July Artist Talks and Pop-Up Show at Alchemy Arts and SJIMA

Submitted by Alchemy Art Center.

Alchemy Art Center invites you to three free arts events this month, as part of their 2022 Artists in Community program!

Friday, July 22, 4 -5 p.m. in the Dome, 1255 Wold Rd: Alchemy is hosting an artist talk by local and international collaborators Nikyta Palmisani, Juniper Blomberg, Anya Gleizer, and Pablo Fernández Velasco, all visiting from Lopez Island. This group will discuss their projects addressing ecological boundaries, sense of a place, and local food systems. Nikyta and Juniper are local Lopez artists, Anya is an artist and researcher at Oxford University, and Pablo is a researcher at Trinity College Dublin. This presentation is the culmination of their collaboration.

Thursday, July 28, 6 -8 p.m. in the Dome, 1255 Wold Rd:

Come to Alchemy for this culminating pop-up art show featuring the work of June and July interns and residents Ananya Bernardo, Vince Cuadra, Maya Djiji, and Sulli Yost. These young/emerging artists will be showing prints, pottery, ceramic sculpture, soft sculpture, fiber arts, jewelry, t-shirts/wearables, and more. Bring your wallet and snag some original art for your collection! Also featured will be art by youth mentees who have been working with this incredible team this summer! Light refreshments will be served.

Sunday, July 31, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., SJIMA, 540 Spring St.

This third installment of Alchemy’s summer artist talk series (in partnership with the San Juan Islands Museum of Art), will feature visiting artists/interns Ananya Bernardo and Vince Cuadra, and local artist and Alchemy Founder/Co-Director Maria Michaelson.

Ananya Bernardo is a visual artist from Silver Spring, Maryland who is currently exploring different mediums. She mostly works with silkscreen prints but is learning mediums like textiles, collage, ceramics and digital art. Her work uses bright colors to delve into personal growing pains as a means of expression.

Vince Cuadra is a queer-trans Costa Rican -Argentinian multimedia artist born and raised in the magical city of Miami. He creates playful and colorful work mostly focusing on identity, queer joy, nostalgia, social issues, and documentation. He makes art using a variety of media including clay, collage, painting, photography, video, and soft sculpture.

Maria Michaelson is a San Juan Islander, and founder of Alchemy Art Center. After growing up here on the island, she attended California College of the Arts. During her 20s she practiced interactive community art and spent two years living in Africa learning bronze casting, before returning to the island to focus on ceramic figurative sculpture. Hear her story, and the origin and inspiration behind Alchemy during her artist talk.

These events are part of Alchemy’s Artists in Community Program, which is supported by the NEA, ArtsWA, the San Juan Island Community Foundation, the Tulalip Charitable Fund, and by generous donations from members of our community. Artists in Community brings young and emerging artists from all over the country to live and work on San Juan Island and bring enriching and inspiring arts programming to islanders free of charge.

For more information about these events, please visit www.alchemyartcenter.com/events

Alchemy Art Center, founded by Maria Michaelson and Eben Shay in 2017, is a non-profit arts organization dedicated to creating a thriving arts community on San Juan Island.