PechaKucha Night VOL. 14 MULTIPLICITY

Meet Our Speakers

Artist Lauren Dana Smith

Lauren Dana Smith  |  Box Breath

In Box Breath artist Lauren Dana Smith guides us through her latest body of work composing of 400 digital objects.

Bio

Raised in the Northeastern United States, Lauren Dana Smith is a painter, writer, and art therapist who lives in Taos, New Mexico. She creates textural and sculptural paintings that explore the interior spaces and exterior boundaries of physical form, the natural world, and human consciousness. A visual artist and mental health care worker, her recent series brings arts-based perspectives into the dialogue around living, dying, healing, and wellness in this country.

Lauren recently received the SURFACE: Emerging Artist of New Mexico 2021 award from the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was also awarded the Digital Art Award in the 2021 National Juried CCAN exhibition from the Center for Contemporary Art in Abilene, Texas. She received her M.P.S. in Creative Arts Therapy and Creativity Development from Pratt Institute.

One of 400 pieces from artist Lauren Dana Smith's collection "Box Breath."

Summary

In Box Breath artist Lauren Dana Smith guides us through the creation of her latest body of work. Initiated in 2021, this series was realized through a multi-step process: an image of origin was created through digital painting and drawing, and then was gradually manipulated through collage into each unique composition. Inspired by internal geometries and cellular landscapes, each composition is familiar, yet unidentifiable. In a sense, each digital form inspires the next. There are now approximately 400 digital objects in this collection, all claiming relation to the originating paintings, but varying in degrees of color, light, saturation and transparency. Once described by an observer as, “musculature of body and soul,” they are interrelated, parts of a whole; simultaneously together and apart. They flow into each other but are discreet, not unlike collective breath. They are an externalization and abstraction of how we dissect and compartmentalize our identities in this psychologically violent time.

Marcia Butler

Marcia Butler  |  Immer Neu (always new)

In Immer Neu multidisciplinary creative Marcia Butler explores how an interior life both encourages and impedes one’s ability to thrive creatively in the world.

Bio

Marcia Butler has had several creative careers: professional musician, interior designer, documentary filmmaker, and author. During her thirty-year musical career, she performed as a principal oboist and soloist on the most renowned of New York and international stages and with many high-profile musicians — including pianist Andre Watts and composer/pianist Keith Jarrett. Her interior design projects have been published in numerous shelter magazines and range up and down the East coast, from Boston to NYC to Miami. The Creative Imperative, her documentary film exploring the essence of creativity, was premiered at The New York Society Library in 2019 and is now available on YouTube. As an author, Marcia’s nationally acclaimed memoir, The Skin Above My Knee, was one of the Washington Post’s “Top ten noteworthy moments in classical music in 2017”. Her novels, Pickle’s Progress and Oslo, Maine, are out in the world living moderately happy lives. She is currently at work on her third novel, Seven Days in the Life of Peppa Ryan. But what she really wants to do is design couture clothing. After four decades in New York City, Marcia now calls Santa Fe home.
Portrait Photography by Robin Martin for Marcia Butler

transdisplinary creative Marcia Butler discusses her work at PechaKucha Night Santa Fe.

Summary

How does an interior life both encourage and impede one’s ability to thrive creatively in the world? Through narrative and images, Marcia Butler explores this question by examining discipline and miracles, color and sound, misery and resolution. Throughout, her creative life is ever changing. And by necessity, always new.

Michael Garfield

Michael Garfield  |  There Is No One Path Forward: Pluralism in Science, Philosophy, and Culture

Artist and philosopher Michael Garfield explains why cognitive diversity is the secret to innovation and effective collaboration in There Is No One Path Forward: Pluralism in Science, Philosophy, and Culture.

Bio

Artist and philosopher Michael Garfield helps people navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and cultivate the curiosity and play we’ll need to thrive in it. As host and producer of both Future Fossils Podcast & The Santa Fe Institute’s Complexity Podcast, Michael acts as interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, philosophers, and industry professionals — a practice fed by and and feeding back into his fifteen years of synthetic and transdisciplinary ”mind-jazz” performances in the form of essay, avant-guitar, live painting, and public speaking. Bearing the standard for a new generation of mystic-scholar-practitioners and refusing to be enslaved by a single perspective, creative medium, or community, Michael walks through the walls between academia, tech, and festival culture — speaking and performing everywhere from Moogfest to Burning Man, SXSW to Boom Festival, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to Long Now’s Ignite Talks to The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors…all while raising two kids.

Artwork of a dragon by Michael Garfield

Summary

Contrary to popular belief, there will never be one Theory of Everything to unify all truth in an equation that fits on a t-shirt. Multiplicity is how the cosmos knows itself, because all models of the world — whether they take the form of intellectual theories or organisms in an ongoing dance of adaptation with their environment — are incomplete and up for constant revision. In order to survive the crises of this century, humankind must jettison the notion that there’s One Idea To Rule Them All and fan out into ”The Adjacent Possible,” searching as comprehensively as we can for diverse and complementary truths.

Actor Danielle Louise Reddick

Danielle Louise Reddick  |  From Many to One

Through exploring multiplicity externally as an actor and internally as a creator, actress Danielle Reddick shares her discovery of oneness in her presentation From Many to One.

Bio

Danielle Louise Reddick grew up in Harlem, New York City, and performed in her first play in the third grade. After graduating from the High School of the Performing Arts, she apprenticed at the Academy Theater in Atlanta, Georgia.

Danielle landed in New Mexico after touring as a cast member of the International tour of STOMP. Before STOMP, she worked as an actor, solo performer, and puppeteer in New York City. In 2015, Danielle received her BFA in theater at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. During her time in Santa Fe, Danielle became a fitness instructor and a hypnotherapist. After training in the Feldenkrais Method and the Nia Technique, Dani taught group fitness at the Santa Fe Community College and other studios in Santa Fe. After ten years of teaching, Danielle has developed an individualized somatic training for actors called SoHyp (pronounced so-hip).

Danielle is also a professional actor on both stage and screen. She is a member of the SAG/AFTRA actors union. She received the Lisa Simon Award for her participation in the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference in the summer of 2019. Recent roles include “Ella Hammer” in The Cradle Will Rock at New Mexico Actor’s Lab, and “Dr. James” in The Effect at The Santa Fe Playhouse. In 2022, Danielle received MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College with a performance creation concentration. She is a long-standing company member of Theater Grottesco, and co-owner of RedQuyn Productions: creating original work and performance salons called The RedQuyn Experience.

Actor Danielle Louise Reddick

Summary

Actress Danielle Reddick did her first lead role as an actor in the third grade. Not a year of her life has gone by since when she hasn’t performed in a play. Maturing as an actor, she has found something of herself in every role, including a wolf sage, a daemon goddess, and a spirit slave. Danielle is currently developing a solo performance project in which five characters — a person, a creature, an entity, a puppet, and a story — all come from something within herself. For each of these characters, Danielle has developed a part of herself, building from the inside-out as opposed to the outside-in. For example, in creating the main character of “Dusty,” Danielle became a certified death doula through the Going with Grace — End of Life training. In exploring multiplicity externally as an actor and internally as a creator, Danielle has come to the idea of oneness that looks like mycelial fungus networking at a threshold.

Visual Artist Apolo Gomez

Apolo Gomez  |  Multiplicity of Queerness in Photography

Visual artist Apolo Gomez examines gender constructs and sexual identity in his presentation Multiplicity of Queerness in Photography.

Bio

Austin transplant Apolo Gomez is a visual artist based out of Albuquerque. His work has been exhibited at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center in Denver; Hamilton & Arronson Galleries, University of the Arts, in Philadelphia; and the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum in Albuquerque. He is represented by Kouri + Corrao Gallery Santa Fe, and is currently working as a Studio Assistant for Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman in Belen.

Apolo Gomez

Summary

In Multiplicity of Queerness in Photography, Apolo Gomez considers the relationship between multiplicities in photography by queer-identified photographers and artists in relation to his own work, and examines how our entanglement with internalized homophobia can impact performative self-expression of sexual identity. In each slide, he will present queer-identified artists such as Kelli Connel, Anthony Goicolea, and Catherine Opie, whose works explore gender constructs, sexual identity, masculinity, and community acceptance.

PechaKucha presenter Pi Luna

Pi Luna  |  The Secret of Pi — How Chaos Turns to Order

In The Secret of Pi — How Chaos Turns to Order artist Pi Luna illuminates how she breaks apart limiting belief systems to gain a fresh perspective through the mixed media process.

Bio

Pi Luna’s art is about breaking apart limiting belief systems to create new and more empowered ways of thinking. She explores topics such as money, relationships, emotions, spirituality, and sustainability, which humans often get caught up in. By using a mixed media process of cutting up paper, Pi breaks apart the limited belief systems around these topics and reassembles the pieces in a new and more empowering way. Her work is accompanied by a written reflection about the process to inspire a new perspective.

Pi has an MFA from Goddard College in interdisciplinary arts and a BA from Prescott College in Expressive Arts.

Artwork by multimedia artist Pi Luna

Summary

How do thousands of tiny pieces of paper turn into a work of art? In this presentation learn the story behind Pi Luna’s unique name, and how chaos and order play a part in her unique multimedia artwork.

Urban Planner Carlos Gemora

Carlos Gemora  |  Democracy, Power, and Planning

Urban planner Carlos Gemora illustrates the benefits, weaknesses, and difficulties of community engagement in his presentation Democracy, Power, and Planning.

Bio

Carlos Gemora is an urban planner facilitating creative changes in New Mexican communities. He is focused on land use, affordable housing, socio-economic justice, and education. He works for planning firm Sites Southwest and serves on the board of the Telluride Association and Friends of Architecture Santa Fe. He studied planning at Cornell University and the Evergreen State College, and has previously worked for the City of Santa Fe and in communities in Upstate New York and Washington State.

Drawing of two men, each standing in a small boat and bailing water out of his own boat and dumping it in the other's boat.

Summary

With a decade of experience in community planning, Carlos Gemora shares his insights into the trends and practices of urban planning and design. In his presentation, Democracy, Power, and Planning, Carlos explores the tension that arises from our current democratic community engagement processes and how it impacts the long term health of communities.

Wild Leaven Bakery Owners Andre and Jessica Kempton

André & Jessica Kempton  |  Wild Leaven Bakery: Building a Strong Local Food Economy

How do microbes strengthen the communities of northern New Mexico? Bakery owners André and Jessica Kempton share their recipe for robust local business relationships in Wild Leaven Bakery: Building a Strong Local Food Economy.

Bio

In 2012 André Kempton started Wild Leaven Bakery, after working for five years as an apprentice under Willem Malten. He enjoys the whole process of making bread, which often involves visiting local farmers and finding out what works and what doesn’t out there in the fields of the high mountain desert climate. The art of bread making often leads him to milling flour himself or buying from a local mill. Then, after hand mixing small batches of sourdough bread and letting it rise for a whole day, he delights in pulling the loaves out of the oven. When he’s not near an oven, André likes cooking, farming, hiking and traveling with his wife Jessica.

Dr. Jessica Foumena Kempton is a communication expert, an educator, a trained journalist, a mentor, and an African feminist scholar. For many years, she wrote stories about women and the African continent on her blog named “Women & Africa.” The blog played a key role in her decision to earn her doctorate degree from Texas Tech University. Her dissertation titled “Raising Her Voice Across Africa: Women’s Empowerment Through Digital Storytelling” is a case study that examines how African women have successfully used an U.S.-based feminist digital platform to improve their lives and the ones of others. She is passionate about positively changing the lives of others through education, research, volunteer work and laughter. Alongside with her husband André, she manages the operations of their family business Wild Leaven Bakery, expands her taste buds, and travels places.

Wild Leaven Bakery Owners André and Jessica Kempton

Summary

In Wild Leaven Bakery: Building a Strong Local Food Economy, André and Jessica Kempton share the magic that arose when they teamed up with invisible fermenting microbes to produce clean, nutrient dense food for their community.

Graphic Designer Everett Pelayo

Everett Pelayo  |  Design for Living

In Design for Living graphic designer Everett Pelayo teaches us how he fostered a sense of purpose and happiness by applying the design process to his life.

Bio

Everett Pelayo is a graphic designer and creative director who has helped shape Dwell Magazine. He created an editorial channel for Herman Miller, and built a brand foundation that fostered growth for Square. He believes in human-centered design as a way to solve business, creative, and strategic problems. His process focuses on collaboration to yield unexpected and impactful results.

Graphic Designer Everett Pelayo will present Design for Living at PechaKucha Night Santa Fe

Summary

After quitting his job in 2018, Everett Pelayo wanted to become his own client with the goal of designing a life that fostered happiness and purpose. With the belief that design should benefit everyone, he set out to create a framework that empowers others to design a life of purpose too. Through this process, he was able to step back and sketch out the system dynamic of his life. In his presentation Design For Living, he shares how to think, see, act and react to problems like a designer.