Marie Weichman was born in Wyoming and raised in Texas.  Since earning an MFA from Texas Tech University, she has been included in numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States as well as international exhibits in China and Peru.  Weichman spent the summer of 2007 in Jingdezhen, China as a resident at the Pottery Workshop and Experimental Sculpture Factory and was included among Ceramic Monthly’s 2008 Emerging Artists.  She is currently on faculty in the Art Department at Olympic College in Bremerton, WA.

During her stay in Paducah, she plans to work with flexible casting materials such as rubber silicones that are cast with an embossed surface in sections.  Each section will be part of a larger mixed media construction that includes stitching, adhesives, and other materials.  The fabric will be constructed in a way that can be hung from the ceiling creating an intimate space through which visitors can walk, such as a long hallway.  Lighting from the outside rather than the inside of the space will be important.  She plans to have a completed installation for the end of her stay that can be exhibited before she leaves.

Ubuntu is an African word what means, roughly, “I am what I am because of who we all are”. It is also an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other.

For this project, 12 artists will do a piece an a slice of a tree trunk. We will individually paint them, carve them … or whatever… and on August 11th we will connect the different pieces together in an sculpture at Etcetera Coffeehouse, behind the labyrinth.

Join us throughout the day as we construct our collaborative sculpture! We will begin at 6 am and work until it is finished.

Come to see how 12 artists work together to make one cohesive sculpture with pieces that each artist created.

Please forgive us if we take a break during the hottest part of the day.

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Niki Litts is an artist from North Carolina who works in many media.

She has a very strong background in non profit community arts management and is committed to the mission of these types of organizations. A community with a thriving arts scene is a vibrant healthy community. As an artist and as an arts administrator, she finds it paramount to share, facilitate and engage. This residency is of particular interest to her, primary because of Paducah’s success with using the arts as an economic stimulus. She feels that getting the opportunity to spend time among the people who helped with that transition would be an honor.

Niki works primarily in 2D with watercolor and graphite, generating realistic portraits, then constructing a sort of surrealist dreamscape around them to give the viewer some semblance of who the character in the piece might be. Recently, she has developed sketches for a series of 2D works that push 2D boundaries and are significantly more tactile than pervious pieces. These works will be her focus during her time in Paducah.

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Rick Miller is a documentary filmmaker from Toronto, Canada.

During his residency he will be editing his documentary, The Joy in Rage. This film is a collaboration with Raging Asian Women, a unique taiko drumming group based in Toronto. They are one of several groups in North America who are adapting an ancient Japanese musical tradition for modern audiences. You can read more about their philosophy on their website.

His filmmaking approach is based on a collaborative model where the subjects of the film share creative input with the documentary director. Is this way, the musicians have control over how they are represented on screen and are, in turn, able to explore what is for them a new medium for artistic expression.

The Joy in Rage represents Rick’s thesis project for a Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media. Upon completion of the project he will be entering the documentary into the festival circuit and will be searching for a broadcaster as well. The documentary will include an appropriate credit for the Paducah Arts Alliance.

While in Paducah, Rick will conduct a workshop on using video to document creative work. Through multiple hands-on sessions, individual artists will learn how to use whatever video and computer equipment they have on hand to make a short video demonstrating their artistic process and/or promoting their work that they in turn can utilize for promotional purposes or to support a grant application.

Originally published on iList Paducah.

It’s not every day that you meet someone in Tunisia and follow him back to Paducah. But that’s exactly what the gorgeous Swiss artist with the heartbreakingly charming French accent Corinne Spielewoy did. Spielewoy, originally from France, was in Tunisia earlier this year when she met LowerTown artist Paul Lorenz at an international art show.

“He told me about the Artist Relocation Program and that a new group, the Paducah Arts Alliance, had an artist-in-residence program,” Spielewoy says. “It sounded interesting, so I applied.”

Applied and accepted with great enthusiasm from LowerTown artists and residents, Spielewoy arrived in Paducah in November. She’s been staying at A.I.R. Studio, 621 Madison St., painting and recruiting artists for a group project. An introductory email to the neighborhood and a welcome party resulted in instant friendships. And before long, 15 artists accepted her artistic challenge.

Using the theme of communication, Spielewoy wanted to see what would happen if she created a piece of art and then two other artists created pieces in response. And then she wanted to have yet two more artists create pieces responding to those pieces — and so on, much like the childhood game of telephone.

The artists embraced the idea and have been working on the project for the past month. The result: Ripple Effect will open 4-7 p.m., Sunday, December 21, at Maiden Alley Cinema.

In addition, hottie writer Niaz Khadem created a piece he’ll read in response to the art, and several musicians have written songs. The performance part begins at 5 p.m.

The Paducah Arts Alliance that Spielewoy refers to is a group of LowerTown artists who are working together to fuel the creative energy among one another as well as to expose Paducah to emerging artists and innovative approaches to the creation of art.

One of the first projects the group put together was the 48-Hour Artists/Writers Lock-In in October. The artist-in-residence program is designed to attract artists of national and international reputation as well as emerging artists. The group also hosts collaborative art sessions and jam sessions with musicians. A.I.R. Studio has become PAA’s community arts center.

“We wanted the name Paducah to mean more in the art world and to entice people who are well-known artists to come here and create art,” says Freda Fairchild, multimedia artist. Fairchild, Lorenz, Teri Moore and Nikki D. May are the co-founders of PAA. “We want to make Paducah a good place to make art. It’s already a fantastic and unusual place and we want to make it more so.”

Reaching out to other artists is a critical part of that considering the often solitary nature of creating art.

“It’s easy to get caught up in your own stuff and only think of things in your own way,” says May, a mixed-media artist, graphic designer and iList Paducah designer. “Just the experience of working with people who do similar, but different things, is energizing. Artists in our community were leaving to lead workshops in other cities and had done artist-in-residency programs themselves, feeding off of each other’s creative energy. We wanted to bring that to Paducah.”

For more information on PAA’s programs and events, please send an email or visit the Web site!

With reporting by Erica Moore — thanks, Erica!