ALUMNI NEWS FALL 2019
PATRICIA AARON (14) had a show, Atlantic Way and the Irish Glens, at Globe Fine Art in Santa Fe, NM through August 4. She will premiere a recent painting, “Chieftains Glen,” at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities invitational, Colorado Abstract +10, from September 12 - November 17. More paintings will be featured at the Space ANNEX Fall Salon opening September 6 in Denver, CO. LAUREN ACAMPORA’s (04) new novel, The Paper Wasp, was published by Grove Atlantic in June and named one of the best books of the summer by The New York Times Book Review. SAMUEL ADAMS (18) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship.
public spaces and in the countryside, offering an eclectic program animated by encounters and collaborations. KATIE ARNOLD’s (15) piece, “An Elite Athlete’s Real-Life Training Plan,” based on her recently published memoir Running Home, was featured in The New York Times in July. FRANCES ASHFORTH (18) had work in the group show, Time and Place: Works on Paper, at The Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, CT through June 19, as well as in Mirage: Energy & Water in the Great Basin at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, ID through August 15. In the spring of 2020, the show will travel to the Boise Art Museum.
PEN/Hemingway Award finalists, IAN BASSINGTHWAIGHTE (19), LING MA (19), and ELISSA SCHAPPELL (02,19) gave a combined reading at Sheridan College on September 19 as part of Wyoming’s statewide “Explore Hemingway” series. ÉRIC BAUDELAIRE (01) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. EVE BEGLARIAN’s (96,10,16) new piece in honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday, “None More Than You,” premiered at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in NYC on May 31. Another piece, “You See Where This Is Going,” for loadbang and string orchestra premiered on May 30 in Nanning, China.
NELLEKE BELTJENS’ (02) works on paper from her new series, Road to Travel, were included in the group OLIVE AYHENS’ (03,10,16) solo show, Organic Complexity, curated show, Line to Surface, at Raumx in MARTIRENE ALCÁNTARA London through July 20. by HILLS SNYDER (84,16), was (16,18,19) has an exhibit of at Sala Diaz in San Antonio, TX abstract photography in Photographs by RHONA BITNER through May 25. the Ucross Art Gallery titled (93,02,19) were included in the Metamorphoses: An Act of Poetic SALLY BALL’s (04) new book, show Theatres of Fiction at the Ruth Imagination which will be on view Hold Sway, was released in the and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art through December 6. at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY spring by Barrow Street. She through June 9. also has work in a collaborative In August, JUMANA AL YASIRI artist’s book, HOLD, with Czech th (17) participated in the 6 edition MELISSA BOUCHER (15) had work of Us, the Moon & the Neighbors, a printmaker Jan Vičar, which will in the show, On ne demande pas des festival where more than 20 artists be a central feature of Vičar’s solo comptes à un orange, exhibited in show at the Academie des Beaux and companies from 7 different the official selection of the festival Arts in Paris in the fall. countries performed in houses, Les Boutographies.
HEIDI BRANDOW’s (19) new series of as many as 18 works, Departures, will be on display at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe, NM through October. SARAH M. BROOM (13) was named a nonfiction finalist for the 2019 National Book Awards with The Yellow House. KELLYANN BURNS (12) has work in the inaugural exhibition, Multiverse, at the George Lawson Gallery in San Francisco, CA through October 13. KATHLEEN CAPRARIO (85,18) participated in exhibitions this summer including the 17th Around Oregon Annual at the Art Center in Corvallis, the 2019 Mayor’s Art Show, the Eugene Biennial Award Winners, and the One Year Later exhibition at Karin Clarke Gallery, all in Eugene, OR. ALAN CHAN (12,16) Jazz Orchestra performed with Guo Yazhi on May 10 at the Marsee Auditorium in Torrance, CA. In September, the orchestra teamed up with singers from across the Pacific Rim in A Trans-Pacific Songbook performance at the Gateway Christian Church in Los Angeles, CA. ANDREA CLEARFIELD (05,08,14,17) has a commissioned choral piece for Coro Allegro that will be premiered at Harvard University in 2020. Her renowned performance series, The Salon, is celebrating its 33rd year.
SUSAN CHOI (01) was named a SANDRO DEL ROSARIO (15) fiction finalist for the 2019 National introduced his animation production, Book Awards with Trust Exercise. Animation is my idealplace, in a panel at the 31st Society for Animation HANNAH COLE’s (05,09) solo Studios Conference, which was held show, Turn to Light, is at the in Lisbon in June. Tracey Morgan Gallery in Ashville, NC through October 19. TOI DERRICOTTE (95) was named a poetry finalist for the 2019 National ELISABETH CONDON (18) had Book Awards with “I”: New and work in the show Parameters at Selected Poems. LES Gallery at The Clemente in Suffolk, NY through August 2, JANE DESCHNER’s and in Divine Interventions at the (03,06,08,09,13,16) solo show, Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Remember Me: a collective narrative Harbor through September 2. Her in found words and photographs, next show Effulgence will be on was at 407 Gallery in Billings, MT view October 12 – November 16 at throughout the summer. In July, Emerson Dorsch in Miami, FL. she gave an artist talk at Kirk’s Grocery, an alternative gallery and JANET CULBERTSON (89,99) performance venue in Billings. has work in the group exhibition, Environmental Impact, at Hofstra REBECCA DOUGHTY (06) had University Museum in Hempstead, new paintings on view in the show, NY through December 13. Friendlies, at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, MA through SANDRA DAL POGGETTO’s September 29. (03,13) show, New Paintings, Works on Paper and Constructions, JESSICA DUNNE’s (94,03,04,07) was on view as the inaugural exhibition, Joy in Repetition, was exhibition for the re-opening of on view at Far Out Gallery in San Aunt Dofe’s Gallery in Willow Francisco, CA through September Creek, MT through September 26. 29. Her artwork was also featured in NINA ELDER’s (17) show, What the fall issue of Minding Nature, Endures, featured a collection of a journal exploring conservation drawings from three bodies of work values and the practice of ecological democratic citizenship. created over the past decade and was at SITElab 12 in Santa Fe, NM SUE DANIELSON’s (17) immersive through September 15. Her public mixed media installation The monument, The Score, will be in Breath of a Distant Wind was on Indianapolis starting in autumn 2019. view at The Garage in Seattle, WA CAI EMMONS’ (12,16) newest novel, through September 26. Weather Woman, recently won a Nautilus Book Award, and the sequel will be coming out in spring of 2021. A story collection called Vanishing will be coming out in 2020. MARIA LITHELL FLYG’s (16) latest album, Collected Chamber Music, was released on June 7. PAUL FORTUNATO (95) had a solo exhibition at Miboo Art Center in Busan, South Korea through August. ROBERT FREEDMAN’s (04,09) new musical, The Flamingo Kid, recently had its World Premiere at Hartford Stage in CT.
The first group of Fall 2019 residents enjoying dinner at the School House.
MATEO GALVANO (19) was featured in a blog post in July about his collaborative installation, Lacuna, at Currents New Media in Santa Fe, NM. JENNIFER GARZA-CUEN (16) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. MARY ELLEN GEIST (09) won two Emmy awards for documentaries she made involving the Great Lakes and water: Beneath the Surface: The Line 5 Pipeline in the Great Lakes and Tapping the Great Lakes. SANDRA GIBSON (99,12) and LUIS RECODER (12) have work in the recently released book, Reset the Apparatus: A Survey of the Photographic and the Filmic in Contemporary Art. They will have numerous performances, artist talks, and masterclasses scheduled throughout the Fall. MARSHA GOLDBERG (91, 16) has a solo exhibition of new drawings and cyanotypes called Smoke Ruins: Palmyra at Inquiry Art Gallery in Boonton, NJ from November 3 – December 15.
MICHAEL HARRISON (13,17) is the recipient of a 2019 NYSCA/ NYFA Artist Fellowship. JULIE HÉBERT (17), with the group Look What SHE Did, has reached nearly 100 videos produced in 2019. There was also a reading of Julie’s play, Drunk at the Base of the Bodhi Tree, on May 30 in NYC. LUZENE HILL (19), the Fall 2019 recipient of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, will give an artist talk and performance at Montana State University in Billings on October 14 in recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Hill’s visit is part of MSUB Library’s and The Writer’s Voice programming for the NEA Big Read in honor of U.S. Poet Laureate JOY HARJO (13).
The opera, Intimate Apparel, developed with composer RICKY IAN GORDON (02,04,05,07,12,16) from the play by Lynn Nottage, had an official opening at Lincoln Center Theatre in NYC on March 23. His opera, 27, will play October 11 and 13 at Intermountain Opera in MIKE HOLOBER (07, 19) recently Bozeman, MT. released a new double CD, Hiding Out, featuring work that was AALIYAH GUPTA’s (18) solo composed during his stay at exhibition, Tópos, was at Core Ucross. Gallery in Seattle, WA through August 31. WAYNE HORVITZ (15) was the first-place recipient of The DANIEL GWIRTZMAN (18) will be performing at the Whitney Center American Prize in CompositionOrchestra. for the Arts in Sheridan, WY on October 20. On May 22, MARJORIE HUDSON SAAD HADDAD (16) was the third- (12) participated in the Weymouth Writers-in-Residence Reading, place recipient of The American Idol Talk, Women Writers on the Prize in Composition- Orchestra. Teenage Infatuations That Changed JOY HARJO (13) was named the Their Lives. United States Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress. She is the MICHAEL R. JACKSON’s (16,19) new musical A Strange Loop first Native American U.S. Poet premiered at Playwrights Horizons Laureate. from May 24 through July 28.
MALIA JENSEN’s (16) series of temporary, sculpture-based projects will be placed throughout Oregon in 2019 and 2020. Monthly field reports will follow the project, Nearer Nature: Worth Your Salt, until November 2019 and then resume with the next project in spring of 2020. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KERN (14) performed Mozart’s Adagio & Rondo for a modern glass harmonica and ensemble with the Metropolitan Opera on May 19. On June 1, he joined Heather Buck and the Orchestra of the League of Composers to premiere a new version of his Orchesterlied, Von Taufedern und Sternen, at the Miller Theatre in NYC. He also performed in concert with Pierre-Laurent Aimard in Amsterdam on June 15. SAM KIM’s (17) multimedia dance Other Animal will be performed at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York October 31 through November 2. SARAH KLEIN’s (18) solo show, Lost Holidays, was at the Telematic gallery in San Francisco, CA through August 10. During a recent residency, LISA KO (19) gave a reading from her novel The Leavers at Sheridan College in WY. The Leavers was a 2017 National Book Award for Fiction finalist and won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. It was also a finalist for the 2018 PEN/ Hemingway Award and the 2017 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award.
JOANNA KLINK (10,14) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. ANN KRESGE (19) had work in Tradition Turns Contemporary, a group show that honored the rich history of quilt-making while reinterpreting it through contemporary visual language and materials. The show was on view at The Arts Center in Corvallis, OR through September 28. YEN-HUA LEE (09) had work in the group show, Threading Pages, at the Kala Gallery in Berkeley, CA through September 21. DAVID LICATA’s (13) documentary film, A Life’s Work, had its World Premiere at the inaugural Arcosanti International Film Carnivale in AZ on April 27. ROSEMARIE LONDON’s (00,04) work was invited to North by Northwest, the Yellowstone Art Museum’s first annual juried exhibition, on view through October 10. NANCY LOVENDAHL’s (15) solo show, Small Glimpses Many Times, will open March 14, 2020 at The Colorado Springs Fine Art Center. The show will also feature a composition by D. EDWARD DAVIS (15) and a poem by ELIZABETH MCLAGAN (15). JESUS MACARENA-AVILA (02) had work in the exhibition, Mi Madre/ My Mother: Ordinary Women/ Extraordinary Stories, at the University of Notre Dame earlier this year. BRENDA MALLORY (18) and SYDNEY PURSEL (18) had work in the show, Intricate Form: Brenda Mallory + Sydney Pursel: 2018 Ucross Native American Fellows, at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery through September 28. This is the inaugural exhibition by winners of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists. The exhibition will be at the University of Wyoming Art Deparement’s Visual Art Gallery June – September 2020.
ANDY MARTIN’s (16) project, With Child: Lee Child and the Readers of Jack Reacher, was be published by Polity in September. An article drawing on that work, “Lunch in San Antonio with a Fictional Character,” was published in the Iowa Review.
LYNN NEUMAN (14,16), with Artichoke Dance Company, hosted multiple dance workshops in May and June. They also performed at the Cooper Hewitt museum alongside Ensamble Studio’s sculpture, Petrified River, as part of the Nature-Design Triennial on July 25.
GORDON MCCONNELL’s (00,01,03,14) show, Moving Pictures: Paintings by Gordon McConnell, was on view June 1 in Magdalena, NM in celebration of Frontier day.
MARGARET PETTEE OLSEN (19) had work in the group show, Women in Abstraction, at William Havu Gallery in Denver, CO through July 27.
SUZANNE MCCONNELL’s (95) book, Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style, written with Kurt Vonnegut, will be published on November 5 by Rosetta Books as an e-book and Seven Stories Press in hardcover. RICHARD KIRK MILLS (07) had a solo show at the Blue Mountain Gallery in NYC through June 15. SUSAN MOLDENHAUER’s (09,17) work was invited to North by Northwest, the Yellowstone Art Museum’s first annual juried exhibition, on view through October 10. TONY MOORE (94) has work in two group exhibitions, RADIUS 50, at Woodstock Artists Association and Museum through September 29, and EARTH & SPIRIT, at Holland Tunnel Gallery in Newburgh, NY through October 20.
KAREN OLSSON’s (07,17) book, The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, was reviewed by The New York Times in July. SYLVAN OSWALD (18) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. ZEENA PARKINS (17) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship. ANNE AUSTIN PEARCE (13,19) recently moved to California to teach drawing and painting at Soka University. RYAN PIERCE’s (13) exhibition, Hot Hex, was at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR through September 28. BILLY PORTER (17) received an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his role in Pose. JANET PRITCHARD (08) is the recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Brenda Mallory and Sydney Pursel at June 21st reception for “Intricate Form: Brenda Mallory + Sydney Pursel 2018 Ucross Native American Fellows.”
ELIZABETH WARD’s (16) exhibition, Floating Life: Mississippi River Drawings by Liz Ward, was on view at the Tyler Museum of Art in TX through August 25. TERRI WARPINSKI’s (00) solo show, Surface Tension, was at the Besse Gallery at Bay College in Escanaba, MI through September 18.
VICTORIA SAMBUNARIS’ (10) solo exhibition of new photographs, Land Mark, was at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in NYC through May 11. DRED SCOTT’s (14) latest album, Dred Scott Rides Alone, was released on September 21. HILLS SNYDER’s (84,16) solo exhibition, Altered States, features drawings based on the artist’s travels to multiple Great Plains locales and is part five in a series of connected exhibitions. The show is on view at the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, NE through October 19. Hyphae: New Prints, TANJA SOFTIC’s (98,02) second solo exhibition with Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, VA, featured four series of works on paper and was on view through May 24. DON STINSON (08) had work in the group show, Reimagining New Mexico, at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, NM through August 3. RANDALL STOLTZFUS (04) has three paintings included in the October 2019 exhibit 20-21 at CityFolk Gallery in Lancaster, PA. ELIZABETH STONE (11,14,17) had work in the group show, At The Doors of Perception, at the Lisa Sette Gallery in Phoenix, AZ through August 31. TORU SUGITA (16) had a solo show in August in Kyoto, Japan,
as well as sixteen new etchings included in the group exhibition, FourSquared, at Arc Studios in San Francisco, CA through September 28. He will be teaching printmaking classes at Diablo Valley College in CA this fall. JOEL TAUBER (09) created a new podcast with writer Eric Wilson called BELT: A 2-Man Memoir. It uses the language of the locker room to deconstruct traditional notions of masculinity. The final episode of the season came out on June 11. ROBIN TEWES’ (17) painting from her Movie Theatre Series is on the cover of the book Ways of Looking at a Woman by Caroline Hagood. She also had work in two group shows at The Untitled Space in NYC, IRL: Investigating Reality, through June 21, and Exposed, which will be on view through October 12. GREGOR TURK (97) has work in the show, Reclaim/Proclaim [Blandtown], in Atlanta, GA through November 22. In May 2019, Vivant Books released a monograph on the work of PAUL VILLINSKI (92), documenting three decades of studio and public art practice. He will have work in a show at Tayloe Piggot Gallery in Jackson, WY through October 5.
JERRY WELLMAN (18) was recently chosen by the Paseo project to create an art action. What we are/ what we could/ BE MORE: Words of Becoming is an installation in Santa Fe, NM that is covered in glyphs, graphs, and words and is meant to explore the aspects of character that enhance ourselves and those around us. DANIEL WIENER’s (13) solo show, Wide-Eyed and Open-Mouthed, recently opened at Lesley Heller Gallery in NYC and will be on view through October 20. SUSAN YORK (12) had work included in CENTURY. idee Bauhaus/ 100 Artists: 100 Years of the Bauhaus in Berlin, Germany through June 23. She has recently had work in the group exhibitions, Parallel Lines: Drawing and Sculpture - A response to The Ingram Collection and The Adjacent Possible. The Unfolding Center: Susan York and Arthur Sze will be on view at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art in Auburn Alabama through January 12, 2020. She received a 2019 Individual Support Grant from The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. ZACK ZADEK (19) will take over the Dramatist Guild Foundation Music Hall in NYC for a series of intimate salons this fall. Each evening will feature a different setlist and secret guest performers and will be curated by Zadek and Hunter Bird. BRENDA ZLAMANY’s (87,99) film, 100/100 The Itinerant Portraitist, was awarded Best Documentary Short, and screened opening night as part of the Greenpoint Film Festival’s arts program. It was also shown at the Berkshire International Film Festival in NYC in late May.
TOSHI REAGON AND THE PARABLE OPERA GROUP July 8 - 20, 2019
It was a great honor to host Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower The Opera Ucross Workshop in collaboration with UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance this July. The Opera, written by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, will premiere in Los Angeles at CAP UCLA on March 7, 2020, and in Boston at Arts Emerson March 26 - 29. 2020. Pictured Top L to R: KARMA MAYET JOHNSON, JULIETTE JONES, AFI BIJOU, TATTIANA AQEEL. Bottom L to R: BE STEADWELL, TOSHI REAGON, JOSETTE NEWSAM.
IN MEMORIAM FALL 2019 “Spotlight” is an ongoing series that celebrates distinguished Ucross alumni and supporters with curated events across the United States.
NEW YORK, JUNE 19 The inaugural “Spotlight” event celebrated the world premiere of Ucross alum MICHAEL R. JACKSON’s daring new musical A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons. The performance was followed by an artist talkback with Jackson, Tony Award winner and Ucross alum BILLY PORTER (Kinky Boots, Pose on FX), and Ucross alum and MacArthur “genius” BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS (An Octoroon, Gloria, Everybody).
JACKSON, WYOMING, SEPTEMBER 14 A Fall Spotlight event featured OBIE Award-winning composer and Ucross alum RICKY IAN GORDON, Grammy Award-winning baritone Nathan Gunn, and jazz chart-topping singer-songwriter Ucross alum BETH MCINTOSH in performance at a private residence.
ROBERT BLACKER 1948 - 2019 Ucross resident and dramaturg for the Sundance Institute Playwrights & Composers Retreat at Ucross. He will be missed!
Stay tuned for more information on future “Spotlight” events!
We always enjoy hearing from our alums. send your current news to us at info@ucross.org! Photo credits: Page 1: Jenae Neeson. Page 4: Jenae Neeson Page 5: Martirene Alcántara.
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