Literature Archives - ArtsVentura.org

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Laura Allen

Literature: Drama, Other; Media: Film; Theatre: Acting, Other; Screenwriting

Laura Allen is an actress and writer who grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington, the middle of three daughters. She is has worked 22 years in film and television as an actress, and 3 years as a writer. Recently, Laura coaches auditions, and critiques screenplays for the Austin Film Festival. She got her start in New York City on the soap All My Children as Laura Kirk English, but more recent credits include Sundance's Hap and Leonard, NBC's Awake opposite Jason Isaacs, FX's Terriers and Dirt, as well as USA Network's The 4400 where she portrayed Lily Tyler opposite Mahershala Ali. She has recurred on Fox's 9-1-1, Suits, American Horror Story, Grey's Anatomy and most recently on Apple+TV's Truth Be Told with Octavia Spencer. Features include the Emmy nominated The Tale (HBO) starring Laura Dern and Ellen Burstyn, directed by Jennifer Fox. Allen played the lead in the 2014 horror film Clown directed by Jon Watts. Other features include Old Dogs opposite Robin Williams and John Travolta, and Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts, directed by Mike Newell. Laura’s first script “Spree” was a BlueCat Screenwriting Finalist and a Nicholl Fellowship top 10%. Her second script “Winnie & Dolores” was a UCLA Screenwriting Top 10, a Nicholl Fellowship top 10%, and a Los Angeles International Screenplay Contest Semifinalist. Laura lives in Ventura with her husband and two sons.

Mark Azm

Media: Audio, Film, Other, Video; Visual-Sonic Bass Music Therapy

Known throughout Southern California for devotion to the fine broken beat bass music arts. Favorite styles are breaks, drum & bass, dubstep and jungle.

Dane Baylis

Literature: Poetry; Music: Instrumental, Vocal; Theatre: Acting, Technical; Visual Arts: Painting, Photography, Printmaking

DANE FRANCIS BAYLIS was born in South Boston, Massachusetts in 1952. He has traveled extensively through North and Central America, Europe, the Near and Far East while in and out of the military. His first published work appeared in the STONE SOUP ANTHOLOGY, published by Stone Soup Press, Boston, in 1975. He has since appeared in a number of anthologies and journals, most notably, TEN CALIFORNIA POETS, ARTLIFE, RIVERTALK, THE ARCADE POETRY PROJECT, PANGOLIN, VERVE, THE DANCE OF THE IGUANA, ASKEW POETRY JOURNAL, LUMMOX PRESS, THE MEN’S HEARTBREAK ANTHOLOGY, and POETRY IN MOTION PUBLICATIONS. He also served on the editorial committees of RIVERTALK and THE POULTER’S MEASURE. Dane is presently a member of the Ventura Artist’s Union and Editor-In-Chief of DANE BAYLIS PUBLICATIONS where he brings to bear a multi-faceted background in art, photography, music, and prose in the production of his distinctly urban style of poetry. His Irish heritage informs his love of the poetic form and his uncompromising belief that everything tells a story creates a unique voice full of wry compassion and unbending artistry.

Aliza Bejarano

Literature: Poetry; Visual Arts: Painting

My work is born from the idea that Adults are the children they came into the world as; now beings filled with insecurities and temperaments of their past. The Inner Child buried beneath a façade of what the adult believes to be socially acceptable. Like the fate of that child, I may influence the work that I create, but the result of my Mock Resin method is sometimes unpredictable and out of my hands. I build and improvise until the piece seems to make evident that there could be another world away from this one. One in which the Inner Child knows well but the Adult can only see.

Mary Cacciapaglia

Media: Video; Visual Arts: Other, Painting, Photography, Sculpture; alcohol ink painting, pyrography

Mary Cacciapaglia is a representational and abstract painter, pyrographer, photographer, sculptor and videographer who strives to find and see what many may miss in everyday life and express what she finds in her art. Please visit SNG Studio Ventura, California. Gallery ∞ shows art of Mary Cacciapaglia, Steve Neill other local artists. All art here are for your viewing pleasure and available for purchase.

Joe Cardella

Literature: Poetry; Media: Other; Visual Arts: Illustration, Other, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture

Founder, Publisher & Editor of ARTLIFE LIMITED EDITIONS, 1981-2006. Distributed 276 consecutive monthly editions of Original Artworks & Poetry throughout the U.S., Europe & Japan. Personally handled 2.5 MILLION pages throughout every step of this process including personal editions each month. "Monthly from 1981-2006, ARTLIFE is the Longest Continually Published Artists' Periodical of the Twentieth Century." www.art-life.com, ARTLIFE MUSEUM on FB, MrArtlife1 on UTube for many videos & interviews re History, Personal Collection, Archive, Studio Tour & Events. Degree in Design, Experimental Studios & Advertising from Syracuse University. Graduate of U.S. Naval Communications School, Great Lakes, Illinois. Global Communications Specialist 1967. Design, Graphics, Sculpture, Multi-Media, Research & Product Development, Performance & Conceptual Art. Extensive Museum Exhibition experience from coast to coast. Publisher Emeritus, ARTLIFE LIMITED EDITIONS

Julieanne Case

Literature: Non-Fiction; Visual Arts: Other, Painting, Photography

For many years, cooking and dancing were my means of creative expressions. At a very young age I would lose countless hours painting, using those paint by numbers kits most of the time and I loved it. Family circumstances changed and the painting stopped. I begged my mother to teach me how to cook at the ripe old age of 11. Luckily for many, including myself, she acquiesced and taught me the basics. Although a math major in college, I loved taking classes studying art in various cultures. Western Civilizations was my favorite class. After graduating college, I moved to California. Sometime in my mid 20s, I enrolled in a figure drawing class and found I was quite adept at capturing the essence of the person being drawn. Once again the art stopped. My knowledge of cooking grew and my natural talent for cooking was fed by experimentation and exploration. My dining room table was my palette for many years where I created a visual painting using the table setting and the food to nourish the person and their soul through sight, smells and tastes. I am also a life-long photographer. Things changed again and life brought me back to painting. I learned that I have a natural sense of color, I love mixing my own colors too. I paint in oils. I paint from photos I’ve taken and sometimes I free form, sometimes creating representational abstract. I love large big flowers and many say my paintings remind them of Georgia O’Keefe unplugged. I have studied with Marcia Cummings, a sculptor and painter, with Glen Orbik, a well-known American illustrator, at the California Art Institute, with Bob Moskowitz, Head of the Art Department at Ventura College and an accomplished artist and with Jill Sattler at Santa Barbara City College, a well known abstract painter. I have been commissioned to do oil paintings of dogs and an abstract. I also completed a triptych of digital flower paintings using healing frequencies while creating them. I am doing more abstracts now, studying with Jill Sattler, growing, learning and expanding. My painting is changing and growing. Studying abstracts has really opened me up more. Many of my paintings have an unplanned space theme. They are filled with feelings and are full of light, love and joy. Many are filled with healing frequencies as well. In the last few years, I’ve begun writing and have a blog. It has become another creative outlet for me as well. I would love to heal the world with my paintings and my photos. My dream is that this comes through in my work. Enjoy! Life is to be savored either through taste, feel, smell, dance,visual or sound! Take your pick. I love them all! How about you? Exhibits: Ventura Art Walk August 2003 Ventura Art Walk November 2003 Ventura Art Walk April 2004 Ventura Art Walk August 2004 Ventura Art Walk November 20042004 Ventura County Fair Ventura Art Walk April 2005 Ventura Art Walk August 2005 Ventura Art Walk November 2005 Ventura Art Walk April 2006 Ventura Art Walk August 2007 Ventura Art Walk Solo November 2007 Digital Diversity Show Juried Show October 2007 Buenaventura Art Gallery Juried Show November 2008 Ventura Art Walk April 2008 Buenaventura Art Gallery Juried Show April 2008 Harbor Village Gallery Juried Show January 2009 Artists Union Gallery Juried Show March 2009 CMH Exhibit March 2009 CMH Exhibit June 2009 CMH Exhibit September 2009 Harbor Village Gallery Juried Show July 2009 CMH Exhibit December 2009 Harbor Village Gallery Juried Show January 2010 Buenaventura Gallery Juried Show February 2010 CMH Exhibit March 2010 CMH Exhibit June 2010 Ventura Arts Council Juried Show May 2012 Ventura Comm. College Juried Annual Student Awards Show 2012 Award of Merit in Painting Ventura County Fair 2012 - Honorable Mention from the Fair Board Gallery 28 Exhibit December 2012 WAV Size Matters Show Feb 2013 Gallery 28 Collaboration Show Feb 2013 Gallery 28 Paintings of California Show Mar 2013 VCAC Juried Show March 2013 Gallery 28 Collaboration Show April 2013 VCAC Juried Show “Reflections” April 2013 Ventura Community College Juried Annual Student Awards Show 2013 Gallery 28 Collaboration Show June 2013 See|Exhibition Space , Long Island City, NY July-September Show 2013 VCAC Juried Show “Collaborations” August-October 2013, Honorable Mention Gallery 28 Final Show August-October 2013 VCAC Juried Shows: “Anything Goes” and “Digital Works” May 2014 VCAC Juried Show: “Patterns” July-August 2014, Honorable Mention See|Exhibition Space, New York Times Square, July 24, 2014 Casa Gallery Juried Show in Santa Barbara: “Time” August 2014 VCAC Juried Show: Bigger Is Better Sept 2014 Casa Gallery Juried Show in Santa Barbara: “Returns” September 2014 Casa Gallery Juried Show in Santa Barbara: “Vertical” November 2014

Marsha de la O

Literature: Poetry

Marsha de la O recently won the Isabella Gardner Award from BOA Editions for her manuscript, Antidote for Night. The book will come out in Fall 2015. She previously won the New Issues Poetry Prize for her book, Black Hope, from the University of Western Michigan and an Editor‘s Choice Award. Her work is forthcoming in the anthology Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Pacific Coast Poetry Series), and has been anthologized in Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Ballantine), Saying What Needs to Be Said (Solo Press), Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California (Greenhouse Review Press), and the poetry workshop handbook One for the Money: The Sentence as Poetic Form (Lynx House Press). A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, she has published in journals such as Barrow Street, Passages North, Solo, and Third Coast. She is the winner of the 2014 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Prize, the dA Poetry Prize, the Ventura Poetry Prize, and has received two cultural arts grants from the City of Ventura, as well as a Tumblewords Poetry Residency. With her husband, poet Phil Taggart, she publishes the poetry journal Askew.

Katrina Maksimuk

Literature: Poetry; Media: Film; Theatre; Visual Arts: Photography

Katrina Maksimuk uses photography, film and performance to explore what shapes others and herself by peering through the overlooked power and entertainment lens of daily life. She captures images that tell stories of political movements, community events, life challenges and most importantly, hope. Katrina moved to the city of Ventura in 2007, bringing with her a drive to make a difference in her community.

Michelle Nosco

Media: Film; Music: Instrumental; Visual Arts: Painting, Sculpture

I'm an artist, Michelle Nosco, in residence at the WAV of Ventura, California. I've shown my artwork (paintings, sculpture, weavings and murals) from childhood. Here's a 3D Virtual WAV Gallery Exhibit of my charcoal figure drawings: http://www.panomatics360.com/virtualtour/michellenosco/ At five I studied art in the Detroit Museum of Art, high school took me to Wayne State University and the Cranbrook School of Art. In college as an undergrad I got a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) at the University of Michigan and later a Masters in Directing Theatre, Television and Film at CalARTs (California Institute of the Arts). Entering the work world as an art director, producer and film director for many years I transitioned to become a professional artist -- painting over 100 murals throughout Southern California. In 2007 I founded the Arts For Earth Foundation in California and since then have painted expressionistic and impressionistic works including California landscapes and native wildlife for environmental purposes. In addition, I've been commissioned to paint pet portraits for fundraising to benefit wildlife sanctuaries and wilderness reclamation projects.

Michael Perlmutter

Literature: Drama; Theatre: Acting, Directing, Other; Visual Arts: Painting

Michael Perlmutter, playwright, passed away at the tender age of 33 ("the age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free"--Harry Chapin). Michael will be best remembered for-- . . . What? Ok, fine, he isn't dead--Hey, I was going for the sympathy vote, here. - Like you’re tellin’ me this is not a contest? Of course it's a contest. Everything's a contest: LIFE is a contest. And my Bio is gonna win this thing big time (never under estimate the sympathy vote). And never mind that I'm speaking in the first person now, or that I've won awards for my plays such as Crimson, 1865, Parking Lot Traffic, Random Acts. Or that my plays have been presented in Los Angeles, New York and London. Or that my recent works Office Games, My Perfect Alibi and Directing Hamlet were finalists in associated venues across this country. Nobody cares that I live with my wife, three children and too damned many animals in Southern California. (OK, two have married and moved away, fine—full disclosure—but within ten miles—though David hasn’t even invited us over for dinner yet but that’s NOT THE POINT!) The point is that I'm not dead . . . yet. But you can check out my website for more information on my growing body of work at www.DirectingHamlet.com. And feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to know what you've thought of my work . . . that is if I'm still breathing.

Lis Schwitters

Crafts: Ceramics, Jewelry, Other; Literature: Poetry; Media: Video; Visual Arts: Illustration, Other, Photography, Printmaking

BIOGRAPHY Born in Los Angeles, California, Photographic Artist & Printmaker, Lis J. Schwitters began her interest in photography in 1976 and continued as a Staff Photographer for her high school, college, and local community newspapers having published over 2,000 photographs. In 1985, she received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photocomunications from California State University at Fullerton where she studied under Professor of Photography Emeritus Darryl Curran and visiting Professor John Szarkowski. While enjoying both photographing (the capture of an image), and printing (the creation of an image), she directed her career towards laboratory work. Schwitters has worked as a Photographic Lab Technician (Printmaker) for such notable institutions as California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/JPL) in Pasadena, Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, and Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, California. As a photographic artist her prints have been featured in hundreds of exhibitions, including in the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, and the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel. Her photographic images are in the permanent collection of many museums, including in The Getty Research Institute (GRI), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library, and The California Museum of Photography, as well as in private collections across the Country. Encompassing all types of photographic mediums from traditional to digital, Schwitters enjoys exploring a wide variety of themes ranging from psychological topics to the beauty of her surroundings. Contact: info@LisJSchwitters.com Resume: http://www.lisjschwitters.com/resume-schwitters.html

Phil Taggart

Literature: Poetry; Media: Video; Visual Arts: Photography

Phil Taggart has four collections of poetry. Walking the Dog in a Time of Rage, Rick Sings, Opium Wars and an art book with artist Ann Harithas, Cowboy Collages. He has been a poetry editor for over twenty years for Art Life limited edition, and with Marsha de la O, the Askew Poetry Journal and Spillway. He has taught poetry workshops at Cal Lutheran, University of Pittsburg, local high schools, CAPS Media and elementary schools. He teaches Broadcast Digital Media at El Camino High School at Ventura College He is on the Board of the Ventura Cunty Poetry Project and the BreakBread Literacy Project. Phil has run and supported poetry readings in Ventura County and Santa Barbara since 1991. He presently hosts a weekly poetry reading at the EP Foster Library in Ventura.

Yessíca Torres

Literature: Poetry; Visual Arts: Other, Painting

Yessíca Torres is a Southern California-based gunmonkey with an affinity for pop art and firearms. Widely considered the first guerrilla girl, she has shaped modern society with her high-profile paintings and culturally significant kills. Her life as an assassin began at the age of nine when she dropped out of parochial classes and picked up a revolver. The lucrative kill contracts she carried out allowed her to follow her true passions, painting and poetry .... And so, gunmonkey art was born. www.gunmonkeyart.com

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