JANUARY 2024 ARTBEAT

ARTBE T THE COMET

MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF THE NCW ARTS ALLIANCE

december 2023 21

JANUARY 2024 FREE

Michael Carlos

Jazz Chanteuse

Rhia Foster

See ‘On the Upbeat’

WENATCHEE FIRST FRIDAYS MAP INCLUDED

ADVOCATING FOR THE ON THE UPBEAT RHIA FOSTER: EMPATHY, COMPASSION ARTS IN OLYMPIA; HEIKEL JOINS THE BOARD AND EARNING HER MUSIC CHOPS

BY MEG KAPPLER

NCW ARTS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

H

appy 2024, everyone! NCW Arts is gearing up for a fabulous year and we are happy to announce the addition of our newest board member, the talented Laine Heikel. Heikel brings an incredible amount of operational and organizational experience to the table, and she’s also one of the best local comedians around.

Welcome!

Our focus this year will primarily be on expanding our membership base and building out programming that best serves our regional Arts community. If you see us out and about asking folks about their means, motives and opportunities, never fear — we are not investigating nefarious doings in the underbelly of the NCW Arts world. (Are there any? Now I’m curious about that…).

But we are finding out what you consider crucial elements that make your artistic and creative enterprises thrive. We want to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to drop us a line at arts@ncwarts.org.

In addition to accessibility, one of our other core values here at NCW Arts is advocacy, and we are excited about getting involved in the upcoming Arts, Heritage and Science Week in Olympia, an event that brings together leaders and professionals from across Washington.

AHS Week is organized and hosted by our friends at Inspire Washington, the Washington Museum Association, Washington State Historical Society,

ON THE COVER:

ArtsWA and ArtsEd Washington. Signups are happening now.

Inspire WA says, “This is a great opportunity for advocates to talk with their legislators about statewide arts, heritage and science issues, thank them for their support and share specific stories and highlights from our work. With newly elected legislators and the reshuffling of legislating positions, this is a particularly important year to join your peers virtually or in Olympia. If you have never advocated in Olympia before, don’t worry — we will pair newbies with seasoned advocates. It is a great way to learn.”

Tangible wins that resulted from 2023’s advocacy efforts: •$2 million in bridge funding for the cultural sector • Full funding for Building for the Arts ($18 million) and Heritage Capital ($10 million) • Over $20 million to cultural organizations for local community projects • NEW ArtsWA’s Tribal Cultural Affairs Program: $1,735,000 • NEW Funding for therapeutic arts: $500,000 • WAMA’s Museum Connects Program: $200,000 • Full funding for Humanities Washington’s Speaker’s Bureau and Prime Time Reading • Funding for Washington Historical Society’s programs and expanded capacity •Funding for creative districts: $574,000 • Funding for nonprofit science venues and education • Funding for preservation of historic structures: $5 million •AND MORE! AHS Week will be Feb. 5-9, 2024. Virtual meetings will take place throughout the week, and advocates will convene in person in Olympia on Feb. 7. Please join me in signing up to be an advocate today at inspirewashington.org.

teaching roles to include Director of Arts and Education at Icicle Creek Center for Beginning in February, jazz chanteuse the Arts in Leavenworth.

Rhia Foster will expand her singing and

What was your biggest takeaway from attending music school?

Being able to see music from multiple sides — the artist’s side, the business side, the artist management side — as well as the importance of communicating on an empathetic and compassionate level with other musicians.

If you could add a resolution to your WVC students’ New Year’s resolution list what would it be?

Invest in your education, participate as much as you can — join student government, go to auditions. You are only going to get out of your education what you put into it. You have to show up.

Rhia Foster

By Kris Lahd

F

Umami Tuesday is the Neo-Soul band that you’ve put together in the last year. What are your plans for 2024?

We thought that two of the band members were going to move out of the area, but now I think everybody is staying in town for the foreseeable future, which shifts things a little bit. These guys want to play more and I think we are going to gig this summer.

eel that? Yes, it’s the calm after the holiday storm and the settling in of a sparkling new year. 2024 already brings with it good tidings, especially for Icicle Creek Center for the Arts in Leavenworth.

Come February, our local multi-talented What are you most excited about jazz vocalist, Wenatchee Valley College leaning into this year at ICCA? music instructor and alumni of Boston’s Revamping summer programs for kids Berklee College of Music, Rhia Foster, will begin her full-time position as ICCA’s and grownups. Getting our Artists in Residency program back up and running, and director of arts and education.

I’m really leaning pretty hard into getWhen did you realize you were a mu- ting some of our local experts, educators and talents into our space — making sure sician?

In high school, I realized I wanted to ICCA feels like a welcoming community do music. I remember thinking I would space. be sad if music left my life. I felt like it 5 questions: was important and that I really needed it.

Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn?

I started working on my music chops so I could get scholarship money for music. Sarah Vaughn.

Put these musical eras in your faThere were two choices for scholarship, classical or jazz, and I really felt at home vored order (most to least): Baroque, Romantic, Classical. with jazz. It’s funny … I found out later Favorite key to sing in? that both of my dad’s parents were profesI don’t have a favorite. It depends on the sional jazz musicians time of day.

Favorite scale for vocal inspiration?

Tell me about an instructor at Berklee College of Music who inspired you? Mixolydian (a favorite among jazz singPeter Eldridge. He was one of my instruc- ers).

5. Three artists we should be listentors and voice coaches. He is also one of the founding members of the group New ing to?

Hiatus Kaiyote, Olivia Dean and a voYork Voices. He’s a phenomenal Gramcalist named Eloise. my-nominated musician and has become a good friend.

‘AS I FOUND IT’ AT THE MAC:

INTERIOR LIFE INTERRUPTED

“Windows”

“No, no – please don’t clean up your cel-

lar. And don’t even think of straightening that closet in the back room.” Those are words we never hear, but Sue Edick’s friends can cross these chores off their list when the Tonasket artist is on the hunt for intriguing spaces to paint. She wants to capture them on canvas — messy, timeworn and lived-in.

“As I Found It,” Edick’s collection of familiar and calm (sometimes uneasily calm) interiors, is the January show at the MAC Gallery on the Wenatchee Valley College campus.

The artist said about her paintings, “I find inspiration among modest spaces where someone will be returning to finish the task at hand ... an office, a basement, an attic, a closet, any space where there’s evidence of activity that’s been abandoned in mid-act.”

This exhibit is a kind of homecoming for Edick and a particular point of pride for the gallery.

QUIZ:

R.U. ART SMART?

(Who are these local artists? Initials are given. See answers on page 8.)

1. ( J.W. ) This sound-creating wizard and his crew work downstage in front of the audience to bring Old Time Radio Shows alive every Christmas. Last month they did “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Cellar Stairs #2”

Sue Edick

After earning her art degree from the University of Wisconsin, she veered to a long career in the nonprofit sector providing affordable housing. In 2002 Edick moved from Seattle to a remote cabin in northern Okanogan County (a check off the bucket list) and subsequently bought property in Tonasket, where she’s lived, worked and painted ever since.

For almost 20 years she enjoyed creating collages and pastels, mostly of dogs and horses, as “a weekend artist.”

But with more time after retirement, she branched out and tried WVC art classes.

That choice re-ignited her art life and transformed both her medium and her message.

In fall 2020, Edick enrolled in Marlin Peterson’s scientific drawing class, where she learned to love gouache (pronounced “gwash”), a water-based medium that allows extremes of flat matte color and thin transparency. For Scott Bailey’s Art 220 advanced painting class the fol-

lowing quarter, she cast about for a first subject and picked the shower stall in her cramped bathroom. The space was too small to sketch in, so she took a photo and painted from that.

It was a magical match-up. Since then, she’s painted dozens of varied interiors, familiar but vitally new. The camera sometimes skews the perspective to provide the underlying framework for the painting, and she manipulates light and shadow to add drama. “My goal,” she said, “Is not to create photorealism but to do whatever I can to entice the viewer to enter the painting and spend time there.”

Edick feels good about this first ever solo exhibit, as well as her ongoing art life. More shows and galleries? Maybe.

More online promotion? Maybe. But her personal progress is assured. She said, “I will continue painting interiors until I am no longer challenged. Then, I’ll change directions and continue to move forward.”

With time and independence, she is on the road often, and the long drive down Highway 97 to Wenatchee has become second nature. She is involved with the Wenatchee Kennel Club (a trainer, she keeps Entlebuchers, Swiss mountain dogs), and she values the time spent here with her longtime group of painter friends.

But her constant home is Tonasket, where Edick centers her life on her two little re-habbed houses in the heart of town. “It’s perfect. I leave my residence, walk twenty feet to my studio and paint for several hours,“ she said. “And when I’m done, I leave my painting materials all spread out and go home again.”

2. ( J. E.) Winner of dozens of prestigious awards, this nationally recognized pastel artist says her trademark style and the theme of a decade of workshops is “the beauty of imperfection.”

another book in the works.

children, joined groups and played shows; now he’s on the Numerica Performing Arts Center board.

3. (M. P.) An actor, singer and dragster, he’s a high-energy stage performer. He’s also a civic contributor (walking for dollars) and now a published author with

4. (S. W.) She and her husband founded Leavenworth Summer Theater 30 years ago, and audience numbers went from “about 15” to 800 a night. She’s still the group’s music director.

5. (D.G.) This music man plays anything, but he loves his bass guitar. He’s taught

“As I Found It” is at the MAC Gallery at Wenatchee Valley College, 1300 Fifth Street, Wenatchee. The Wenatchee First Fridays Arts Walk reception is from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 5, and the show continues through Feb. 23.

6. (N.Z.) The organizer emeritus of the “Holiday Spice” event, this vocalist is often heard about town, and her recent albums “Too Darn Hot and “Snow” showcase her inimitable jazz stylings.

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JANUARY2024

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Follow us to stay in the know about all things downtown!

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KOHO BUILDING OFFERS COLLABORATIVE WORKSPACES

DANCING WITH THE WENATCHEE STARS DEFINITELY OUTSIDE THEIR COMFORT ZONE

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oes your nonprofit need an office? A place to call home? Then your arts or community group may be eligible for free office space in the KOHO Radio Building at 32 North Mission Street in downtown Wenatchee.

The Sleeping Lady Foundation (SLF) of Leavenworth, owners of the building, announced last month that proposals are now being accepted from arts nonprofits and community groups interested in sharing a snazzy new space for creative and collaborative work.

The building’s redesigned interior will house private and semi-private office spaces, expansive common areas and a shared production studio. The anchor tenant is the Wenatchee Valley office of Northwest Public Broadcasting and jazz radio station KOHO-FM. The renovated workplace will also include a secured entry, elevator reception area, bathrooms, kitchen and conference rooms. A tenant’s term will run for 12 months with the opportunity to renew.

So far, it’s unclear how many organizations will be accommodated in the building, Deborah Hartl, SLF’s executive director, said in an email. “It depends on the tenants’ space needs and if part-time users

can potentially share space based on their schedules.”

SLF’s intention is “to support organizations within the Arts or with an environmental or community-centered mission,” said a December press release announcing plans for the building. “We seek to establish a … workplace where organizations can work independently on their missions, as well as creatively collaborate with cotenants.”

The offer of a complimentary workspace is available to organizations “seeking a collaborative experience to expand and enhance their arts, environmental or community-based, purpose-driven goals,” said the release.

To submit a proposal, organizations will need to prepare a letter of intent that explains the organization’s mission and a brief statement on the group’s willingness to help create a collaborative workspace.

Also required are two years of profit and loss statements and a copy of the current year’s budget.

Don’t delay. SLF will begin to review applications in early January.

For more details and info on how to apply, contact Hartl at dhartl@sl-fnd.org.

ven the most outgoing and bold of us might have to think long and hard about saying YES to “Dancing with Wenatchee Stars” and performing on stage in front of hundreds of excited local fans as well as a panel of judges.

So, you can applaud ahead of time for these six local citizen-dancers, none of them professionals and all of them old enough to know better, who have graciously agreed to dance their hearts out in the January event at the Numerica Performing Arts Center: Charley Voorhis, director and owner at Voortex Productions Delcie Proffitt, ski patrol director at Mission Ridge Ski Resort Eddie Cortes Solorio, WHS Mariachi director and Mariachi Northwest Festival chair Jerrilea Crawford, the mayor of East Wenatchee Top Rojanasthien, chef and owner of Atlas Fare and a Wenatchee city council member Mary Big Bull-Lewis, owner of Wenatchi Wear and R Digital Design.

Voorhis said he surprised himself and others by joining in the production. “I typically wouldn’t do anything like this,” he said. “I don’t have any dance background whatsoever; I attended a few school dances in high school, and that’s it. Everything about this is anxiety inducing, but It’s a good way to show my kids and other people that it’s good to try new things, even when it’s way outside my skill set and comfort zone.”

Big Bull-Lewis has no specific anxieties other than falling on stage, despite “zero dance experience.” She said, “Growing up, I felt that I wasn’t the right person for activities, so I turned a lot of opportunities down.” She did take a bold step when she first acted on stage in 2023’s “Dangerous Women,” which traces the lives of pioneer and indigenous

women. She said about dancing, “Now I want to try something new. You don’t know if you’ll like something until you try it. I am grateful for the opportunity.”

Despite any personal reservations, most of the dancers said yes because they really want to support their chosen community causes. This is the PAC’s fourth time hosting the fundraising event; former winners were Jennifer Korfiatis, Kyle Eberth and Dave Sutherland. This year the presenting sponsors, who help choose the participants, are CliftonLarsonAllen and North Cascades Bank.

Each of the newbie dancers will receive a week’s intensive training for their 90-second costumed dance routine. What’ll they dance? It’s a toss-up; it could be a cha-cha, a Charleston, a disco fave or a waltz, but each participant will be safe in the arms of (or at least in the proximity of) a seasoned coach from the Utah Ballroom Dance Company.

Alex Haley, the PAC’s program director and one of the primary cajolers of the volunteers, set the tone for the fun evening with a reminder that these amateur dancers are “willing but reluctant ... Our goal is never to embarrass anyone but to create a platform for them to flourish.”

He added, “Luckily they have already chosen their respective careers.”

The mood of the evening is light (well, maybe not backstage), and it’s a tradition for the competition’s judges to comment raucously. But be assured the preparation is rigorous, the dancing is real, the causes are important, and the stakes are personal.

And it’s the vote by the evening’s theater audience that chooses Best of Show, the winner of the coveted mirror ball trophy.

“Dancing with Wenatchee Stars” is 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, at the Numerica Performing Arts Center, 123 Wenatchee Ave. Tickets are $29 - $39 at numericapac.org.

ARTBIZ

THE ART OF THE SCHLEP

FEATURED EVENTS

A PAIR OF METROPOLITAN OPERAS AT SNOWY OWL

If January begins to feel like house arrest after the holiday whirl, check out two operas this month, live-streamed by the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts as part of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning “Live in HD” series. Grandeur, pomp and circumstance, violence, romance, politics, death — all brought to you with gorgeous costumes and of course even more gorgeous voices. What more could you want on a Saturday morning than a few hours of world class opera in a world class venue, followed perhaps by lunch out at a favorite bistro?

“Nabucco” is an early Verdi work set with biblical proportions in ancient Babylon.

Imperious King Nabucco and his vengeful daughter, lovers whose passion transcends politics, a high priest, the Met chorus – sterling voices all, amid spectacle.

10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 6.

“Carmen” is Bizet’s masterwork about a hopeless soldier seduced by Carmen, a fiery gypsy woman. With themes of abuse, unjust labor structures and breaking social boundaries at its heart, the opera is set by the Met in contemporary times. 10 a.m.

Saturday, Jan. 27.

Both operas are at the Snowy Owl Theater, 7409 Icicle Road, Leavenworth. For details and to purchase tickets ($15 and $25), go to icicle.org.

Artist Nena Howell at the 43rd Annual Wild Arts Festival in Portland.

BY JAMIE HOWELL

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he alarm goes off in the chilly 4 a.m. darkness. Bleary-eyed, desperate for coffee, I wedge myself into the driver’s seat of a car so packed with paintings that I’ve had to ration my own undergarments in order to squash the gym bag I’ll be living out of for the next four days into an available crevice.

The paintings are not mine but my wife, Nena’s, and we’re hitting the road for Portland Audubon’s 43rd Annual Wild Arts Festival which, not surprisingly, is in Portland, a solid six hours away. As one of the 61 artists invited to exhibit at this year’s event, her job is to stand by her work all weekend, smiling and chatting while gently insinuating that surely her paintings would look marvelous hanging on the walls of the strangers who’ve come to browse.

My job is to handle the schlep. I’m her roadie, a blissfully wedded source of free labor, who is just a tiny bit grumpy as we roll south along the Columbia in the early dawn. The coffee will kick in soon, I hope.

Art goes nowhere on its own. It must be schlepped, the underacknowledged yet utterly essential step required of all artists who care to show out IRL (in real life). No matter your medium, there is something to schlep - painstakingly packaged paintings, speaker stacks, set pieces, costume racks, jewelry displays, pottery wheels and on and on.

Schlepping includes the setup, the strike and, right now, it includes a metal booth pipe poking me in the ribs every time I shift in my seat. Finally, we pull onto the

campus of Portland State University and locate the artist load-in. Schlep Phase Two: everything inside on wheeled carts, build the display booth, attach the mesh walls, run the extension cords, hang the artwork, find the price tags. It takes hours.

Nena correctly deems me unqualified to hang the artwork in the right places, so I’m rewarded with a break. I grab Papi Chulo, our happy Havanese who was wedged into some other secret crevice on the way down, and we walk directly to a McMenamin’s where he watches passersby as I watch a couple old fashioneds drain away.

I mull over the time and expense involved in this particularly long schlep - four days, sleep deprivation, gasoline, food, lodging, impulse buys at Powell’s Books, old fashioneds. Three days from now, we’ll have to reverse the entire process. Will it really be worth it?

And then it starts happening. An REIclad couple latch onto an abstract and it speaks to them. A check is written and one of Nena’s originals is gone forever to adorn the wall of a stranger’s home, just as she’d hoped. Then it happens again, and yet again.

Delight, victory, validation - it’s all there in her eyes. My crass mathematical musings wither in the glow of that happiness and it becomes as clear as a brand-new jug of Gamsol, schlepping on behalf of any artistic dream is but an honor to be cherished.

Nena Howell will be schlepping her works down to Pybus Public Market for the First Fridays Arts Walk, Jan. 5, from 5 to 7 p.m., to open her show as the featured artist at Pybus Art Alley for the month of January. Jamie Howell will probably help.

MUSIC THEATER OF WENATCHEE OFFERS ‘AN INSPECTOR CALLS’

Music Theater of Wenatchee has faithfully staged a winter play for us every year, and this one promises a thrilling evening. In J. B. Priestley’s tense and topical whodone-it, Inspector Goole mysteriously arrives at an engagement party to announce the death of a girl from apparent suicide – elsewhere. The family, horrified to be implicated, discovers over the course of an intense investigation that they are all in some way caught up in the girls’ death.

The play is directed by Terry Sloan and produced by Althea Brown Castro. In the cast are John Schultz, Milo Klanke, Meg Kappler, Caroline Rensel, Skyler Cuthill, Jeff Anderson and Kasey Safford.

Performances are 7:30 p.m. Jan. 25-27 and Feb. 1-3 at Riverside Playhouse, 233 B. N. Wenatchee Avenue, Wenatchee. Tickets are available at mtow.org.

SEE MORE EVENTS AT NCWARTS.ORG

OPPORTUNITIES: MULTICULTURAL FEST ART, FOOD, MUSIC AT MUSEUM’S

‘LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER’

If your chosen art form is collage, handmade paper, origami, woven or cast paper sculptures, drawings featured on paper, or video art including paper, consider this call for artists. Gallery One Visual Arts Center in Ellensburg announces its ninth national juried call, this time featuring paper as the primary medium of the work, whether in 2D, 3D or video art. Awards totaling $800 in three categories will be distributed by the jurors, and organizers say they are “open to interpretations to the call.”

The deadline for entries is Jan. 28, and the exhibit will be in March. For more detail or questions call Gallery One Visual Arts Center at (509) 925-2670 or email renee@gallery-one.org.

DOUBLE WHAMMY AUDITION WEEK

Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, but you can audition for two popular reprise musicals, “Grease” and “Rock of Ages,” in the same three days and be able to perform in both.

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orth Central Washington’s blend of diverse cultures and their arts will be celebrated this month at the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center.

At the Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Fest, visitors will learn about the “diverse array of cultural and heritage groups that shape the tapestry of our community,” said a museum press release.

Art, crafts, food, music, dancing and other traditions will be represented.

In addition, the City of Wenatchee will present the annual Wenatchee Valley Uplift Awards. These awards recognize indi-

viduals or organizations that have made significant contributions to protecting civil rights, promoting social justice or advancing diversity, equity and inclusion.

The awards have been presented every year since 2005.

The annual multicultural festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13. Admission is free. For more information go to wenatcheevalleymuseum. org or visit the museum at 127 South Mission Street, Wenatchee.

One is presented during the Apple Blossom Festival, “a rockin’ revival you won’t want to miss, a travel back to 1959 to join star-crossed Sandy, Danny and the students of Rydell High ...” The other is a Hot August Nights production, “a jukebox musical built around classic rock songs from the glam metal bands from the 1980s like Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister.” usic Theatre of Wenatchee announces auditions for the 2024 Apple Blossom MuM sical “Grease” on Jan. 3-5. Visit mtow.org/auditions for the audition form and more information. The show runs May 1-11.

Numerica Performing Arts Center announces auditions (age 18+) for the 2024 Hot August Nights “Rock of Ages” on Jan. 4 and 5. Visit numericapac.com/rockauditions for the audition form and more information. The show runs Aug. 1-3, 8-10 and 15-17.

Auditions and performances for both musicals will be at the Numerica Performing Arts Center at 123 North Wenatchee Avenue.

“NAVIGATING UNTOLD STORIES”

Who gets to tell the stories of the past, and why does that matter? And how do we distinguish fiction from nonfiction? Writer, poet, Wenatchee Valley College English instructor and Wenatchee Valley Museum staffer Zach Eddy will offer a three-hour workshop on writing historical fiction that explores those questions. Based on our local history, the workshop encompasses all aspects of the writing process, so come prepared to write and share. All genres and writing backgrounds are welcome.

“Navigating Untold Stories” is from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, 127 South Mission Street, Wenatchee. The cost is $5 for members and $15 for non-members. Go to wenatcheevalleymuseum.org for required registration.

SEE MORE OPPORTUNITIES AT NCWARTS.ORG QUIZ: R.U. ARTSMART ANSWERS 1. James Wallace 2. Jennifer Evenhus 3. Matthew Pippin 5. Domingo Gonzalez 6. Nancy Zahn

4. Susan Wagner