anamnesis

ANAMNESIS: OPENS @ COLLAPSE THIS FRIDAY

SCOTT MAYBERY

This Friday Collapse Gallery in Wenatchee opens a new joint show exhibit from Ellensburg artists Scott and Robin Mayberry titled Anamnesis. We reached out to the artists for more information on this show and they sent back an in-depth look into their work along with their history in the arts. A little background: Scott holds a BA and MA in art from CWU, and an MFA from University of Texas at Austin. Since graduation he has continued making artwork on a regular basis and has shown his work locally and nationally. His work focuses on paintings, drawings and mixed media sculpture with a narrative quality. Robin has been showing her work locally for the past fifteen years and has had her work published in several national magazines. She teaches workshops in encaustics, textile art and mixed media several times a year, most often at Gallery One in Ellensburg.

Scott and Robin curated and coordinated exhibits at the 420 LOFT Gallery for several years and had a blast doing it. At the end of 2021, the building owner made the tough decision to forgo the gallery space in order for Pretty Fair Beer, a popular local establishment, to expand.

The name of the upcoming show at Collapse is Anamnesis, which evokes the idea of reminiscence. Both Scott and Robin’s work explores memory, re-discovering what was forgotten, and the way what we think we remember fades over time. Robin’s work has a hazy, layered quality that asks the viewer to consider what lies beneath the surface. Scott’s pieces each tell a story of the interactions between everyday objects and the unexpected and sometimes whimsical re-interpretations of what we thought we knew. His most recent work centers around toys from his childhood in the 70s and 80s, setting them against fauna who interact with the toys in dynamic ways. What do you remember about the toys you played with?

Artistic styles and workflow process:

Scott considers his work magic realism, especially after working under Peter Saul at University of Texas. Also, labels are limiting.

Robin’s encaustic work is abstract and created through multiple layers until they reveal a story. Realism does not interest her in the same way that organic unfolding of shapes and colors does.

Scott creates in frenetic bursts between his multiple responsibilities, including running a small business and maintaining family life. He tends to work in series from ten to twenty pieces until he has fully explored an idea, and then drastically changes his style for the next series, usually diving into new imagery using a different palette and. This refusal to repeat himself creates challenges for his art career but keeps his work fresh and engaging.

The work exhibited in Anamnesis includes paintings on found boards, hanging mixed media sculpture and drawings in pen and ink.

Robin creates a steadily growing body of work, primarily working out of her studio at Gallery One, a space she feels wildly privileged to enjoy. She prefers to work on several pieces at once and to bounce between encaustic painting, textile art and mixed media. For Anamnesis she’s exhibiting a series of encaustic paintings on cradled board and cardboard.

On collaboration with each other:

Scott and Robin have shown collaboratively about a dozen times over the past five years. They have found that their pieces, though entirely different in style and technique, complement each other. They have repeatedly discovered that without any outward discussion, they move toward working in similar palettes and unearthing similar inward experiences. When their work is shown as a collection, it brings the best out in both of them.

About the show at Collapse: Anamnesis is a collection of imaginative, textured work that will delight the viewer’s senses and bring them into a deeper story of the inner life and the power of everyday experiences.

What’s up next: Scott and Robin’s next mutual exhibit will be at Gard Vintners in Ellensburg WA in October.

Links/Social media:

Scott: scottmayberryart.com IG @scottmayberryart Robin: robinmayberry.com IG @robinomayberry

Anamnesis premieres this Friday at Collapse Gallery at 115 S. Wenatchee Ave. with an opening reception from 4-9pm. c

ROBIN MAYBERRY (CROPPED) ROBIN MAYBERRY

By Ron Evans

Out in the rugged lands of the Methow Valley lives one of the most unique humans I have met. Harmony Cronin. A self-proclaimed Viking Warrior Princess For The Apocalypse, which may sound like hyperbole now - but likely won’t by the end of this article. This May 13-15 Cronin is holding her sixth 3-day class on killing, butchering and utilizing entire animals in a respectful and thoughtful way. I sat down for an interview with Cronin who arrived at our meeting looking exactly as you’d imagine. Adorned with clothing and accessories handmade from animals she has killed or road kill she found, slightly wild hair and an enthusiastic grin that widened as she slid into the chair across from me.

And a warning: this will likely be a very polarizing story even among meat eaters. Vegans may just wanna skip it, but everyone else -including vegetarians- should truck forward. It’s a fascinating look into a more natural and timeless perspective on how we eat. And if you only feel more drawn toward the veggie side of life after you read this, that’s fair. But even for the rest of us, it may be a good time to reassess what it actually means to eat organically and ethically.

So tell us about this class and the philosophy and experience you put into it.

One of the things that I’ve dedicated a lot of my life to is figuring out how to become worthy of asking an animal to die, so that I can live. A lot of people struggle with that guilt, and they want to have more intimacy with their food, so they want to learn how to kill an animal and to use every part. That’s kind of the perennial question for me - how can I become worthy of that act? It’s not enough to simply kill efficiently.

So in the Honorable Harvest class we go really slow. We talk a lot about it and we really explore what it means to kill an animal and all the different ways…and then we’ll kill animals. And we’ll do our best to honor the gifts that they give us in class.

I also talk about living off grid and I love to show people that you don’t need fancy tools, expensive knives and big metal hooks to properly butcher an animal. After we kill and butcher the animal I show them how to treat the meat in the traditional ways, curing and smoking. All using materials you already have around you. I talk about the importance of maintaining the environment and food sources for the animals we eat. You are supposed to feed what you eat. We have lost some of that.

We provide guests with two fine crafted meals a day using locally harvested ingredients and we camp out for all three days of the class. It’s beautiful.

How did you get going down this road? Were you born into it?

Oh god no. I was born in Denver and my family are all city folk through and through. They’ve never seen a dead animal except on styrofoam packages in supermarkets so my awakening happened later on when I was living in Olympia. It really started with me picking up road kill.

I was riding my bicycle and there was a dead squirrel and as I rode past it I could hear the squirrel say, if I was a dead human, would you just ride past? And I

Photos by Matt Hamon

stopped and I thought holy shit, how have we become so numb and disgusted by animal death? And how is there this life hierarchy now where human death is somehow more potent or important than animal death? And so I went back and I picked up the squirrel and couldn’t even touch it. I was so afraid even though I knew it was dead. But I just sat with it until I could touch it. I took it home and buried it in my yard.

And I just kept doing that because I figured if they’re left on the asphalt they’re going to bring in more animals that are going to get hit by a car. So I started burying them. And they were so beautiful. I remember holding that squirrel and thinking … people used to use every part of the animal, right? We have that kind of cultural story that in some golden past, we used every part and I wondered - what does that even mean? How would I skin this animal? The first animal I ever killed was a rat in my house, because we had a really bad rat infestation on the west side. And it was so massive for me, I wept, holding this rat and I thought…I’m gonna use every part. So I skinned the rat and I ate it. And then I tanned the hide. And that kind of started me on this whole path of like, picking up as much road kill as I can, skinning it, tanning it, eating it. And the more I did that the more road kill I would find and then I got on this hunter’s path. Now I’m a big game hunter as well, and I teach people how to use every part of an animal and so it developed from an obsession into kind of an anthropological obsession.

So you eat all road kill you come across? Skunks, coyotes…kitty cats?

and I can’t even really explain it. Maybe because I know some little kid loved that cat and it seems incorrect to consume it. But skunks, hell yes.

Is there any critter that you have found to be better (or much, much worse) to eat than others?

It’s all actually pretty good, but you know what’s really good? Porcupine. I was surprised.

Let’s talk about ethical killing. If someone is a vegan, and they just tell me that they don’t like the idea of killing animals and eating animals, I totally get it. What I don’t get are meat eaters that are fine buying stuff off the styrofoam platters but have trouble with the notion of hunting and slaughtering your own meat. In an age where so many people seem interested in grass fed, organic, cruelty free, free range…take your pick - we still have this pocket of people who don’t understand why you’d kill a perfectly good animal when you can just go buy one that’s already dead.

Yeah and that also supports a terrible industry - the meat industry. If you eat meat I strongly suggest you kill at least one animal. Experience it. Understand it and truly respect it. Just once.

Even if you decide to not continue doing it, it will have a lasting impact on how you think about your food.

When I’m hunting, I bow hunt, and I rifle hunt. But when I’m slaughtering a domestic animal, I use a knife. I used to use a gun. Well that’s a complicated answer… I think I’ll start with the logistical side. First, I like roasting heads, I like eating the cheeks and the eyeballs and the tongue. And when you shoot an animal in the head, you can’t really do that. So it helps preserve more of the meat and makes it easier to collect the blood because we eat the blood too. We use it for baking and all kinds of things. And then the philosophical side…guns are really, really new. And in nature, animals usually die slowly, right? Wolves and coyotes can take 24 hours to kill an animal. And I think that they’re actually evolved to bleed out. They’re not evolved to have their brain exploded in an instant. And every animal that I’ve ever shot, there’s a lot of thrashing and it feels violent. And when I bleed an animal out, it’s a whole different matter.

Attendees of this class will be killing their own goat. Have you ever had anyone show up to your classes and decide they can’t be a part of it and flee back to the safety of the grocery store meat section? Or go all salads all the time?

No, everyone that has been part of my class over the past several years has continued to use and grow with what they learned there. Everyone will kill, harvest and take home an entire goat as part of this class. It’s pretty unique.

One of the things you talk about is the use of animal products in foods that most people might think are vegetarian. Like cheese. Tell us about that.

Okay, so rennet is an enzyme compound that lines the stomach of a baby cow or goat. This enzyme curdles milk which is an essential step in making cheese. In the dairy industry the cows need to have one calf a year to keep the milk coming. So they have all these calves that they just kill. They then process the rennet for cheese, the meat for veal and the rest is likely wasted. So if you’re a vegetarian you’ll wanna make sure your cheese is rennet-free.

You mentioned not wanting to waste anything earlier so I have to ask… you do eat the eyeballs?

Eyeballs are delicious. You can also use them for lots of things like beauty products - it’s really good for the face. It’s also a medium, I paint with it.

Do blue eyes make blue paint and brown makes brown?

Hmmm. That’s interesting because most animals have brown eyes and it does make a brown pigment. But, I’m not really sure about that one. You can also extract the clear goo inside the eye without the iris and you will get a clear substance you can add pigment to. I actually cover a lot of this stuff in the class. There are all kinds of parts of the animal you can use for all kinds of things, people are surprised.

(Here Cronin proudly displays her bladder purse.)

How do people sign up for the class?

You can sign up on my website gatheringways.com - the class is $800 for three days and I promise it will change your life. Also coming up: May 28 - One Day Class: The ancient, magick, medicine, and methodology of mead-making. Each student leaves with one gallon of their own mead. $70 per person - limited spots available. c

KITTITAS COUNTY OPEN SHOW

This May, Gallery One in Ellensburg will feature works of art by artists from Kittitas County in their annual all-media exhibition. This year’s juror, Davin Diaz of DrewBoy Creative selected 103 pieces by 92 individual artists and will distribute $5000 in awards donated by local businesses and individuals. Meet some of the artists in the show and see their studios during their free self-guided Kittitas County Studio Tour taking place June 4, 10am-4pm.

About the juror:

Davin Diaz is the president and founder of DrewBoy Creative (DBC). DBC develops art exhibitions and events that create experiences that stimulate conversation and community by celebrating and supporting emerging, outsider, and professional artists. They prioritize and promote art from individuals who are emerging artists, from diverse or marginalized backgrounds, or challenge the traditional school of thought related to art.

Davin has been recognized for his service to the community and is the recipient of the 2019 Washington State Governor’s Arts and Heritage Award in the Community Category, recipient of the 2019 Richland City Arts Contributions Award, 2018 Kennewick City Arts Commission’s Energize the Arts Award, a member of the Port of Kennewick’s 2018 Friend of the Port Award, and the 2017 Tri-Cities Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Outstanding Community Leader of the Year.

Opening Reception 5-7pm (awards announced at 6pm)

Information provided by Gallery One

Megan Hansen

Mandi Griffin

This May, Music Theatre of Wenatchee will be filling the stage at Numerica PAC with wizards, witches, flying monkeys and all the spectacle that one would expect from a production of The Wizard of Oz. Amidst the chaos of all the pre-show magic, we reached out to costume designer Sheryl Sutherland (who has been involved with MTW for 25 years) about what goes into the suit-making process for these major productions.

Tell us where you start with a big project like this, logistically. I’m assuming each production has allocated funds for each department? How does all this work?

Before a director presents a musical production to the board of MTW they have to have all their production staff in place. So, when I know I’m working on a production I start by researching the play and finding out what has been done in the past. Usually I look up Broadway shows. I also have discussions with the director to get an idea of what they would like to see for their show. Each production gives you a budget and the director usually asks how much you think you will need for the show. Every show is a little different and we have an idea of what costumes we have available from our costume room at the theater.

So you’ve got your budget and a list, are you sketching up patterns yourself - or using licensed franchise patterns? Are you free to get creative how you see fit or are there guidelines you have to stay in when working with a licensed (especially with such an iconic) production?

For the Wizard of Oz, I’ve been gathering “green items” from around the area for over a year. We’ve already discussed with the scene designer/lighting director and play director the color scheme and know what they propose for background scenes. From there we start pulling items we can use and what we can combine together to make costumes for the various scenes. The Munchkinland scene, Emerald City scenes and Winkie guard scenes involve the entire ensemble so there are a lot of costumes to be created. I have an idea in my head of what I’d like the costumes to look like so sometimes I sketch them out or make a template or just sit at the sewing machine and create what I can from what materials I’m working with.

Walk us through the stages of the fitting process.

After the cast has been chosen they have a “read through” night and that’s when we measure everyone so we can fit them properly. I’ll go through the patterns that we have at the theater to get an idea of what we have as a base to create a costume. For the lion costume, I used a basic adult animal costume pattern and adjusted it to look the way I wanted the lion to look. I also had to order a lion hair/head wig that I colored to match the fur I ordered for the costume. The Tin Man costume was made with EVA foam. I have never worked with that before so I had to research how to work with it. I made a poster board pattern first to fit the actor before I cut out the foam and molded it with a heat gun.

Where do you do the actual work/sewing once you’ve ironed out a list of wardrobe needs?

I sew/create all the costumes in my sewing room at my home. It looked like a bomb went off in the room. Connie Morris has been my right hand gal/helper on this project. We have worked together on several projects. I can give her my ideas for a scene and she will put it together. Vicki Michael has done an amazing job with the hats for this production. I couldn’t do this without their help. Sometimes I have people offer to help and I work with them to give them things they feel confident about working on.

Were there any specific challenges you had to overcome with this production? Or any major challenges from past shows?

I love a challenge so it was fun coming up with costumes for Oz. There is a pride you see in an actor when they like the costume they are wearing and it shows in their confidence and the way they act on stage. This has definitely been a fun show to costume. Spamalot had some challenging costumes, Mary Poppins was fun to figure out the quick changes/ flying and Hello Dolly in Leavenworth was a big costume show.

Spoilers…word on the street is there may be some flying involved in The Wizard of Oz. Talk about working with costume design when specific devices may need to be employed.

We are flying several characters in this show so that’s a challenge to make a costume that can accommodate the flying harness. When I came up with the Flying monkey costume I needed to design it to fit the wires and make sure the wings weren’t in the way when they made the flying motions while jumping around the stage.