May 2024
This video installation layers thermal imaging of my juggling onto the thermal profile of the greenhouse wall that is the “screen” for the video projection. The art engages with how energy efficiency is quantified and valued and what audiences benefit from current framings. The counting of the home’s energy efficiency is done at the expense of other scales and sites of change and attention to phenomena and relationships that are not enumerable. The art is a product of a circus arts mini-residency at a net-zero energy demonstration home on the University at Buffalo campus. I created this work while completing coursework for my PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and with mentorship from choreographer Rosie Simas (Seneca). I had asked her how I might integrate my creative practice as a circus artist with my doctoral research journey. There is a connection between the engagement of the audience in physical theater and in public processes that are core to community planning traditions.
Photo by Meredith Kulwicki
Photo by Meredith Kulwicki
Performed by my alter ego - pedestrian advocate Guy Sidewalk. Guy walked the length of the Chester Creek Trail and recorded stories of people's favorite places on the trail as part of Seeking the Source. Explore the audio map. Listen to all the stories. Read the blog.
Curated by Jimmy Riordan, Seeking the Source was a group show exploring and mapping Chester Creek, which runs through the heart of Anchorage. ArtPlace funded this creative placemaking project via the Anchorage Parks Foundation in the summer of 2015.
Jimmy created a unique augmented reality channel through Junaio for Tall Tales. Scan the QR code on this site and then take a walk along the Chester Creek.
Video by Tara Young.
I conceived of this project as part of my work at Agnew::Beck Consulting for the Fairview Neighborhood Plan. The Fairview Community Council hired us to take their draft neighborhood plan to the next level. It was a work in progress for more than 10 years. In 2013, the Community Council tasked us with confirming the goals of the plan, and re-drafting it for submission to the Planning and Zoning Commission and ultimately the Anchorage Assembly. "Tall Orders" occurred during the annual Fairview Block Party. I walked on stilts and encourage people to pin their hopes and dreams for the neighborhood on a visioning board, with the "tallest orders" at the top. At our booth, people also filled out surveys about the draft plan and learned about the planning process.
"Tall Orders" and the visioning board allowed us better understand the community's priorities for public safety and infrastructure for kids.
NeighborWorks Alaska gathered nine community minded people together to co-create a place based community building project. We organized the "Anchorage Winter Market" in an empty car dealership in Fairview, a redeveloping neighborhood in Anchorage. I led the outdoor design and programing. Photo assembly by Anna Brawley.
This floating art parade started in 2011 and continues to draw artists and audiences to the Onondaga Creek in downtown Syracuse every May. Teresa Barry and I started the event (with inspiration from places like San Antonio) with the Creek Rats clean up crew to celebrate the under appreciated creek. The first two years we ran it, we distributed inner tubs and a start time. The art floating with canoe escorts for a mile or so before being pulled out of the creek. The spaghetti and scuba divers I created, the others are care of Syracuse collaborators and artist. See what's going on today.
Photos by Loren Holmes.
I developed this piece as part of "The Berth Spot" curated by Michael Gerace in 2009. He invited twenty artists to make art in their discipline in Downtown Anchorage. At the time, I worked as a circus artist and instructor full time. For "The Big Commute," I commuted to and from my "office" at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, walking in a big circle around Downtown Anchorage during rush hour at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on stilts dressed in formal business attire. When people asked what I was doing, I responded "going to work," which was true in a sense. I explored the intersection of work, artistic practice and physical place and documented my observations of the city from 9 feet in this blog.
From 2010-2012, I participated in the Syracuse Public Arts Task Force as a member and later a finance coordinator. This group meets monthly to organize art events in public space around the City of Syracuse. As part of this group I was part of the "Rack Pack," which designed and installed artistic bicycle racks with local organization and businesses to match the location. Brendan Rose and I led the leaf shaped racks at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. We designed the racks, I helped to secure funding and administrative approval and he fabricated and installed them. They live adjacent to ESF's Gateway Building.
Highlights
Seward Music + Arts Festival, 2008 - 2009, 2013-2015
New Old Time Chautauqua
Roustabout Circus
The Music Box at Out North Theater
Library Summer Reading Programs
Vivavoom BrrLesque
Anchorage Downtown Partnership Fire + Ice New Year's Eve Celebration
Runaway Circus
LeVorris + Vox Circus - University of Chicago
Cycle Circus of Impending Doom
Press
"Send in the Clowns" University of Chicago Magazine
"Best of 2009" Anchorage Daily News PLAY
Stage Shows
Acts that range in theme from the drama of fishing in Alaska to the infinite sadness of cutting an onion.
Walk-Around Circus Artistry
Add circus to your event with “walk-around” circus entertainment. Stilting and juggling can add atmosphere or build into a small show as the circus performer interacts with the guests.
Parties
Light up your party with ambient fire juggling or a short circus act. Or entertain through education, as invitees young and old try out the tricks of the circus. See Instruction.
Street shows from Sardegna, Italy to McCarthy, Alaska and many parks and public spaces in between.
Acts that range in theme from the drama of fishing in Alaska to the infinite sadness of cutting an onion.
Add circus to your event with “walk-around” circus entertainment. Stilting and juggling can add atmosphere or build into a small show as the circus performer interacts with the guests.
Light up your party with ambient fire juggling or a short circus act. Or entertain through education, as invitees young and old try out the tricks of the circus. See Instruction.
