PRESS RELEASE June 22, 2016
Reclaimed Waste = Artful Invention
Artists Chosen to Create Art from Discarded Materials in New Residency
Artists Chosen to Create Art from Discarded Materials in New Residency
ASTORIA (June 22, 2016) – Two regional artists have been selected to participate in the inaugural Coastal Oregon Artist Residency (COAR) program, which was developed collaboratively by Recology Western Oregon (RWO), an employee-owned company that manages resource recovery facilities on the North Coast, and the venerable local arts non-profit Astoria Visual Arts (AVA). The program aims to support the creation of art from recycled, repurposed and discarded materials.
The two artists were selected by a jury of arts and environmental professionals. Each will be provided with a monthly stipend, materials, and dedicated studio space at RWO’s Astoria Recycling Depot and Transfer Station over a three-month period, commencing on July 11, 2016. By supporting artists who work with recycled materials, AVA and RWO hope to encourage people to conserve natural resources and promote new ways of thinking about art and the environment.
The two artists are Sean Barrow, of Astoria, and Dawn Stetzel, of Seaview, Washington.
Sean Barrow, an Eastern Oregon native, is a multi-media sculptor who works most frequently with metal and wood, but is equally skilled in working with ceramics, leather, plastics and fabric. Barrow began his professional life nearly two decades ago creating still photographic imagery. He subsequently branched out in myriad creative directions, including metal- and wood-working, painting, stone-carving, custom design, moving imagery and teaching. Barrow is keenly interested in engineering new sculptural building materials out of recycled media. “I like to reach into the science of projects when I can, so I’m very interested to learn of the processes, the lifespans of the materials and what innovations are possible as a result,” he says. “My goal is to complete a group of sculptures made from recycled materials by the end of this residency.” Barrow received a BA in Industrial Design, with an emphasis on sustainability and a minor in Sculpture, from the Evergreen State College in Olympia. www.seanbarrow.com
Originally from Iowa, Dawn Stetzel holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, College of Visual and Performing Arts. Among her artist residencies, Stetzel received an invitational residency in China and was awarded a two-month residency in Brazil. After a residency at the Sitka Center of Art and Ecology on the central Oregon coast, she began a journey of exploring various ways of connecting to place. Her recent sculptures use the house as a metaphor for humans: a single house stands in for an individual and a cluster of houses for a community of people. This gives the artist the opportunity to explore the intangible: her feelings regarding a sense of community and her search to belong. In her sculpture Housedress, Stetzel uses discarded materials to create house structures that, she says, are similar to shantytowns with shared walls and barely held together roofs to which she feels a connection, yet a profound separation as well. “My process is to not just make art out of trash,” says Stetzel. “There is a story to all the material that I collect, a strong connection to place and the people who live here. For me this way of making is a life-path of stewardship and creative problem-solving that provides a connection to each other and the environment.” www.dawnstetzel.com
Astoria Visual Arts was founded in 1989 as a local non-profit membership organization to enhance, strengthen and promote the arts in the Greater Astoria Area.
Recology Western Oregon manages municipal disposal processes and services that span the needs of urban, suburban and rural communities. Recology companies operating in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, specialize in integrated resource recovery and recycling. As an employee-owned company, Recology sees a world without waste. This is the vision of over 3,000 employees whose mission is to build exceptional resource ecosystems that protect the environment and sustain communities.
Astoria Visual Arts
Placing arts and culture at the center of a changing rural economy
PO Box 1004 | Astoria OR 97103 | 503-741-9694 | astoriavisualarts@gmail.com | www.astoriavisualarts.org
July 5, 2016
Press Release in the Coast Weekend newspaper, "Astoria Visual Arts, Recology Western Oregon name two artists for residency".
July 5, 2016
Press Release in the Coast Weekend newspaper, "Astoria Visual Arts, Recology Western Oregon name two artists for residency".
