Visual Arts Committee Brings “Embracing the Arts” to Orcas Center

"Embracing the Arts" at Orcas Center this month, courtesy of the Visual Arts Committee

By Pat Littlewood

If you have ever wondered how bronze sculptures are molded and then cast, or if you have had a hankering to explore the mysteries of oil painting, poetry, music or dance, your curiosity will be rewarded this coming Sunday afternoon, June 27th, when the Visual Arts Committee at Orcas Center will present a special program that touches on a broad spectrum of the visual, poetic and performing arts.  “Embracing the Arts” is a unique event celebrating the heart of art, music, dance and poetry on Orcas, featuring live performances by local and guest artists.

As you step through the lobby doors at the Center, you will be surrounded by the striking images of Jan Madill’s colorful abstract paintings, while you wend your way through the bronze sculpture garden of Mary Ellen Hogle’s powerful figures and shapes.   Beginning at 4:00 p.m. in the Madrona Room will be a program spotlighting poetry readings by poets Jill McCabe Johnson and Jennifer Brennock, classical music selections by the Bodalo Trio, followed by Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang of ETH-NOH-TEC, the San Francisco-based choreographers who have created an exciting new blend of kinetic storytelling and physical theater.

At the conclusion of these informal presentations, there will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions and engage in an interactive dialogue with the performers.   Also on display in the Madrona Room is this month’s selection of “On and Off the Wall” paintings and photographs by community artists.

A reception follows the hour-long program, and admission is free of charge or by donation.  What better way to wrap up a busy summer weekend that includes garden tours and various other festivities on Orcas!

About the artists

Jan Madill’s work includes ten large canvases in oil and eight small calligraphic paintings.  An old orchard on Orcas provided initial inspiration for these particular works in which many representational and abstract elements combine to form the final images.  Every piece in the series contains references to non-human nature as well as some alluding to the diverse sides of human nature, both troubling as well as comical. “Dance, poetry and music often inspire my paintings. A part of me is often asking, ‘What’s it all about?’, even as I suspect the answers will remain full of mystery. I am more country and wilderness than city, but definitely some of both,” Jan says.  After completing her medical degree at the University of Oregon Medical School and practicing as a physician for a number of years, Jan returned to her first love, which was the world of art.  She studied at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, and then went on to further studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art.   She has had her work exhibited in several galleries in Oregon and Washington, and was awarded an Artist Residency through Artsmith on Orcas Island in 2009.

Mary Ellen Hogle was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and was deeply moved by the landscape surrounding her.  “I have spent most of my life living near the water. It is the energy expressed through the action of water upon earth–whether it be the effect of tides upon the seashore or of the river upon a desert canyon wall–that most deeply informs my work,” she says.  Mary Ellen received her B.A. in Art and Philosophy from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1980.  Since then she has exhibited her sculpture in various galleries, museums and exhibits throughout Utah, California, Colorado and Washington.  For Mary Ellen form is not so much an intellectual exercise as it is a means of reflecting underlying realities, of exhibiting the inherent connections between the inner and outer worlds.  Her bronze pieces on exhibit in the Lobby Gallery seem to mirror her affiliation with water, the ebb and flow of life, and the dance of body and spirit that she seeks to express in her work.

Jill McCabe Johnson is the director of Artsmith, a non-profit to support the arts. She received the Paula Jones Gardiner Poetry Award from Floating Bridge Press, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart. She earned her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University, and is pursuing a PhD at the University of Nebraska. Her poetry and prose have been published or are forthcoming in various journals including The Los Angeles Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and Harpur Palate.  Jill enjoys writing poetry and fiction, and in her “spare” time she and her husband, Charles Toxey, are the co-owners and hosts of Kangaroo House, a local Bed and Breakfast on Orcas.

Jennifer Brennock is Assistant Director of Artsmith and recently completed her M.F.A. in Fiction at Goddard College. Jennifer was genres and critical commentary editor of a literary journal for three years and founded three writers groups. Her memoir piece “Spilling” will soon be published in the Pitkin Review. She has taught creative writing classes and written a novel titled Not Jewish.  Both Jill and Jennifer will be reading selections from their own works.       The Bodalo Trio has played together for five years and is comprised of three local musicians familiar to Orcas audiences for their individual and group performances in theatrical as well as musical events.  Bob Littlewood is a clarinetist and flutist who is a member of the Island Symphonia, the Orcas Community Band and Orcatrazz Swing Band.  Louellen McCoy is the pianist for the group and also was the accompanist for the Orcas Choral Society for many years.   Cellist Dale Heisinger plays in the Island Symphonia and most recently appeared in the pit orchestra in the Orcas Center production of the musical “Gypsy”.

Well-known to Orcas audiences for their local performances over the years is ETH-NOH-TEC, the San Francisco-based kinetic story theater, founded in 1982 by Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang, who are also part-time residents of Orcas Island.  Both Artistic Co-Directors have trained and performed in traditional and contemporary art forms for over two decades, and have since enjoyed tremendous success in this focused fusion, truly meeting the goals of their name Eth-Noh-Tec: The weaving [tec] together of distinctive cultural elements of the East and West [eth] to create new possibilities [noh].

Their work is at once precision choreography, lyrical word-weaving, graceful, playful and poetic. By layering ancient Asian mythologies, folktales and Asian urban legends with Asian American sensibilities, Eth-Noh-Tec has created an exciting new blend of storytelling and physical theater.