e-SitkaLetter, December 2006:
from Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
Contents
- Website - New and Improving
- Art, Nature Mingle
- Artists, Land, Nature
- Sitka Invitational
Dear Friends of Sitka Center,
We wish you a colorful and joyous season.
Website – New and Improving
You are invited to view the explore the new Sitka Center website, www.sitkacenter.org
Participants in Sitka’s year-round programs will find thorough information and access to the world of Art and Ecology Sitka Center, located on the mid-Oregon coast at Cascade Head near the Salmon River estuary, serves as an inspiration to many in the region and the world. The Sitka website will help foster creative possibilities through connected intelligence and the imaging (imagining) of change.
Art, Nature Mingle
Community service and outreach is a significant aspect of the Residency program, connecting artists, writers and scholars living and working at Sitka during the year fall and winter with the local groups and schools.
“Sitka artist shows Taft kids how art, nature can mingle,” a recent article about Karen White, a design artist from Colorado, in residence at Sitka Fall/Winter, in the Lincoln City News Guard, (Nov 8, 2006), reported about the more than 50 fifth-graders and their teachers from Taft Elementary who braved the rain to learn about art and nature by the ocean.
“Karen White offered a lesson in installation art, using ceramic pieces reminiscent of those you might find in nature. White, from Colorado, said one of the project's goals was to help the students understand the process of earthworks art and how the environment cycles and changes.” More: http://www.sitkacenter.org/3-4.html
"Artists, Land, Nature"
A slide presentation, "Artists, Land, Nature," of artists who have worked with nature, is presented as a chronology, discusses how and why artists have engaged with the natural environment.
Dorene Quinn, a resident artist at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology during Fall 2006, will offer the talk on Friday, December 8, from 4 to 6 p.m., at Lincoln City’s Driftwood Public Library, 801 SW Hwy 101.
A professor on sabbatical from Pratt (NY), where she teaches 3-D design and sculpture, Quinn will also discuss her own engagement with nature and reasons for being at Sitka.
Sitka Art Invitational
Hundreds of volunteers, artists, donors and art collectors contributed to the success of the Sitka Art Invitational, presented in November at the World Forestry Center in Portland.
This year – the 14th – was by far the best year ever. 150 artists presented over 500 works in the salon-style show. Collectors and art buyers were a key factor in the success of this important recognition, sales, and fundraising event. Art sales totaled nearly $190,000 -- about $97,000 of which will be paid directly to the artists who created the work.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, I am also very proud to acknowledge the significant contributions announced at the Collector’s dinner by Jordan Schnitzer, Honorary Chair of the 2006 Sitka Art Invitational and one of Oregon’s premier visual art leaders and collectors. Mr. Schnitzer pledged a bequest of $250,000 to support long-term funding for the Jordan D. Schnitzer Printmaking Residency, in addition to announcing his continuing commitment of $12,500 for that residency each year for the next five years. What a great friend to the Sitka Center!
Also at the event other pledges of $29,000 in matching gifts responded to the John Gray Challenge grant of $250,000, extended to improve facilities for Sitka’s Residency program. The momentum is beginning to help meet the one-to-one match by mid-2007. We thank Mr. John Gray for his trust and dedicated support.
When I joined the organization as the new Executive Director this summer, I was immediately caught up in the planning and quickly came to appreciate the love and dedication of many people for the event. What occurred confirmed this commitment. The high quality of artwork, with its rich diversity in style and media, made for a superb show and sale.
The Sitka Art Invitational is an important source of support for Sitka Center’s Workshop and Residency Programs. The Workshop Program provides opportunities for artists to teach and study in workshops from late spring through early fall; the Residency Program offers opportunities for artists to pursue individual research projects from late fall through early spring.
Wishing you a marvelous holiday season,
Douglas Beauchamp,
Executive Director