In honor of the 10th year anniversary of the Moulin à Nef and VCCA-France an exhibition of the work of VCCA Fellows who have had residencies at Moulin à Nef will be on view at Chapelle Sainte Catherine, le Port, Auvillar through October 8 . The exhibition represents a wide rande of media and styles. Included in the show is the work by the following artists: Anne Kamilla Alexander, France Alvin, Margery Amdur, Karen Bell, Karen Bondarchuk, Craig Cahoon, Agnes Carbrey, Odile Cariteau, Elke Daemmrich, Holly Downing, Cheryl Fortier, Marie-Atina Goldet, Ariel Gout, Janet Gorzegno, L.B. Green, Joan Grubin, Colleen Hayward, Cathy Herndon, Kristin Herzog, Bryant Holsenbeck, Gale Jamieson, Jeff Juhlin, Holen Sabrina Kahn, Karolinda (Linda Caro), Akiko Kotani, Ellen Kozak , Michael Kukla , Mary Mazziotti, Jeanette Macdougall, Mary Mcdonnell, Susan Newbold, Mary Newton, Amie Oliver, Craig Pleasants, Amy Ragus, Ann Ropp, Foon Sham, Isabelle Smeets, Rob Tarbell, Kim Uchiyama, Anita Wetzel an

While in residence, composer Michael Harrison presented his  Just Ancient Loops collaboration of music and film. The piece, which includes the rich polyphonic sound of 20 tracks of pre-recorded cellos , is to be presented as part of the BAM’s 2015 Next Wave Festival featuring cellist Maya Beiser, October 14 -17. Described as an “American Maverick” by Philip Glass, Michael has forged an impressive career in the contemporary classical music scene with works that pair the ancient with the modern, the East with the West. The co-founder and president of the American Academy of Indian Classical Music, Michael has been deeply involved in the musical form since 1979. He has performed solo at numerous concerts in India, and with Terry Riley, as a vocalist, pianist, and on tamboura. A disciple of the late Pandit Pran Nath, Michael has studied with master Indian vocalist Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan since 1999. Along with his many accomplishments as composer and performer, Michael also d

Karl Nussbaum recently presented his new video installation,   Days on End   i n the VCCA Studio Barn. A visual accounting of a five-year period, the installation is a dreamlike and lyrical montage of images drawn from nature and Karl’s personal family history. As the sun goes down, the audience waits outside the barn and then the big wooden doors roll open to reveal a huge, translucent screen slowly billowing in the wind as video footage is projected on it. Below the title,  Days on End ,  fades into a subtitle:  Europe 1938-1944  and then dissolves to read:  New York 2010 - 2015 .  A glowing orb is vaguely visible behind the translucent plastic screen. Moving through the huge doors and past the screen into the dark barn, the audience enters a strange, glowing dream scape and realizes that the 10’ orb that seems to magically float in mid-air is actually a giant, white weather balloon slowly turning as multiple videos are projected onto it. The installation piece is composed of

Acclaimed multimedia artist Helène Aylon’s recent residency at VCCA marked a homecoming of sorts; Helène was at VCCA 22 years ago working on a series of paintings. “When I got home after the residency in 1993,” Helène says. “I never looked at them again. They were in cartons hidden away, and now I’ve come back with them. I am seeing how I was in those days, these panels, these garlands, are remembered from a long time ago, but they’re also elegiac: things gone by. I’m making an arc of my life at the end of my life. I’ve come full circle with the process art, and it’s happening at VCCA.”  The VCCA paintings feature fragile leaves, pods and blades of grass strewn across a field of what looks like eddying rust colored vapor or liquid. Helène used brewed coffee as her medium; its faint aroma still hovers over the canvases.  Born into an ultra orthodox Jewish family in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, Helène married a Talmudic scholar/rabbi at the age of 18. Widowed at 30 with t

Elke Daemmrich winner of the Prix Moulin á Nef was in residence at Mt. San Angelo during July and August, 2015. German by birth, Elke has lived in southwest France since 1993 settling in a medieval village near Toulouse. At home in France and in her second studio in Dresden, Elke produces large oil paintings and copper engravings; while in Amherst, she used more transportable watercolor and colored pencils on cotton paper. Though the medium was different and the size reduced, Elke was still able to recreate the rich colors and ornate compositions that are her hallmark. Her complex, layered paeans to nature seem to vibrate with energy.  She was captivated by the unfamiliar flora and fauna she saw while in Virginia and first in Los Angeles, where she took part in a group exhibition, painting a magnificent Osage orange and a large cicada that appeared in her studio one day. These are incredibly detailed almost scientific renderings; set within Elke’s phantasmagoric tableaux, th

Helen Benedict’s play,  The Lonely Soldier Monologues  has been nominated and shortlisted for the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award in the United Kingdom. Based on interviews with actual women veterans, Helen’s play weaves together the stories of seven women soldiers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2006. Following them from enlistment to deployment and finally, reentry back into society, the play provides a searing account of the true toll of war and the particular challenges faced by women living and working in a male dominated world. The Lonely Soldier Monologues , is to be published by Next Stage Press in September, 2015 . http://www.amazon.com/dp/ 1940865840  

Amy Cheng's  Beyond the Biosphere,  which consists of two printed vinyl canopies, was recently installed at the Slauson Metro Station in Los Angeles. Colorful and exuberant, Amy's  work is an ideal choice for this setting where its spiritual and natural references offer a feeling of serenity and calm, Amy's work  features  geometric and floral motifs that recall Islamic and Asian artistic traditions and she  will be participating in the  4th Annual Juried International Exhibition of Contemporary Islamic Art  at LuminArte Fine Art Gallery, Dallas. Curated by Salma Tuqan, Curator, Contemporary Arab Art and Design, Victoria and Albert Museum, the show will run from  September 26 - October 31 .

Annie Kim’s first poetry manuscript,  Cyclorama , has been awarded the 2015 Michael Waters Poetry Prize by the Southern Indiana Review Press. Cyclorama  will be published in the fall of 2016.  Annie is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, Annie Kim’s poems have been published in Mudlark, Ninth Letter, Asian American Literary Review , and  DMQ Review .  Cyclorama , her first poetry collection, was also selected as a finalist for the 2015 Brittingham/Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry and the Kundiman Poetry Prize.  When not writing poetry, Annie Annie works at the University of Virginia School of Law as the Assistant Dean for Public Service.