Artist in Residence Program 2021
EveryLibrary is delighted to announce three artists from various disciplines for the 2021 Artist in Residence program. Visual artist Corinne Lightweaver, jazz musician Ray Briggs, and poet Victoria Hurtado are this year's talent and will be sharing their creations this fall.
EveryLibrary will be hosting three magnificent artists to create music, art, and poems for the 2021 Artist in Residence program (AIR). Libraries are transforming communities and transforming the idea of libraries. However, they are facing funding challenges. EveryLibrary works both strategically and tactically to help librarians increase their funding sources and learn more about advocacy. This process has many shapes and forms and Everylibrary feels very strongly about the Artist in Residence program as a vehicle to discuss topics such as politics with delight and logic – adjectives used by John Chrastka, founder of EveryLibrary, to describe the program. Politics is not just policy, it's more, and through various lenses of art, EveryLibrary is partnering with artists to explore this invisibility and make it visible.
EveryLibrary is delighted to introduce artists from various disciplines; visual artist, Corinne Lightweaver, jazz musician - Ray Briggs, and poet – Victoria Hurtado. Their work exemplifies and illustrates how various fields are and can be connected. The artists will be exploring the topic of the intersectionality of libraries, politics, and art and their relationship.
We are looking forward to learning about the process and the works that Corinne, Ray, and Victoria are producing for the 2021 Artist in Residence program. Their art and stories will be revealed and told during the months of September, October, and early November. We can’t wait to hear your reaction, thoughts, and response to their work.
Corinne Lightweaver
Corinne is an artist and a writer. Her artistic journey began in paintings, with wildlife as her favorite subset, and included forays into other media. A diagnosis of breast cancer led her to discover collage and assemblage, an apt metaphor for piecing her life and body together again, leading to the work published in her first book, In the Breast of Health: Healing from Cancer through Art.
In her second book, The Psyche’s Gift, the artist documents her personal experience of living with mental illness using the medium of paper collage. Having lived with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder for many years, she has learned coping mechanisms including art that keep mental illness at bay for most of the time. She divides her time between Los Angles and Vashon Island, Washington.
Ray Briggs
Ray is a jazz musician, saxophone player, and professor at CSULB Jazz Studies. His areas of specialization include Jazz Studies, African American Music, and Arab Music. He loves experimenting and playing with different music and combining them.
“Music is an excellent medium to discover what it means to be human. Through music, we may become more aware of ourselves, the wonderful diversity of cultural expression and thought around the world, and the underlying unity of the human spirit found throughout that diversity” says Ray.
Victoria Hurtado-Angulo
Victoria is a poet, artist, and experimentalist. She feels comfortable writing about the uncomfortable and wants to deeper explore the various aspects of human life, that are not commonly talked about. She is provoking, she is igniting, she is uplifting.
“I hope you are looking for an intimate and enchanting poet that speaks to and for the readers. I plan to make my esoteric mark in the world of poetry by writing my introspective secrets for others to indulge in. I want to astound people by mirroring reality with surrealism that actually molds into a confessional comfort between the reader and the poet." says Victoria
“Poems can be interpreted an infinite amount of ways because each reader has a unique perspective each time a poem is read. The poet connects with the readers. The poet can lie. The poet can only and will only write from the imagination, even if the moment is a memory. A poet can defy what it means to be a poet. There is no complete way to define a poet (sorry, should have had another cliché warning there). The poet can read their works that spill out in their very voice; it brings an awe out of people and it is intoxicating.” says Victoria
Katalin Szeker, Producer
Kati has a BA from UCLA in Art History and Museum Studies and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She has worked in museums and archives both in Europe and in the United States. She is interested in bringing different fields and disciplines of the art world together and create a sensory experience, a multidisciplinary event. Just like the theme is titled: “Intersectionality of Politics, Libraries and Art” Kati believes that different art forms can come together and construct a story. Bringing visual art, music, and literature together is a wonderful way to show how everything is interconnected and pleases your senses.