September 18, 2013 Community Happenings

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 18 September 2013 11:08

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    Chamber to Meet
    The Chamber of Commerce luncheon will be noon Friday this week. Bob Loeffler, former director of the Division of Mining, Land and Water for the state and current visiting professor of public policy at UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research, will speak on mining for sustainable communities. It will be at the Westmark Sitka.
    For more information, call the Chamber office at 747-8604. The website at www.sitkachamber.com has a listing of calendar events and upcoming lunches.

   

Oregon Poet and Sitka Artist to Collaborate During Monthlong Residency

    Poet Ann Staley and artist Norman Campbell have been friends for close to 40 years, and have long been fans of each other’s work. For the next month, they’ll be treated to an opportunity they’ve not had in all those years of friendship – the chance to collaborate with each other and explore ways their poems and art might come together.
    This week, Staley and Campbell will launch a new chapter in the Island Institute’s long-established residency program. After 24 years of hosting solitary writers for residencies, the Institute has expanded the program to include two artists in each residency. At least one of them must be a writer who shares the Institute’s interests. The other may also be a writer, but might instead be an artist of a different discipline.
     “We’re eager to open doors to the kind of creative synergy that is possible when artists work around each other and share ideas,” says Institute Director Carolyn Servid. “Encouraging connections between disciplines mirrors a kind of reciprocity we believe is useful and healthy in a lot of different contexts, especially in vibrant communities.”
    Community engagement has been an integral part of the Institute’s residency program since its inception, and will continue. Staley and Campbell will give their first public reading/talk 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 22 p.m. at Kettleson Library. Conversation and refreshments will follow, and a $5 donation is suggested.
    Staley hails from Corvallis, Ore., where she has taught for many years in a variety of settings including high schools, community college, universities, and the Oregon Correctional Facility for women. She has three masters degrees: humanities; teaching; and public policy and leadership. She moved west from her home state of Pennsylvania in the 1970s in her blue VW bug. When she arrived in San Francisco, she chose to turn north and ended up in Oregon.
    It was there that she met Norman Campbell, who received an applied design degree from Southern Oregon College. He has lived and drawn in Southeast Alaska since 1982, and his meticulous pen-and-ink drawings, often augmented with watercolor, are familiar to many Sitkans. Campbell has participated in several Artist-in-the-Schools residencies and teaches classes at the University of Alaska Southeast and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for both adults and children.
    Staley and Campbell are planning other activities for their residency together, including community conversations among local writers and artists, and visits to Blatchley Middle School and Sitka High. The results of their collaboration will be highlighted at a public event (tba) at the end of their residency in mid-October.
    Support for the Staley/Campbell residency comes from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, City of Sitka, Sitka Charitable Trust, and Island Institute members. For more information, contact the Institute at 747-3794.


    Kaagwaantaan Meet
    The Kaagwaantaan Clan meeting is set 2 p.m. Sept. 22 at Blatchley Middle School in Room 114. It will include song practice, planning and snacks.
    Call Roby at 738-4004 for more information.


    Head Start Opens
    Sitka Head Start is open at the Rasmuson Center on the SJ Campus. A parent orientation meeting is slated 6 p.m. Sept. 19.
    Phones were scheduled to be connected in the business office today. Call 752-0307 with questions.



    Sunday School
    Starts at St. Peter’s
    St. Peter’s Episcopal Church offers Sunday school at 10 a.m. for all ages of children.
    Call Trish at 747-5976 with questions.

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