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Event
Fail Again. Fail Better: A Conversation on Artistic Failure
Fail Again. Fail Better: A Conversation on Artistic Failure
Wednesday, April 19, 7-8:30 p.m.
Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
This event is free. RSVPs are suggested. Space is limited so RSVPs can't guarantee a spot in the event. Happy hour starting at 6 p.m. Presented by Artist Trust in partnership with Northwest Film Forum.
Go on social media, and everyday you'll see artists winning awards, receiving big grants, and promoting their latest work. In a culture where likes, comments, and retweets are currency, good news spreads fast, but we rarely hear of the bad, the dark days when an artists project falls apart or their practice bottoms out. In this conversation artists Valerie Curtis-Newton, Sheila Klein, Peter Mountford, and Ahamefule Oluo share their stories of failure, how they coped when they almost lost hope, and what they did to turn the train-wrecks into success. Moderated by Artist Trust Program Director Brian McGuigan.
About the Artists
A writer, director and educator, Valerie Curtis-Newton is committed to finding new ways to represent the African American experience. As a producer, Valerie has forged unique institutional collaborations, commissioned forward-looking artists, and developed a "by any means necessary" plan for getting the work of black artists out into the world. As a director, Valerie has worked at venues as large as the Guthrie Theatre and as small church fellowship halls. And she has worked in various genres and styles from realism to ensemble-generated work. As a generative artist, her current interest is in African American artists in immersive work - an arena through which their stories are rarely told. Valerie is the Artistic Director for The Hansberry Project, a professional African American theatre lab and has worked with theatre's across the country including: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Childrens Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, Southern Repertory Theatre, among others. She also serves as the Head of Performance at the University of Washington's School of Drama. Her awards include: the 2014: Stranger Genius Awards in Performance and the Crosscut Courage Award for Culture.
Sheila Klein, visual artist, straddles the worlds of art and architecture. Klein has been called "chief re-translater of everyday objects and a manipulator of familiar and archetypal images." She is making the world as she sees it one piece at a time making a pillow or a planet using a surprising combination of materials to propose solutions to the homogenization of our environment. Her output occurs in the studio, on the street, and in art institutions. Klein has exhibited widely at diverse organizations including P.S.1 Institute for Art and Urban Studies, New York, Memory and Lands of the 20th Century Florence, Italy, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Museum of Art and Design, New York, and La Foret Museum, Tokyo, Japan. Kleins work is widely published in art journals and the mainstream media including the New York Times, Times of India, and National Public Radio. She is the youngest artist included in the book 50 Northwest Artists. She practiced architecture in the early 80s as a member of the award winning architecture firm group A2Z. Klein first lived in the Skagit Valley in 1976 and returned in 1995, where she lives on a farm in Edison with her husband Ries Niemi.
Peter Mountford's first novel "A Young Mans Guide to Late Capitalism" won the 2012 Washington State Book Award in Fiction. His second novel The Dismal Science was a New York Times editors pick, and a finalist for the 2015 WSBA. Since earning his MFA from the University of Washington in 2006, Peters work has appeared in The Atlantic magazine, Southern Review, Granta, Conjunctions, Best New American Voices 2008, the New York Times Magazine, The Sun, Missouri Review, Boston Review, and elsewhere. A fellow of Bread Loaf and Yaddo, hes currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada Colleges MFA program, and is the events curator at Hugo House.
Ahamefule J. Oluo is a Seattle-based musician, composer, writer, and stand-up comedian. Oluo is a founding member of and trumpet player in the Stranger Genius Award-winning jazz-punk quartet Industrial Revelation, was featured in City Arts Magazines 2013 Future List as one of Seattle's most promising artists, was Seattle Town Hall's first-ever artist-in-residence, and in 2015, was a contributor to This American Life as well as a Creative Capital Award recipient. Oluo was a semi-finalist in NBC's Stand Up for Diversity comedy competition, and co-produced comedian (and writing partner) Hari Kondabolu's debut album, Waiting for 2042, for Kill Rock Stars. Most recently, his 2016 performance of Now I'm Fine at the Public Theater in New York City was called "dizzying," "engaging," and "grand" by the New York Times. Oluo has collaborated with such diverse acts as Das Racist, Macklemore, Hey Marseilles, and TacocaT.
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LocationNorthwest Film Forum (View)
1515 12th Ave
Seattle, WA 98122
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
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