Last July, when I received confirmation that the Artist in Residence Program had received a green light to go forward, I began making lists of artists - artists whose work I admired, artists whose work consistently seemed to address site and place, and artists who welcomed transparency and community interaction in their work.  It came as no surprise to me to find my long time colleague - visual artist Linda Wysong, on all of these lists. I have known Linda for 20 years and created my first two large-scale site-relevant works in collaboration with her.  We met when I was trying to teach myself about stillness in movement by modeling for visual art classes at PNCA.  She was the teacher and we just got to talking between sittings.  Turns out that we had some very parallel interests and embarked on a collaboration.   Over the years we have worked together on several pivotal projects - Intersection, Finding the Forest and PipeDreams to suggest a few.  Linda’s work is absolutely singular in this community and I have been deeply grateful to have her as a peer and often a kind of mentor.  She makes work that is genre-bending - and has, long before it became so popular to do so.  So, one can imagine my excitement when she was interested in being a guest in the AiR program.  True to her style, she has been preparing for this month for months, carefully researching and forming relationships to support her project - Backyard Conversations.  Comprised of a series of performance tours and video portraits, Linda’s project actively seeks to raise questions and provoke dialogue about how and why we build what we build.  Combining history, science, engineering and the anecdotal, each of the three tour opportunities  - Water: The Machine and the Garden, Constructing Community and Footprints Along the River, invite attendees to experience the South Waterfront district from singular points of view.  The project culminates on Saturday evening, June 28th, with the screening of a series of video portraits representing residents, construction workers and other individuals who work or interact with the neighborhood.  To sign up for a tour, please go to here.

Our monthly guest artist series continues with Linda Wysong in June 2008. Join the discussion as she writes about her experiences in creating art that celebrates the South Waterfront community.