- Home
- My Twitter Stream
- My LinkedIn
- My Flickr Photos
- originals | by jonathan everitt
- My Last.fm Music
-
Tweets
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/xdEAvX0RJ1 ▸ Top stories today via @text100 @lauren_ashley86 @MarkWhyy
- @lisakribs @petercohan I sometimes think acquisitions like this one hasten the evolution of the Wild WWWest ;)
- Yahoo's Tumblr buy fails 4 crucial tests, writes @petercohan in @Forbes commentary: http://t.co/anRfRBqzfJ cc: @lisakribs
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/xdEAvX0RJ1 ▸ Top stories today via @JSroc @JeffreyLuke @bmbanford
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/xdEAvX0RJ1 ▸ Top stories today via @GailTregea @SociallyGoodBiz @KBridenbaugh
- @DresdenEngle Shake me like a Polaroid picture, lady.
- @pd73 Thanks. Have to have you up again for peak season :) #winegarden
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/xdEAvX0RJ1 ▸ Top stories today via @KatieBea @ClaudiaBurcke @kaitlinerindoty
- @DresdenEngle Yep, near the lake :) Felt nothing. Nothing!
- @ToddJClausen Thanks, buddy. Hope we can catch up sometime soon.
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/xdEAvX0RJ1 ▸ Top stories today via @Valhart_URcomm @AMArochester @pixelpunk
- @SciencePlusSoul very welcome!
- Rochester Advertising Professional is out! http://t.co/4G22rVK61D ▸ Top stories today via @tcpellett @rpulvino @michaelmurphy
- Sneak peek at East Ave. @Wegmans, with interactive floor plan, pics. Looking good: http://t.co/LECgJRdqBo #ROC
- Check out the scoop in Todd's series of recent tweets. #ROC RT @ToddJClausen: So who wants to know a little about the new #wegeastave?
- @brandrhythmic Cassette "deck." Remember decks? Wow.
-
Info
- Independent copywriter and creative strategistWriting and Editing | Rochester, New York Area, USSummary
One of the most potent emotions we inspire in the advertising industry is a sense of relief: The feeling that washes over you when the pain goes away, or the danger subsides, or the crisis passes. Imagine having the power to promise that simple, pure emotion to an audience. Banish the pain. Fix what’s broken. Solve the problem.
I've learned how to talk pretty well about credit cards, indie films, health care, tourism, charitable giving, digital commerical printing, and more. With every project, my goal is to solve the problem through inspired ideas expressed in an economy of words.
Specialties: Media: interactive, radio, DM, outdoor, collateral. Industries: health care, financial services, technology, public sector.Experience- Jan 2000 - PresentCopywriter and Creative Strategist / Jonathan Everitt
As a copywriter, I wear a lot of hats. I can write in many voices and speak to many audiences. Small business. Sales channels. Consumers of every demographic. I team up with art directors on branding projects. Dive in on sprawling campaigns. Pinch hit on juicy little one-off assignments. From direct mail to radio to interactive, I’ve gotten my hands on virtually every client Roberts serves.
That’s given me a strong sense of collaboration. A thick skin, too. Copywriters come up with thousands of ideas in a year's time. Only a handful will survive. But when you work with people who champion the best ideas, there's a good chance some great work will come out of the process. I've been fortunate as a copywriter, editor and producer to experience more than my fair share of that success.
- Apr 1999 - Jan 2011Senior Copywriter / Roberts Communications
- 1999 - 1999Editor / Ziff Davis Journals
- 1995 - 1998Copy Editor / Finger Lakes Times
Education- Syracuse University
Additional Information-
Websites:
-
Honors:2003 PRISM Award, non-profit website 2006 ADDY Award, consumer print magazine 2007 ADDY Award, citation for direct marketing 2009 ADDY Award, consumer television 2009 TELLY Silver Award, :30 television 2010 ADDY Award, interactive media 2010 "LADDY" Award, public service, multiple media 2010 Hermes Platinum Award, publications 2010 PRISM Award, annual report 2011 ADDY Sliver, Creative Services and Industry Suppliers, Collateral 2011 ADDY Silver, Mixed Media, consumer * ADDY recognition from Rochester, N.Y., area unless otherwise noted
-
Interests:new media, interactive media, digital imaging, typography, creative writing, photography, travel and tourism, journalism, photojournalism, performing arts, film
-
Photos
-
Posts
- May 10, 13
What is poetry, if not chemistry?
When a neuroscience professor at Oberlin College opened his course with the poem, "The brain is wider than the sky," by Emily Dickinson, Cori had a reaction.
“I started to see the links between neuroscience and poetry,” says the Rochester native. “And how the mind works with what's going on around us.”
Here, Cori reads at Poetry & Pie Night in Rochester last summer. Cori's work has been featured in some of the most respected literary journals around, including Denver Quarterly, The American Poetry Journal, and Atlas Review. After Cori graduated from Oberlin in 2004, she went on to Cornell University, where she completed her MFA in Poetry in early 2008. She stayed on at Cornell for two more years to teach undergraduate writing.
While there, Cori proposed a topic inspired by her interest in the intersection between art and science. She call it Literature in the Lab.
“You can pitch your own original section of a writing seminar, and they accepted it,” she says.
“It came about because of the types of students I was getting in my classes. People in other fields—in research and science—also need to be able to communicate successfully to others. I wanted it to be useful to them.”
When Cori later joined SUNY Geneseo's English department as Visiting Assistant Professor, she brought the concept with her. And the subject has blossomed.
“I'm pitching next year for it to become a 200- or 300-level Medical Humanities course,” she says. “I'm working to adapt it into a full-blown, cross-disciplinary course between biology and literature.”
The campus isn't the only place where Cori sees the emergence of new ways to view poetry. Since returning to the Rochester area, she's noticed glimmers of a poetry scene full of fresh voices—and audiences.
“It's growing,” she says. “I'm seeing smaller gatherings of different types of people. Places that are less expected environments for poetry readings, like a loft or a backyard. That makes it more accessible to a different kind of audience in Rochester.”
In fact, she'll be reading at one of those spots this Saturday.
As a poet, Cori tends to work in batches.
“I did a big batch in January, and I just wrote my first piece since then,” she says.
She also likes to take her time.
“I tend to write a trillion drafts,” she says, meaning roughly 20. “There's an initial burst, and then I return to it. It could be something I jot down someplace.”
And she saves everything.
“I'm such a slow writer, that nothing ever really gets scrapped. I never throw anything away.”
Her poems are inspired by imagery that comes up in the midst of research and random finds. “Things that happen in the moment,” she says.
“Image is how I find my way in,” she adds. “I never start a poem unless I have a first image that I want to write about, and that gets me excited.”
And her poetry reciprocates, with richly visual language. It's a written equivalent to tapestries, anatomical renderings, and haunted hay rides.
Expect that vivid adventure when you pick up her first book, whose working title is This Coalition of Bones, coming in Winter 2014 from Kore Press. It's divided into sections, each with a loose theme. Memory. Suburbia. And, of course, science.
“I'm obsessed with the beautiful freak,” Cori says. “Those elements of the universe that aren't often seen as beautiful.”
But when the right poet is watching, they are.
See more: From the Fishouse magazine, Blackbird journal
Say hi: cwinrock@gmail.com and on Facebook
* * *
If you're in the Rochester, N.Y., area, you can hear Cori read in person at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 11, at The Yards, 50 Public Market. She and two other poets will share their work as part of the Deep Fried Poetry Series, presented by The Bakery, an online literary magazine. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
* * *
Here's a taste of Cori's work, originally published in Blackbird journal in 2010.
Instructions for Dematerializing
for the disinterment of Harry Houdini1
Feet Locked in Stocks
but your departed
wife has been cautiously levitating
nested escapeboxes out
from each other, one at a time: sleight of
matryoshka hand: : :
You became the dreamt
trapeze husband, the properly applied
force of a shoestring. O handcuffed
secret, our unrevealer, how many locks
you’ve left for us to pop
open to find2
Suspended in Midair from Ankles
the mind refuses to exhume
your illusion, containers of glass-
and-steel: the body lifted
right out of the body; earth
left open as an eye
socket after
the coffin is pulled: : :
Tell us—will your bones
be laced, lined
with arsenic and the old
deep-believings of séanced
revenge? will we uncover fistfuls
of sleeping-dirt, the incessant
chill of wanting left
wanting—answers
within answers within3
Lowered into Tank Overflowing
with water your wife wrote
letters, dissolved: Dear
Ehrich, Dear Prince of Air,
Master of Cards, Dear Manacled: undid each one until dis-
apparition, until she reached
right through the din of tricks,
of history, of death, into dear de-
materialized, dear my lovely
who-do-I-need
but you - Apr 12, 13
Some artists are inspired by nature. Or politics. Or history. Reenah's muse? Her son, Jahmal. In a way, her art grew up with her son. And in a play she's currently starring in at Rochester's GeVa Theatre, art imitates life with perfect symmetry.
When Jahmal entered public school in Rochester, something was missing from the experience. So Reenah filled the void herself.
“The big push for me was I wanted my child to have a good experience growing up here,” says the Rochester native, U.S. Army veteran, and RIT grad.
“I was a writer first. It was more of a private thing that I did until my adult life,” says Reenah Golden, a teaching artist from Rochester who returned to the arts as a way to enrich her own son's education. Today. she's a two-time New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award winner.“I started doing poetry and drama with the kids. Shortly after that, I quit my corporate job so I could be more involved with my son and started developing a new career. My work in school with youth has grown up with him,” she says.
As Jahmal grew, Reenah's work as a teaching artist developed, too. She followed her son to School of the Arts—a high school for the visual and performing arts in the city school district.
There, she created Slam High, a team-based poetry program for English class that cultivated spoken-word artists who would be fit to compete and perform on a national level.
In 2008, Slam High team of poets competed for, and won, a national title. That same year, it was featured in an HBO documentary series, Brave New Voices, from the name of a national association of similar programs.
Since then, spoken-word programs have been introduced throughout Rochester city schools.
“There's spoken word and slam poetry in almost every program in Rochester,” Reenah says. “It didn't exist before Slam High.”
Today, Jahmal is 18 and a sophomore at The New School, pursuing a dual degree in fashion photography and literary studies. His passion for the arts has blossomed.
So has Reenah's. Alongside Delores Radney, she went on to co-found Rochester-based Kuumba Consultants, an arts-in-education agency that matches artists of color with youth agencies and schools to enrich their arts and cultural programming. She also teaches and lectures at high schools, colleges, and cultural institutions around the country.
While she still calls Rochester home, Reenah's busy schedule means most of her year is spent on the road.
Reenah takes on 16 roles to perform "No Child," a play running through April21 at GeVa Theatre Center in Rochester.But at the moment, she's back in town to take center stage in a one-woman show—and it's a fitting extension of her passion for arts in education.
In No Child, by Nilaja Sun, now playing at GeVa Theatre, Reenah takes on a staggering 16 roles—from teacher to student to parent to janitor—that each show the power of the arts in education. Particularly the difference one great teacher can make with her students.
A key character in the story is a tenth-grade Bronx public school teacher trying to inspire underachieving students by having them put on a play of their own.
“No Child is my story,” Reenah says. “It's my life. Right down to the classroom experiences. That's really what attracted me to this play. Some friends of mine who were teaching artists came to me and said 'we really want to bring you into this play.' Shortly after that, I realized they were looking to me to perform.”
The range of ethnicity and ages she takes on are as varied as the characters themselves. And all of them depend on Reenah's talent for transforming from person to person as the story progresses. No costume changes, either.
No Child first opened off-Broadway in 2006 and won an Obie Award. It was first staged in Rochester in fall 2009, when Reenah first starred in the production. She's since performed the play in several cities, and the production has evolved. The current run at GeVa will have a different aesthetic. But the same great story.
“It's going to be a prettier show,” Reenah says. “I have my stage manager and lighting director I work with that I brought in. They're doing some really special things. We have a set this time, but it's still minimal. The aesthetics of the play have changed. It also changes based on what's happening with current events, there's a different energy based on some of the issues going on today.”
Art grows up with artists. Good reason for applause.
See more: Reenah at GeVa
Say hi: on Twitter and on Facebook
* * *
No Child, a play by Nilaja Sun starring Reenah Golden, runs at GeVa Theatre Center's Nextstage through April 21, 2013. The play is 65 minutes without intermission, and is recommended for ages 13 and up. For showtimes and ticket information, visit gevatheatre.org
- Jan 10, 13
There's something about a deeply flawed protagonist that tickles our brains. A mixed past. Dark secrets. Incredible gifts. Horrible failings. Pursuer and pursued.
The magic formula of the modern TV hit? A morally ambiguous hero. It's no wonder David helped craft such a figure for Cinemax. He's not without his own dilemmas. More on that in a moment.
If you're from Rochester, you may have heard or read by now that one of our own is a rising star with a TV series premiering Friday. The show is Banshee, a story about a man hiding in plain sight in a small Pennsylvania town. Hiding from his past. Redemption and peace just beyond his grasp.
DavidDavid co-wrote the series with writing partner Jonathan Tropper. But it's been years coming. Just like David's own career.
He knew he wanted to be a writer early. A high school English class at Rochester's McQuaid Jesuit High School captured his imagination—grueling as the curriculum may have been.
“This teacher had ten typed pages of 'sacred errors,'” David says. “And as soon as he found one in your paper, he would stop reading and give it back to you and write 'Sacred' at the top. He wouldn't grade it until you went back and found what the 'sacred error' was.”
He took that first lesson with him to Georgetown University, and later Columbia University, where he completed his MFA—and got a taste for writing plays in one of the most important courses of his college years.
“Every week I would write a two-page scene and be paired with a different director,” he says of the play-writing class. “It would be cast with equity actors in the city, and I'd see my work up on its feet. I learned in about six weeks what makes dramatic writing suck.”
This lesson stayed with him, too. After college, David taught at a private school in Vermont. And continued writing. Early novels languished in a desk drawer. He returned to Rochester to teach high school English part time. And continued writing.
But it was the time spent living in New York City during grad school that finally sparked a pivotal collection of short stories, set in a dreamlike Manhattan.
“I saw these beautiful old apartment buildings on the Upper West Side,” David says. “I was blown away by these almost mystically beautiful buildings. So I created one.”
He eventually landed a book deal to stitch together his short fiction into a novel, Kissing in Manhattan, which went on to be a New York Times Bestseller in 2001.
Success was fleeting. After a second novel, Sweet and Vicious, David endured a years-long dry spell. But his sophomore effort had captured the attention of another writer, Jonathan Tropper—who ultimately became David's writing partner on Banshee.
The show's earned some solid reviews, but whatever the outcome, this is far from the final chapter in David's story.
This year, his third book, The Dark Path, will debut. The memoir recounts David's early pursuit of the Roman Catholic priesthood.
“I came pretty close,” he says. “It cost me a relationship in college. It was a pretty awful time.”
His spiritual journey began years before, as a teen.
“There's this one path in the woods behind my parents' house, and that's where I found God when I was young,” David says. “I didn't experience God that much in church, but when I was out in this dark-but-charmed wonderland, that's where I would pray. Despite the fact that people talk about seeing the light, I found God in the darkness.”
Darkness. Light. Peril. Peace. Like the unlikely hero in Banshee, this guy has faced demons and dilemmas all his own. Now settled, successful, with a wife and kids and a place to call home, David may be more at peace than the outlandish people he invents.
Still, there's no doubt his own character will be developing for years to come.
Lucky us.
See more: davidschickler.com
Say hi: send David a message
* * *
Banshee premieres on Cinemax at 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11. Watch the trailer:
- Jan 06, 13
He's worked with moving images for most of his career. From animation to video to the painstaking process of post-production. By day, this Rochester producer, director, and editor helps commercial clients tell their stories in his position at Post Central, a local production house. By evening, weekend, or vacation, he tells stories of people on the edges of America. The oppressed. The imprisoned. The dying.
A three-time Emmy winner, Dave Marshall moved to Rochester in 1978 to study photography at RIT. He stuck around to complete his masters in computer graphics, first working part time at Rochester's ABC television network affiliate WOKR (now 13WHAM). Social justice is Dave's passion as a documentary filmmaker. It's taken him on a journey with aging gay rights activists, migrant workers, and Great Lakes sailors. And this three-time Emmy winner's latest project: a film about a high-school course in connecting with the terminally ill in hospice.
Death and Other Signs of Life takes place at The Harley School, a private Rochester K-12 grade institution. The film follows a small group of students through the process of serving in hospice care. The program, created and run by Harley educator Bob Kane, is in its eleventh year.
“The film is about beginnings and endings,” Dave says. “What transfers between generations. What's meaningful in life. When you see the relationship they have with people in hospice, there's a wonderful transfer of wisdom that goes both ways.”
The program teaches kids about a profound moment in someone else's life. But there's more.
“It's also a chance for students to look at their own lives,” Dave says. “And think about what they want their lives to be about. These kids get it. They absorb it. And it becomes part of the texture of who they are.”
Students learn that sometimes the best gift of all is just being there.
“Somehow, we believe that we have to have a purpose,” Dave says. “The truth is, at the end of the experience, they understand that 'my presence is enough.' That moment is a wonderful experience for everybody.”
After the first year of filming, Dave and his team decided to capture one more academic year. The film is slated to debut in 2014.
Producing ambitious stories takes money—often in short supply. On a recent project about The 1971 Attica prison uprising (trailer below), Dave and his co-producer turned to crowd-funding site kickstarter.com, raising $15,668, narrowly surpassing their goal.
“There isn't a lot of money for pre-pro, research, production,” he says. “You have to get the film to a point where people can see what you're doing, so you have something to show to apply for grants.”
Owning some of your own equipment helps. So does working at a post-production studio.
“They're very generous with me and let me use stuff if I need it. None of this would happen if I didn't have the resources I have access to.”
Local film-making talent has been generous, too.
“We have a very strong film community here,” Dave says. “I'm lucky that I can tap into that.”
But when you make a real difference, you often get more than you give.
The students Dave is chronicling at Harley understand that, too. He recounts one student who washed a resident's feet and put lotion on them. She passed away later that night.
“It was his willingness to touch. He moved so far in this year to get to the point where he could do that. He made her last moments that much more comfortable,” Dave says.
“That's the gift.”
See more: at Dave's production company, Blue Sky Project
Say hi: on LinkedIn
* * *
Dave teamed up with co-producer Christine Christopher to make Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica, airing on WXXI this February and being screened at historian conferences through the spring. The film takes a critical look at New York State politics at the time of the 1971 Attica Correctional Facility uprising.
- Sep 13, 12
He's served his country. Suffered from cocaine addiction. Survived cancer.
There are a lot of past lives packed into this guy. And some of them haven't been pretty. But today, Steve happily continues his family's long history in the art world, as owner of SC Fine Art Gallery.
Steve's new 1,400-square-foot gallery space at the Hungerford Complex is part of a former industrial facility.The nephew of the late painter Ramon Santiago, Steve has never put brush to canvas. But he knows the business of art—and the art of business. His gallery, recently relocated to the Hungerford complex, is filled with prints of his famous uncle's work.
It's been a long road to the Hungerford.
Steve served in the military from 1987 to 1990, and came away with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Once back home, he went into business for himself, later going to work for his uncle's studio. He eventually became Ramon's agent and manager, and ran his gallery.
After Ramon died in 2001, Steve acquired his uncle's estate, created SC Fine Art, and began representing other international artists.
SteveBut in 2005, a series of setbacks brought him to his knees.
“Things started getting chaotic. I spread myself too thin,” he says. “I was going through a divorce. I had all the trappings of success—cars, money, country club membership. I was used to success and I felt like everything I touched had to be a home run.”
He turned to cocaine. By the time he was arrested on drug charges, he was a full-blown addict—and everything he'd worked for was slipping away. Along with his life.
“In the back of my mind, I knew this was gonna kill me,” he says.
He went through the Veterans Court and landed in rehab at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center.
A recent exhibition at the gallery included Rochester artists Christine Knoblauch and Paul Knoblauch, an accomplished husband and wife who are each sculptors in their own right.“They saved my life twice,” he says.
The second came last year—but this time, it wasn't drugs.
Steve was well into his recovery from addiction and thinking about opening a new gallery. He'd moved in with his ex-wife while getting his plans together. But in May 2011, there came another blow.
“I got hit with stage-three prostate cancer,” Steve says.
He fought back. Came through treatment a survivor. And by the fall of last year, his gallery was born.
Artists. Veterans. Movers and shakers. Misfits and addicts. Steve brings their worlds together. Inspires them. Energizes them. Makes them laugh.
Because they know he keeps it real.
“I stopped faking shit a long time ago,” Steve says. “What you see is what you get.”
A fine signature.
See more: scfineartgallery.com
Say hi: sargento@me.com, on Facebook and on Twitter
* * *
While Ramon Santiago may be best known for his sensual women and whimsical clowns, one of his most important pieces holds a different kind of significance.
Titled “Never Again,” the piece is a tribute veterans, and includes the caption, “Never again should one generation of veterans forget another.”
Ramon—a Viet Nam vet—created the painting in 1985 after being approached by the Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester. Prints of the painting were sold to raise money for the center.
Steve, who belongs to the Rochester Regional Veterans Council, is developing a similar program. He aims to help veterans hospitals nationwide through a website where people will be able to purchase prints and cards of “Never Again” and designate which facility will receive a donation on their behalf.
No launch date has been set.
- Jul 05, 12
Awed by a Tutankhamen exhibit in New York City many years ago, Scott now incorporates elements of the Boy King's artifacts into pieces like this one, from the Gem series. The wood is inlaid with sterling silver, malachite, mother-of-pearl, onyx, lapis, goldstone, and other elements that reflect the color pallette of the famous pharaoh's tomb. The "fabric" draped over the piece is actually made of wood, carved from a solid piece of sycamore.A giant metal earth suspended above a corporate lobby. Shiny black and green abstract figures. And a table fit for a pharaoh.
This sculptor and furniture maker's studio is perhaps the only place these things might ever coexist.
King Tutankhamen would approve. Nearly 40 years ago, an exhibit of artifacts from the pharaoh's tomb so captivated Scott that he incorporated those ornate details into his work.
In his Gems collection, for instance, a trompe l'oeil (or “trick of the eye”) detail makes the wood veneer surface look as if it's been pulled back to reveal hidden treasures and intricate patterns underneath.
“I push veneering to new limits,” says the 2010 Grand Prize winner of the International Veneer Tech Craftsman Challenge.
For 36 years, this Rochester artist has been building treasures large and small out of wood, precious metal, glass, and gemstones. Originally from Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., Scott now lives on the banks of the Genesee near Rochester Institute of Technology, his alma mater.
ScottThere he earned a degree in environmental design from the School for American Crafts. But the skills that have sustained him as a craftsman have been largely self-taught. In fact, Scott has introduced a few techniques to the field himself. Wrote a book, too.
Over the years, his furniture and art have attracted the likes of Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Saatchi & Saatchi Rowland, and other corporate clients for whom he's designed fixtures and furnishings. He also has a loyal following among private collectors.
This 54” bench from Scott's “Greenwave” series is made from dyed domestic red oak.His current 2000-square-foot studio is housed in a former post office on Cumberland Street in downtown Rochester. It's also on a much smaller scale than in years past.
“I used to have 10,000 with up to 10 employees,” Scott says. “Recently I scaled way back and for the first time in my life, I am working alone. I bring in help when I need to.”
The space may be new, but he's filled it with 30 years' worth of supplies.
“When I scaled down, I kept the cream of the crop in equipment and supplies,” Scott says.
“Texas Tea”—Carved from poplar with a polychrome finish, the 84-inch-tall totems are inspired by female forms and relationships between them.Those materials include some of the 100 different veneers he displays on his website, from Avidore to Sassafras Ziricote.
Professionally, he seems to have done everything from A to Z as well. He once owned and ran an an architectural fiberglass company. He work with artist Wendell Castle. And he's served on the product development team of Avon, N.Y.-based Robal Glass.
But its veneer where his artistic roots run deepest. And they do run deep.
“I'm a third generation artist, this is all I've ever known,” Scott says.
He's paid it forward to a new crop of artists, too.
“Over the years I have brought in a number of RIT students,” he says. “Taught them everything I know. Most have gone on to their own successful careers. I am very proud of that.”
Though he no longer hires legions of RIT students to work with him on projects, Scott says he's considering hiring a part-time assistant. If you know somebody, send Scott a note.
Scott's next big project?
“Veneering nudes,” he says.
“This latest piece is a culmination of many disciplines that I've worked on for the last 36 years,” says Scott, who also photographs nude figures.
“Working from a cast, my hope is to do an entire human figure, emerging through a sheet or panel.”
Pharaoh would approve.
“Advanced Veneering and Alternative Techniques” (Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.) is Scott's 2011 manual for those interested in his craft. It includes techniques he developed himself.
See more: scottgrove.com
Say hi: on Facebook
* * *
If you're in the Rochester, N.Y., area, more than 65 pieces of Scott's work are on exhibit through July 26, 2012 at the Arts & Cultural Council Gallery, 277 N. Goodman St. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but to mark the citywide First Friday gallery night, the exhibit is open 5 to 9 p.m. July 6. An artist's reception takes place 4 to 9 p.m. July 12. For details, call (585) 473-4000 or visit ArtsRochester.org.
- Jun 21, 12
“I am Star Trek” was a sendup of the original TV series, Erica (right) says. And it was as much about the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry. “There was as much drama off camera as there was on camera,” she says. After performing in the London premiere, Erica went with the show to Edinburgh, where it was a monster hit.She left for London long ago, on a quest to break into one of the world's great theatre scenes.
But after a decade of success as an award-winning producer and actor across the pond (including a stint on the starship Enterprise), the Rochester native is back in town. And she's leading a new effort to put the city on the map—the world map—for its performing arts.
Sure, Rochester already has a full plate of festivals every year. Many of them famous in their own right. Jazz. Film. Lilacs. But what's been missing is a showcase of all the arts combined, from theatre to music to visual.
Enter Erica Fee.
She's the force behind the new Rochester Fringe Festival, which makes its debut this September. The term “fringe festival” originated from independent shows that sprang up around the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland—a festival Erica knows and loves.
Erica made a name for herself in London as a producer, with shows like “Bicycle Men,” which starred Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, which also starred Rochester native and Second City alum Joe Liss.Shortly after graduating from the University of Rochester in 1999, Erica moved to London, England, to study acting at Arts Ed London, where she received her MA. She got an agent, started getting parts in shows, and starred in some TV commercials in the U.K.
“I started acting in London theatre, did a lot of commercials. In 2001, I was cast in a show that went to the Edinburgh Fringe, called 'I am Star Trek.'”
“That show was so much fun. There were nine of us and we played over 70 characters. And it had come out of the New York Fringe.”
Erica went on to produce shows for the Edinburgh Fringe. That first-hand experience with one of the world's most popular performing arts festivals has served her well this year as she leads the charge to launch one in Rochester.
But her journey home began in 2009, by way of Chicago.
On her way back to London from the Windy City, Erica stopped in Rochester for a visit. She had a chance to check out the Rochester International Jazz Festival for the first time. She was blown away.
“It was fantastic,” she says. “And I thought 'wouldn't it be nice if we had something like this for all of the performing arts?'”
Serendipity—and some local friends—connected her with the fledgling effort to launch a new performing arts festival in Rochester.
“I was asked to come back to head this up,” Erica says.
At first, she didn't plan to stay for good.
“I put all of my things in storage in the U.K.,” she says. “Then this idea took off and it's been so exciting—there's so much momentum,” she says.
By January 2011, Erica's return to Rochester was permanent.
Of all the places she thought she might settle—London, New York, Los Angeles—Rochester was never at the top of the list. But it's good to be home.
“I wish all Rochesterians would leave Rochester for a few years and come back,” she says.
Good advice. Of course, with Erica on the playbill, Rochester's going places, too.
EricaSee more: ericafeeproductions.com and rochesterfringe.com and the Rochester Fringe Festival on Facebook
Say hi: emf@ericafeeproductions.com and on Twitter
- May 02, 12
Yes, there are some things you just can't learn in school. This painter, glass artist, sculptor and jewelry designer is living proof.
“What surprises most people is that I am predominantly self taught,” Mark says. “I experiment with materials that interest me and use whatever knowledge I can glean from the internet or books. And—of course—happy accidents."
“Silent Partner”—Plasma-cut painted steel.But it's no accident that Mark, of Fairport, finds inspiration in everything he sees. After nearly going blind—twice—during treatment for illness, he has a new appreciation for feasting his eyes on the world around him.
“Just waking up and being able to see,” he says, “To live in the moment and express what I feel as my living. Every waking moment, every sound, every person.”
Mark's work has been shown and sold at several local spots—most recently Tap and Mallet in the city's South Wedge. He's also had his art featured at galleries in Provincetown, Mass., and in Naples and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Still, he's a Rochester-made artist, through and through.
“I've lived here nearly 30 years. I got my start working at Gateway Poster and Framing,” he says of the shop formerly on Goodman Street. “My first show was there, and I sold three pieces.”
MarkAfter that, he opened a studio across the street at Village Gate.
“About 200 square feet, a few racks of hand-painted t-shirts, a small easel and a sales counter,” he says of his first space. “All located under the stairs.”
“Martian Sunrise”—Red neon and powder coated steel wall sculpture.But his first big break happened at a restaurant, in the late 1980s.
“Grammy's restaurant hired me to design and paint their entire place,” he says. “I painted everything from their walls to employees' uniforms.”
Mark aptly decorated the space with wall sculptures made from the innards of pianos, sheet music and dried roses. And it was music to one collector's eyes.
“That's where Louis Perticone found me and started buying my work,” he says.
Perticone, owner of Artisan Works on Blossom Road in Rochester, continues to be a major patron. The vast gallery is also where Mark's found a studio from which to work (about 20 times the size of that under-the-stairs space from the early years).
“Koi Pond”—Large-scale painting on wood. Koi represent peace and tranquility to Mark, he says. He has a tattoo of one on his back. This piece now belongs to Mark's longtime friend and patron Rita Zizza, of Massachusetts.These days, Mark's also working on helping other local artists and small businesses demonstrate the creative process to the public. He's planning an art festival where visitors can come and see people doing their craft—from painting and sculpture to food, beer and coffee.
Ahhhh, coffee. It's both a favorite elixir and a consistent subject for the artist. Two reasons a sizable collection of his work is about to be shown at Joe Bean Coffee Roasters (event listing below). The show will include painted windows, large canvas paintings, metal sculpture—even a photo wall of scenes Mark has shot from the cafe itself over the past year.
Paint. Metal. Glass. Photography. Why so many different forms?
“I have a lot to say. One medium can't hold all of it,” he says.
But a cozy little coffee shop sure can.
See more: www.markgroaningstudio.com
Say hi: markgroaningstudio@gmail.com
* * *
If you're in the Rochester area, Mark's work now lines the walls of Joe Bean Coffee Roasters, 1344 University Ave., where a reception will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, May 4. The event marks the coffee company's one-year anniversary at the space, and coincides with the monthly, citywide First Friday art party. Mark will be on hand to greet the public.
- Apr 28, 12
Left to right, Walnut salad from Pittsford restaurant Label 7; Brother Wease, host of The Wease Show on WFXF-FM 95.1; and high-end home décor are among the subjects Matt has tackled for Rochester Magazine.
Gourmet salads, public figures, and bathroom sinks have never looked so good.
This freelance photographer has been spreading his wings in Rochester for the past year, churning out vivid images of local people, places and things.
A poster for the 2012 United Way of Greater Rochester campaign, featuring a photo by Matt.Matt, who lives in Brighton, grew up in these parts. After grad school at Syracuse University, he cut his teeth in the photo biz in New York City.
“I moved to New York to work as an assistant to some great photographers,” he says, mentioning Matthew Jordan Smith, Stephen Wilkes, and Squire Fox among them.
Matt came back to Rochester, first working full time at the Democrat and Chronicle, and later turning to full-time freelance photography.
These days, he shares a slick, renovated studio at the Hungerford with fellow photographer Rich Paprocki and interior designer Jason Longo.
Matt's photographic subjects change from week to week. Sometimes editorial. Sometimes commercial.
You'll often see Matt's photo credit on the pages of Rochester Magazine. He also works on the biannual magazine for United Way of Greater Rochester, as well as occasional work for national pubs looking for local shots.
“One day I’m shooting a catalog for a golf company. Next I’m shooting portraits for a magazine. Next, it's the home of an interior designer,” he says.
MattThe diversity keeps him fresh—and busy.
“Being in a smaller market, I find it vital to adapt and be willing to shoot many different things,” Matt says.
Definitely not actual size: A pork chop from Max of Eastman Place, shot for a Rochester Magazine feature.He's photographed a long list of famous folks, from Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy to furniture designer Wendell Castle to choreographer Garth Fagan and supermarket supercouple Danny and Stency Wegman. Speaking of which, Matt says his happiest moments are spent with food.
“That would be my favorite subject,” he says. “I like to cook it, eat it, play with it—and shoot it.”
When he's not behind the camera (or chowing down after a shoot), Matt turns to other photographers' work for fresh inspiration.
“I'm constantly reading and looking at magazines, ads, annual reports—anything I can get my hands on,” he says.
“You can get a lot of great ideas looking at others' work.”
Amen to that.
See more: www.mattwittmeyer.com, and on Facebook
Say hi: studio@mattwittmeyer.com
A portrait of Finger Lakes Distilling co-owners of Brian McKenzie (left) and Thomas Earl McKenzie (no relation), shot for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
- Feb 23, 12
The distance from brutalized girl to loving mom is wider than one page. Rachel would know. She's been both. And she's filled the space between with poetry.
You can hear it when her voice glows warm with wisdom. Or rage. Or love.
“Reading aloud brings new blood,” says the mother of five, who lives in Rochester's Maplewood neighborhood.
“Many topics I thought were scarred over, often reopen when I'm working them out for the page, and then reopen when I resurrect them for the stage,” Rachel says.
She usually waits until there's a safe distance from an experience before she writes about it. Still, the emotions are never far from her voice when she reads.
“I get emotional when reading my poetry,” she says, “and I usually don't rehearse or over-read them, so they feel new again when we meet onstage.”
And sometimes, she breaks her own rule about waiting, and writes while the feelings are still raw and fresh.
“Those are the poems that choke me up when I'm reading them to an audience.”
RachelChoked up or not, her confessional work reveals a deep, dark well of courage. That's clear from her first published collection, Pink Elephant (Cypher Books, 2009), which captures her fearless look back through life's chapters. The critically acclaimed book is taught in MFA programs around the country.
Rachel's work as an instructor has taken her around the country, too—and helped others heal along the way. She taught poetry through the Healing Arts Program at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for four years. Today, she teaches creative writing in housing projects, needle exchanges, high schools, hospitals and universities.
“Teenagers, drug addicts, the mentally ill. I get along best with underdogs,” Rachel says. “I don't trust people who haven't struggled. I can't relate to people who have it easy.”Reviewer Barbara Jane Reyes, writing for The Poetry Foundation, says Pink Elephant “illuminates for us how the process of survival, which she has taken into her own hands, is a lifelong, ugly, and non-miraculous one.”
Nothing's come easy for her—including success. But she's found it anyway. The same year her book was published, Rachel was named 2009 Women of the World poetry slam champion, after nearly a decade on the circuit. Slam poetry—in which writers read and are judged—draws eighty teams of poets from cities around the U.S., who compete in the National Poetry Slam.
Between raising a family and traveling to teach and share, where's the space for writing?
“There are only two months in the year when I write,” Rachel says. “And when I do, I write about 20 to 30 poems in that time.”
She works after the kids have gone to bed.
“I write between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.,” she says. “Sometimes I listen to music. The band Dark Dark Dark was on repeat while I wrote the final poems for Pink Elephant.”
In the end, it's not the time of day or the soundtrack that makes things happen. It's simpler than that.
“My best work has always come from me sitting down and just writing,” she says.
“The words are already in my head, waiting for their turn.”
See more: rachelmckibbens.com
Say hi: rachelmckibbens@gmail.com
* * *
Rachel got her start at an open mic program in 2001 in her native California. Since then, she's made a name for herself as a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow and a poetry slam champion. She's also appeared on HBO's Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and in the documentary, Slam Planet: War of the Words, which premiered at the SXSW film festival in 2006.
Below, she shares "Central Park, Mother's Day" at inkSLAM 09 in Los Angeles. (Adult language)
-
Recent Tracks
- Phillip Herford - Monster 3 by Phillip Herford
- Phillip Herford - Monster 2 by Phillip Herford
- Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) by Eurythmics
- Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) by Eurythmics
- Taxi Ride by Tori Amos
- The Wrong Band by Tori Amos
- Fat Slut by Tori Amos
- Original Prankster by The Offspring
- Special by Garbage
- Giants by Sponge
Tori AmosSealStevie WonderMorrisseyINXSStingMadonnaPrinceCollective SoulRed Hot Chili PeppersDuran DuranU2The CranberriesKaki KingPearl JamJohn HammondMedeski, Martin and WoodBeckHorace SilverVenus HumEurythmicsAudioslaveSadeJanet JacksonAlanis MorissetteLivePrimusGeorge MichaelDead Can DanceTerence Trent D'ArbyTears for FearsRay LaMontagneMiles DavisAlice in ChainsP.M. DawnThe SmithsTalking HeadsIncubusThe BanglesSpongeMobyCrackerFiona AppleThe Go-Go'sHarry Connick, Jr.BushLondon Symphony OrchestraSilverchairNatalie Merchant- 10 plays
- 9 plays
- 9 plays
- 8 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 7 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 6 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- Desert Rose by Sting5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
- 5 plays
