Edge Effects
A Way to Be a Human Being: James Reed
James Reed is a South African visual artist currently living in Portland, Oregon. He holds a Masters of Art in Social Sculpture with distinction from Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom (2007). He works in diverse genres of visual art and social practice, much...
Timeless Works: Peter De Lory and Owen Gump
This September, photographers Owen Gump and Peter De Lory stayed at PLAYA in a collaborative residency. As they explored the high desert, as their studio walls filled with images they'd made on the playa and beyond, staff and residents alike felt privileged to view...
From Mauna to PLAYA: Lehuauakea Fernandez
Lehuauakea Fernandez is a mixed Native Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist from Hilo, Hawaiʻi. She has participated in several group shows in Portland, Oregon, most recently the 23rd Annual Recent Graduates Exhibition at Blackfish Gallery. Through a range of craft-based...
Pure Joy: Barbara Rockman
PLAYA alumna Barbara Rockman is the author of Sting and Nest, winner of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and recipient of the National Press Women Book Prize. Her poems appear in numerous anthologies and journals including Calyx, Bellingham Review, Louisville...
Nine Days, Nine Wonders: Jozsef Devenyi
Jozsef Devenyi, recent alum of PLAYA residency program for artists and scientists, is a professor of chemistry at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He spent his nine-day stay updating an organic chemistry lab manual -- adding, revising, and reconducting...
Spreading the Wonder: Marilyn Joyce
Paper, ink, beeswax, and thread tell the story of a place in Marilyn Joyce’s mixed media works. Residing in Portland, Oregon, she finds that her passionate interest in the natural world, joined with a walking practice, provides parameters for her art. As Marilyn...
Specifics of the Goodness: Melanie Bishop
Author and PLAYA alum Melanie Bishop has a delightful Young Adult novel in the PLAYA library: My So-Called Ruined Life (2014). This "introspective page-turner" (Publisher's Weekly) was a top-five finalist for both the John Gardner Award in Fiction and Community of...
The Intensity of Immersion: Paul Skenazy
PLAYA resident Paul Skenazy taught Literature and Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for many years. Several PLAYA residents fondly remember Paul's lively lectures as he expanded our horizons on that beautiful campus among the redwoods and banana...
Illuminated Pages: Sarah Rabkin and Chuck Atkinson
PLAYA is thrilled to welcome the return of alumni Sarah Rabkin and Charles Atkinson to Summer Lake, on May 3 through 5, to lead our first master class of 2019. Former residents Chuck and Sarah both taught writing at UC Santa Cruz for many years. Sarah is the author...
So Freakin’ Special: Daniel Getzoff
Daniel Getzoff is a Los Angeles-based community activist and organizer, a playwright, personal essayist/blogger, a multi-faceted nonprofit sector worker, a recovering actor, and a recovering addict. In the past few years, he has added fiction writer to that list....