skylar Taylor
Skylar Taylor (b. 1998) is an artist working and currently residing in Alexandria, Louisiana. She has recently earned her Bachelor of Fine Art at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. She makes work mainly in photography exploring the landscapes and people she comes into contact with through home and travel. Skylar is right now in the beginning of what some would call a “gap year” as she plans to dedicate ‘20/‘21 (and perhaps the remaining years after, we’ll have to see how it goes) to adventure and opportunity.
My intention for my time at Elsewhere is to allow myself some... respite? This is the word that keeps coming to mind. I plan to give myself the opportunity to make some motion towards the ideas that have lived in my mind for a long time. And space to think and feel.
Kirk Glaser
Kirk Glaser’s poetry has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Nimrod, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Prizes include two Pushcart nominations. He teaches at Santa Clara University, where he is Director of Creative Writing and Faculty Advisor to the Santa Clara Review. He co-edited New California Writing 2013.
I will complete The House That Fire Built, a book of poetry telling the story of a family facing human and supernatural threats when they inherit a home in the Santa Cruz Mountains that burns to the ground after they move in. Their journey becomes one of karmic discoveries.
Sara St. Clair
is a small-town artist looking to combine her love for soft crafts with our need, as humans, for communal connection. She is curious about 21st century humanism and looks closely at social behaviors to gain a greater understanding of what it means to be a contemporary American.
“While at Elsewhere, I will use my time and space to uncover the ways in which soft craft materials and methods can be metaphors and models for the creation of communities from individuals—links from string.”
Kelly Huffman
Kelly Huffman is an essayist and nonfiction writer whose subjects range from family and travel to relationship and aging. She has ridden her bicycle across North America twice, and lived in Illinois, Arizona, Washington, Vermont and Morocco. Kelly’s work has appeared in Hobart, Seattle Metropolitan magazine and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
While at Elsewhere, I will be working on my memoir, Crossing the Divide—about long-distance bicycle travel and the conflict between independence and connection.
Bethany Hughes
Much of Bethany's story can be told by her passports. From her first one, featuring an ecstatic, straight banged 4 year old in a hawaiian print shirt, to the most recent one with every page overly full of stamps.
The past months of writing and reviewing at Elsewhere have clarified how travel based her narrative runs. Recognizing these last 14,000 miles of Her Odyssey as a continuation of a life based in global community, allows her story to weave wider and deeper than she'd known before sitting with the invitation of blank pages.
Sarah Greenleaf
Sarah Greenleaf is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her work focuses on resurrecting female pioneers in male-dominated industries and queering the romance genre. She has been published in a variety of literary magazines and holds an MFA in Film and Media from Temple University.
While at Elsewhere, Sarah will be developing a project about female filmmakers called Cinematriarchy. This endeavor will include zines, short videos, and an educational framework. She will also, as always, be writing and trying to memorize all the Tarot card meanings.
Rafael Lamas
Rafael Lamas is an orchestra conductor, a concert pianist, and full professor at Fordham University. He has performed throughout Europe and the United States and is a former recipient of the Rome Prize
I am currently working on a project exploring the relationship between music and literature, and the Elsewhere’s ecosystem will inspire my writing. I will also study the orchestral pieces I will conduct in the 2020-2021 season.
Jacob Docksey
Jacob Docksey is a visual artist currently residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born in 1994 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, Jacob attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout where he attained a B.F.A in Studio Art with a painting concentration. Initially dedicated to oil painting he also creates stop-motion animations with traditional mediums.
My plans for Elsewhere Studio are to make animations pulling inspiration from the recent events and changes of Minneapolis, the country, and the globe, as well as enjoy the outdoors and beautiful town of Paonia by painting and recording sounds around town with a field recorder.
Abigail chabitnoy
Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. She was a 2016 Peripheral Poets fellow and her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. Most recently, she was the recipient of the Witter Bynner Funded Native Poet Residency at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO, and has guest-lectured at Colorado State University and Denver University. She is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak.
Marian Pham
Marian Pham is an illustrator, painter, and writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has a BFA in Illustration from California College of the Arts, studied at the Academy of the Arts University, and abroad in South Korea at Hongik University. Marian is currently exploring Earth conscious projects.
I aim to complete my first comic’s first draft during my month at Elsewhere. The story is based on Vietnam’s creation myth and the myth of the Four Holy Beasts. Readers will follow Phaye’s heroic journey to restore harmony and balance to an unstable and dying world.
Jamie Lynn Burgess
Jamie Lynne Burgess is a writer originally from New England and currently based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She studied memoir and personal essay with the late Nobel laureate Peter Liotta, and continues to write essays and fiction. In addition, she is a Louisa May Alcott scholar.
Jamie will be finalizing a novel manuscript about climate change refugees from the Marshall Islands. Many of us leave home, and there is a thin thread that calls us back to the land where we were raised. Who are you, if that land no longer exists on Earth? The novel is told from the perspective of both humans and island.
James Sylvester
James Sylvester is an American artist living and making work in Portland, Maine. In 2014, he moved from Connecticut to Portland, Maine seeking a stronger artistic community and the natural beauty found in the woods, rivers and mountains of the pine tree state. In 2018, he received his B.F.A. in Printmaking with honors from Maine College of Art. In 2019, he became the youngest current member of Peregrine Press, the oldest non-profit printmaking cooperative in Maine where he continues to develop his craft through exploring relief printmaking and monoprint strategies. In addition to keeping up with his own artistic practice steeped in drawing and printmaking, he works as a team leader and artist mentor at The Art Department, a nonprofit leadership program for Maine artists with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
James Sylvester’s work employs modular linoleum carvings as tools for worldbuilding. By creating carvings of characters, landscapes, and objects that are designed to be printed in a variety of combinations with one and other, he allows the work to have a voice of its own that encourages the process of “playing” within his studio practice. The process of play allows him to make discoveries within his work about the subjects and themes that are represented in his carvings, often drawn directly from life. These carvings become akin to toys in a toy box that are used to weave a variety of stories and build innumerable scenes, much like the way a child may use a box of legos to create a variety of sculptures by putting the pieces together new ways. He is inspired by this method of thinking- where something is built without an instruction manual, without a predefined idea of what each piece will look like when its finished. This allows the space for improvisation and imagination to enter into each print he creates.
Blue Wallick
Blue Wallick is an illustrator living in Rhode Island. After receiving their BFA in printmaking from the University of Connecticut, they began freelancing and are currently solo-developing a video game. Viewing Blue’s work may be likened to reaching into your heart, clutching your inner child’s hand, and saying “I had no idea you were still there!”
Blue’s intention for their time spent at Elsewhere is to delve wholeheartedly into their printmaking process. Their monotypes are an autobiographical investigation, exploring narratives using both site-specific and personal imagery. They hope to create work that highlights experiences hidden within Paonia.
Kelly Kirshtner
Kelly Kirshtner uses time-based media (video, sound, and intermedia performance) to explore the life of the unseen or unknowable, and build out stories through improvisational techniques. These “field mediations” explore gaps between histories, or outside of sound-image sync. She is an Associate Professor of Film/Video at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Kelly’s intentions are “First, to be responsive to the patterns and rhythms of landscape and place, working towards a new experimental sound work (and/or field composition) using local materials as sonic instruments. Second, to engage with the future of my practice through experiments in imagery, writing, thinking and sound as groundwork for a new video.”
Raihana Omri
Originally from St. Louis, Raihana is a visual artist currently based in Seattle. She holds a BA in Studio Art from Colorado College, and has since studied at the Art Students League of New York and Gage Academy of Art. In her spare time, she loves karaoke, bowling, and crafternoons.
“At Elsewhere, I’m excited to paint daily, engage with a community of fellow artists, and create a cohesive body of work. I will embrace that special winter quality of light, advance my knowledge of color theory and composition, and explore the themes of stillness and quietude.”
Alex Gabriel
Originally from central Pennsylvania, Alexandra Gabriel completed their BFA degree at Maharishi University of Management in 2016 alongside a minor in Sustainable Living. Receiving their MFA from the University of Iowa in May, 2019 Alexandra currently lives and works in Iowa City
This will not be a material-based investigation. Instead, I am interested in how a literally different ecology will hold me accountable to ideas of genealogy, landscape, and identity within the work. The dream is to find new understandings through documenting my slippage between differing modes of art-making.
Jill Colt
Born in a small town in the Sunshine State, Jill Colt gleans inspiration from her own experience coming of age in sprawling suburbia. Since graduating in 2014 with her BFA, Colt has continued to create and exhibit her drawings in the Tampa Bay area in addition to teaching visual art.
"I intend to use my time at Elsewhere to create new work, experiment with different mediums, and critically engage with my peers. I plan to use my residency as space to play and cultivate ideas, working out any kinks in my process along the way."
Olivia Valente
Olivia Valiante is a 22-year-old artist originally from New Jersey. Her work is loose andexpressive despite being heavily line oriented. The goal of her work is to provide a visualrepresentation of the invisible movement and energy which exists around us.
“My intention during this residency is to further explore concepts surrounding how people interact with the space and environment that they are in, and in turn with each other. I hope to create more adventurous and kinetic works which better encompass my understanding of how we connect.”