Artists' Panel: Bloedel Reserve - 10 Years of Creative Residencies

Join us for an engaging panel conversation and reception for our collaborative exhibition Bloedel Reserve: 10 Years of Creative Residencies. Artists Byron Au Yong, Kimberly Trowbridge and Catherine Alice Michaelis will participate in this discussion, moderated by Bloedel Reserve's Creative Residency Manager, Amy King, about their art and the deep value of extended immersive time in a natural and designed environment for the creative process.

Audience Q&A and reception to follow.

Hemlock in the Moss Garden, Kimberly Trowbridge, Oil on Canvas, 60 x 72", 2024

Guest bios:

Kimberly Trowbridge is a painter, an installation artist, a performer, and a lecturer on color theory. She received an MFA from the University of Washington (2006) and a BFA in Painting / BA in English Literature from Indiana University (2003). Her first solo museum show at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (2021) was developed during her time as Creative Fellow at Bloedel Reserve (2018-2020), a 150-acre garden amid an old growth forest. Recently, Trowbridge was a resident at Jentel Artist Residency, in Wyoming (2022). She is currently developing work in the PNW and the Mojave Desert. She is currently writing her first book on color. Trowbridge completed a Facebook Open Arts commission (2021), and was Artist in Residence at Oxbow, Seattle. She is a two-time Neddy Award Finalist (2014, 2016), and an Artist Trust GAP Grant recipient (2014). She is the Director of The Modern Color Atelier, a multi-year painting program at Gage Academy of Art, Seattle. She has led plein-air painting tours in Spain, Portugal, and Twisp, WA.

Catherine Alice Michaelis has been exploring what an artist book can be for over 30 years. She works with antique printing presses, moveable type, and any printable medium she finds, including: paper, fabric, film, magnets, and veneer to summon a dialog with Nature. When she isn’t printing, she’s sewing unique works on fabrics that more intimately explore gender, ageism, and memory loss. Catherine pushes her creative practice through writing, videopoetry, direct animation, and direct dyeing from plants. Collaborating and participating in community is part of Catherine’s practice. She works with scientists, writers, visual artists, and musicians to make edition print work. She’s responded to crowd sourced calls for participation, been invited by printing institutions to participate in collective works, and organized invitational print sets like Stack the Deck: 18 Artists Mark the Cards for Women’s Health & Healing. Catherine has curated national and international artist book shows in the Pacific Northwest and created programming around them, most recently at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Bringing other artists forward and building community is something she believes in and does. She is also BIMA's curator of the Cynthia Sears Artists' Book collection.

Artist and educator Byron Au Yong (歐陽良仁) creates events Variety calls “intimate and existential, personal and political all at once.” He was born to Chinese immigrants in Pittsburgh and raised in the Pacific Northwest. His upbringing informs an attention to the ways people gather to listen and connect with the places they call home. Examples include Activist Songbook, to counteract hate and energize movements (Asian Arts Initiative, Hopkins Center for the Arts, International Festival of Arts & Ideas), The Ones, a.k.a. (Be)longing, a.k.a. Trigger, about coming of age in an age of guns (Virginia Tech Center for the Arts, MDC Live Arts), Piano Concerto—Houston, for 11 pianists (University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts), and Turbine, for more than 80 moving singers along the water (Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia and Leah Stein Dance Company). The Seattle Weekly says his “interdisciplinary works are as exquisite and imaginative as they are unclassifiable.” Honors include a Creative Capital Award and Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship. Au Yong holds degrees in theater, dance, and music from NYU, UCLA, and the University of Washington. He is an Associate Professor and Director of Arts Leadership at Seattle University.

Guest website/social:

https://www.kimberlytrowbridge.com

https://byronauyong.com

https://www.catherine-alice.com

Host or Publisher Bainbridge Island Museum of Art