of the class took a back seat, as the students busily worked away on their projects, cutting leather, punching eyelets, sewing or hand-dyeing exteriors, with the aim of finishing in time for a show of their work on Tuesday night.
It also offered a chance for the students to discuss with Hark-Weber the obstacles they discovered along their path, whether this was breaking a needle or learning how to punch holes in leather or having to re-measure soles. “There are challenges every step of the way,” Hark-Weber said. “It really has been like a survey course. There’s a lot of different elements.”
As a teacher, she is not expecting to be turning out a dozen new cobblers, but that is not what the course is about for her or the students. Rather, it is about the process.
Hark-Weber likes to minimize the differences that academia can sometimes place on disciplines like the arts and sciences. Instead, for her, the challenge comes down to problem-solving, and as to the work the students have produced, she has been more than impressed with the fresh perspectives she has witnessed and the growth she has seen in just a few short weeks. “In terms of the designs that people have come up, they’re so awesome,” she said.
@ Copyright 2016 Squamish Chief – See more at: http://www.squamishchief.com/lifestyles/inspiring-creativity-1.2187896#sthash.ojE1kgpk.CNwa3Nph.dpuf
The Memory of Touch; Squamish artist gifted grant to explore the way the body remembers
Squamish Chief
October 28, 2015 09:52 AM
by, Rebecca Aldous
http://www.squamishchief.com/lifestyles/the-memory-of-touch-1.2097806
Squamish artist Laurel Terlesky sits at her dining room table with the sketches of her bed sheets from her Hallowed Winds project. Photo: Rebecca Aldous
It’s that spring morning when you awake to feel the strengthening sun tingling on your skin. It’s the first time the weight of your newborn child is placed on your chest or the way your mother’s fingernails twirled across your scalp as she shampooed your hair.
Laurel Terlesky is interested in all of these moments. The Squamish artist is exploring the notion of the memory of touch; how it lingers in our bodies, in the very fabric of our cells.
“I’m looking at how experience links in our bodies, not just our minds,” she says during an interview with The Squamish Chief in her downtown apartment. “These kinds of memories are deep. They travel with you for a long time.”
The Calgary native’s journey with art took her to Berlin and New York while studying for a Masters of Fine Arts Degree with the International Creative Practice from Transart Institute, accredited by Plymouth University in the United Kingdom. She always knew art was what she wanted to do. Working with your hands is a big part of communication, Terlesky says.
“For me, that is my language.”
In the beginning, art poured out of her in the form of paintings, but her interest in how people communicate led Terlesky to explore installation pieces – mixing drawings and sculptures with the modern world in the form of audio recordings and electronic light pieces. As a program advisor for Emily Carr University of Art and Design’s continuing studies Design and Transition course, Terlesky is constantly delving into the relationship behind new technology, like smartphones and social media, and how people interact with the pieces through touch.
This year, Quest University Canada hosted Terlesky as an artist in residence. She created a piece she called Hallowed Winds. The installation featured a mound of snow white, knotted bed sheets in the centre of the room. Behind them were two white walls covered with pencil drawings of Terlesky’s bed sheet which she photographed and sketched every morning for a year. Terlesky wanted to see how the body leaves its trace in the world around it.
“I wanted to understand the language in the sheets,” Terlesky says, noting sleeping patterns can reflect what is going on in our lives.
Hallowed Winds included audio narratives that participants had recorded about other individuals’ memories of touch. Terlesky left a book for viewers to share their stories. Her latest project, Surface Rupture, has spawned out of those tales.
“I took the book and I read through all the stories,” Terlesky says. “I feel so gifted that people have shared these things.”
With a grant from the British Columbia Arts Council, Terlesky has already started work on the new piece. She wants to incorporate porcelain sculpture, wool and felt on a wall structure, that will feature audio capsules of the stories collected in the journal at Hallowed Winds.
Starting such a multi-media project is an overwhelming feeling, Terlesky admits. Art can build a safe place for people to share intimate details of their lives. But with that comes a sense of responsibility, Terlesky says, as she juggles the different components and fits them together. “I am finding my way with all of those pieces. Art is where we can have these kinds of conversations,” Terlesky says, adding she hopes the work will encourage people to reflect and live in the moment.
– See more at: http://www.squamishchief.com/lifestyles/the-memory-of-touch-1.2097806#sthash.iIqnC5aI.dpuf
Pop-Up Studio a first for Whistler artists
Source: Pop-Up Studio a first for Whistler artists
May 28, 2015 A&E » Arts
Twelve painters, sculptors and weavers will take over space at the Westin starting June 1; studio open to the public and will be an ArtWalk venue
By Cathryn Atkinson
A space to paint Whistler artist Bea Gonzalez, whose work is pictured, is looking forward to having a dedicated space to work at in mix with other artists.
A studio may be a space to create, but it can also mean so much more to an artist.
When putting together Whistler’s new Pop-Up Studio, community cultural officer Anne Popma asked the resort’s painters, sculptors and craftspeople what they needed.
One wanted shared space to bounce ideas around and to help her focus on her painting away from distractions; others hardly had enough space at home to work. All wanted a vibrant workspace in the heart of the busy village.
“We surveyed artists and asked them what could be done for them to make a living in Whistler, and what we could do to grow the cultural sector,” Popma says.
“One of the main comments we heard was that they needed affordable studio space, preferably in the village. That’s where over 2 million people a year walk by.”
Popma, with the support of the Whistler Arts Council and the Cressey Development Group, was able to help.
The resulting 670-sq.-m studio opens on Monday, June 1, in an empty retail space at the Westin Resort.
Twelve artists are signed up, having submitted their work to a selection jury, including oil painter Bea Gonzalez; interdisciplinary artist Laurel Terlesky; painter Roberta Horn; weaver Freda Cook; landscape painter Meg O’Hara; portraitist and nature painter Sarah Gold; figurative painter Veronique Hamel; and landscape painter Andy Anissimoff.