Sunday June 12, 2016, 7-10 pm
$5-10 Suggested Donation
Join us for an evening of conversation with Kathleen Johnson, Laurie Nye and Michaela Daly. Three women working in different artistic media discuss why and how they are personally, professionally, and artistically influenced by various female authors of Speculative/Science Fiction. Female writers in Speculative/Science Fiction have been experiencing a resurgence in popular culture, and it seems an opportune moment to talk about these authors and their influence. Among the authors to be considered are Octavia Butler, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Madeleine L’Engle and Ursula K. Le Guin. The conversation will look at our personal experience as readers, how these female writers of speculative fiction have influenced each panelists’ art practice, and what experiences we share today with these influential writers. As a panel we will share a group of questions to catapult the conversation among each other, and the audience – sparking new ideas. The panel discussion is approximately 1 hour and then the conversation opens up to the audience, salon style.
Panelist Laurie Nye is a painter who explores visionary realms. Her work is rooted in feminine gesture and illustrates ideas about painterly complexity and visionary expression. Nye’s ongoing body of work is posed as a collaboration with strong female muses from an alternate reality she created known as Andromeda. The Andromedans are a hybrid (part organic/part machine) race of interstellar travelers who seek to study natural worlds, eradicate cruelty, and restore balance in the universe. Nye lives and works in Los Angeles.
Panelist Kathleen Johnson is an inspired and innovative multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Her ongoing project, Brainchild, is a nine-part text/music/performance work that follows the experiences of a young woman as she explores the remnants of an ancient civilization. For each successive installment of Brainchild, Johnson collaborates with a different guest composer who creates a choral work for live performance, allowing audiences to experience and process her text in various ways. Johnson works repeatedly with the same chosen group of female vocalists, including the young performer who plays the role of the protagonist, Brainchild.
Moderator Michaela Daly is a painter and visual artist living and working in Los Angeles. Her interest in speculative fiction began at a young age when she read Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet series and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics. These books provided a path using the fantastic as a means towards self expression and way to explore and comment on the present world and society, that continue to inspire Daly’s personal artwork and interior life.