SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

4th Annual ARTS WEEK!

During Arts Week The Sou’wester hosts 30-35 artists and art collectives for a week of residency work culminating in a weekend (Friday and Saturday) of music, studio tours, performances and installations.

Over the past 9 years we have held an event around this time of year to highlight the creative process and the experiential nature of the Sou’wester Residency Program. Each year this event brings amazing artists to this neck of the woods and shines creative light into the darkest heart of winter.

The focus of Arts Week 2023 is SHIFTING CYCLES:

---

On the weekend, Friday and Saturday March 17th and 18th, 2023 the public will be invited, free and open to all, to tour the grounds and surrounding areas for a weekend full of installations, music, performances and open studios.

---

 

(The Sou’wester has regular residencies offered year-round in addition to residency events such as the annual ARTS WEEK. Applications for the Sou’wester Standard Residency are separate from ARTS WEEK and accepted on a rolling basis.)

---

Thank you to our Arts Week 2023 Sponsors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Workshop includes relief printmaking demo (linocut), time for sketching and discussion during interactive presentation that situates us on the timeline of activist printmaking from Martin Luther 16th Century to Mexico 20th century to the present. Building upon a 30 year history as stage performer and rock singer, Karim Shuquem creates installations, sculptures, and prints that have relationship with staging, temporality, and process. Shuquem has recently completed the Otis College MFA program and works as an art teacher. Register

Henry Chadwick: Presented by Sou’wester Arts

Henry Chadwick is a Portland, OR-based singer-songwriter, musician & recording producer/engineer from Santa Cruz, CA. Chadwick’s music dances between genres – landing somewhere between rock, indie, psychedelia, and shimmery, sunshine-tinged power-pop. After spending years drumming in roots rock band, The Coffis Brothers, Chadwick struck out on his own in 2016. Since then, he’s gone on to tour, release multiple albums & EPs, & garner attention from audiences as well as prominent blogs and outlets such as Rolling Stone, Time, Huffington Post, Indie Shuffle and more. Chadwick recorded his debut LP, Marlin Fisher, in 2018 with legendary record producer, Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Kurt Vile, Beck etc.). The album has met with a nice response from critics and listeners alike. Chadwick’s sophomore LP, We All Start Again was released on October 29th 2021, & is his most ambitious, mature and evolved sounding record to date. 

Participants will learn the basics of block printing on fabric including designing, carving, and printing. You will troubleshoot common problems in relief printmaking, learn about brands and tools, and leave with finished prints on fabric. Please bring your own fabric item which can include yardage, tshirts, scarves, or anything else that is relatively smooth. Avoid fabrics such as burlap.

Ashley Quick is a visual artist based in the mountain west. Her graphic and often illustrative work represents personal experience and place-based reflections on nature in mediums such as printmaking, illustration, and more recently mural. She shows regularly in Wyoming and Colorado, and has been featured in shows across the country. 

Palm Sunday is a genre bending Portland based band spearheaded by songwriter Merle Law. They started this project in Atlanta GA in 2018 where they recorded the lofi debut EP “Wishful Thinking” later released in New Orleans LA. They are currently cooking up their first full length album recorded entirely to tape in Portland, OR. The counter jazz rhythms overlap with timeless ethereal songwriting. The effect of being elevated by something familiar. The melancholy, unconventional rhythm and tropical elements carry one another. 

Jonny G and the Music Factory is a Hard Rock and Roll (some times soft) music group from
the PNW.

 

Starting as a solo musician from late 2017 to 2021, Darla Rae (front person of Craetorus) has been making moves to push for inclusivity and diversity in the music scene since. Their lyrics are described as contemplative, with tinges of catchiness, but enough to leave you with catharsis and a yearning for self reflection. Musically sounding in the likes of jazz, r&b, psychedelia, prog rock and avant garde indie, they’ve somehow made a conglomeration of it all to make Craetorus’ sound distinct of others. Releasing their first single, “Ivy” in April of 2019, they’ve been on the path to musical discovery since with the recent support in May of 2022 from Jon Garber, Lychen Gipaya, Ryan Anthony Brooks, Nico Mitchell and Danilo Martinez. Catch them soon with an EP release in 2023 titled, “Odes”.

Eelgrass is a marine flowering plant that helps store carbon, reduce erosion and provide shelter and spawning areas for a host of marine wildlife in bays and estuaries across the globe, including right here in Willapa Bay. Eelgrass is also the name of a longtime musical collaboration between Lara Pacheco, Dan Swenson, Bobby Hayden and Todd Summers. They play folky-tonk-pop with psychedelic vibes and call Portland, Oregon home.

 

Kendall Lujan: Presented by Sou’wester

The striking talents of rising Portland talent Kendall Lujan will be impossible to miss in the coming year. Her indie-operatic voice stratifies songs through octave runs, making moody, melodic folk rock. Early 2023 we’ll have her first EP. To rise out of Portland’s flush music scene is no easy feat, Lujan has been making herself heard by singing harmonies in AC Sapphire’s backing band The Shoulderpads and now with a new duo with AC called “Caliko”.

In her latest project Lujan steps out in front of the band. Many folks introduction to Lujan will be “Another”, a song of lingering desire that floats Lujan’s vocal range over a small symphony of archtop guitar and strings. Her strengthy voice –which ranges from mountain holler to bird-like warble, seems to hang in the air. She sings a song about retracing steps to the point where love was lost, and resolves to regain that trail in another life.

Lujan opens the moody “Dot My I’s” solo, fingerpicking guitar, giving us a chance to hear her commanding voice. Layered vocals and gentle driven drums join Lujan in a pocket groove. Enjoy her lyricism as she asks “how can these memories be so sweet, and other times only sting?”Lujan comes to Portland from the upper-left-most corner of rural Washington. She’s had bands before but the time of the pandemic created an opportunity for Lujan to do things differently. She moved to Portland, and saw the isolation of relocation and lockdown as a chance to really dig into her own songs. The trained piano player picked up a guitar. 

Lujan’s song’s concentrate on growing up, and figuring it out, and she  turns experience into a story to make the point. The natural singer and songwriter put together a band with Micah Hummel (drums) Sam Arnold (bass) and recorded at the Map Room in Portland with Dominik Schmidt producing.

Lujan is peaking on “Forget Me Knots” , a crossover capable song incorporating elements of country, indie, folk, and pop. Crooning clearly over vibrato, reverb, pedal steel asking, romantically, “how long will it take for you to be sitting next to me?” with a release date of February 10th.

Lujan’s first self titled, EP Kendall Lujan is out march 2023. 

~ Sean Jewell

American Standard Time Records