Maya Simone Ankenbruck: Artist Feature

Maya Simone Ankenbruck, Sketch Artist, Oil Painter, Ceramicist, Silk Screen Printer, South Haven, Michigan

Email: maya.ankenbruck@gmail.com

Artist Bio:

I have been an Artist ever since I can remember. I am now 20 years of age and creating art or being involved in the Arts is the only thing I can imagine doing with my life. I Attended Southwestern Michigan College from 2018-2020 and received an Associates in Visual Arts with Honors. I have interned at the South Haven Center for the Arts in the Past and am very glad to have the opportunity to work with Kerry again, and now Noelle, with this 2020, Summer Internship. I am pursuing a career in entrepreneurship, selling my art, doing commissions, making various product items and building a name for myself through social media. I am planning to finish two more years of art school before I jump into my real adult career, but am working my way slowly to a website. Other than being a Freelance Artist, I am very interested in becoming a Tattoo Artist. I very much appreciate well done and unique body art. I love Art, Nature, Insects, and Turtles, specifically my Box Turtle Mabel.

Artist Statement:

I would always be drawing in class and when I look back on the sketches they are not bad. My peers enjoyed what I would create, even if it was a bit odd, so people enjoying my art really made me think about pursuing it as a job. I am always unsure if people will enjoy my art enough to spend actual money on it. But as I have grown and gone to college and met interesting people and discovered other artists I have realized that dark, symbolical, maybe confusing art has been made forever and has sold and has been revered as great. Surrealist art is my love. I love everything about surreal art, it makes me think, it makes me feel something, and I could look at and talk about surreal paintings for hours. I want to create art that makes other people feel that way. I am perhaps a dark person. I love the color black, my art is mainly not joyful, but I cannot say it is sad to me either. It is just what I felt like creating that day. I enjoy oil paint because it is old school, it dries slowly so I can continuously go back to it, the Impasto technique is so captivating, oil paint is the best paint in my mind. While at Southwestern College I took ceramics and fell in love with that as well. I love to make coil pots and add details such as body parts or interesting floral shapes. I very much enjoy glazes that look like nature and seeing a ceramic piece come out of the kiln finished, and not cracked is amazingly exciting. As for drawing, I draw many nudes, portraits, surreal people, surreal objects. I love the human form and have taken nude study classes. People are not superior to turtles or any other life form to me, but I definitely love to draw people the most. I have also just started my long learning process of silk screen printing. It's very interesting and worth my time. Creating my own shirts with my designs will be a large part of my entrepreneurial business and website.

My favorite tool is my lovely hands. I have to restrain myself from smearing the paint on my canvases with my fingers, like a child. It is just so satisfying to work directly with my hands. Maybe that is why I took a quick liking to ceramics, getting to be hands on with my material, and really sculpt and feel the art between my hands.

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Maya Simone Ankenbruck is the South Haven Center for the Arts' Intern for the summer 2020 season. This opportunity was made available by a grant from The Greater South Haven Area Community Foundation.

Stephanie Lewis Robertson: Juror

Stephanie Lewis Robertson Fabricsinger

South Haven, Michigan

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Stephanie Lewis Robinson is the juror for the South Haven Center for the Arts' Regional Online Juried Exhibition "Fantastical Flora and Fauna," which explores artist visions of the fantastical flora and fauna that live in their imaginations. This exhibition continues the celebration of Frida Kahlo and her beloved garden at her home, in Mexico City—Casa Azul—that inspired her artwork.

(Please note that "Frida Kahlo's Garden," the exhibition planned for Summer 2020, was cancelled by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the South Haven Center for the Arts is continuing our work to celebrate Frida and her gardens through "Fanstastical Flora and Fauna" and the outdoor Frida's Garden exhibition that is displayed in downtown South Haven and surrounding neighborhood gardens.)

Much like a musical conversation, Stephanie Lewis Robertson sings to her hand-dyed and –printed fabrics while she works. Spirituality, ritual, nature, music, the concept of the “last worst time” and the current state of the world serve as the inspiration for the fabric and paper constructions.

Artist Bio

Ms. Robertson is the Program Chair for Fine Arts at Ivy Tech Community College, Central Indiana region. She holds a MFA (1994, University of Georgia) and a BFA (1981, Miami University) in Fabric Design. Her work is included in several corporate and private collections and she is also a teaching artist with Arts for Learning of Indiana.

In 2017, she was accepted into Religion Spirituality and the Arts V. Among her other awards and grants are three Individual Artists Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission, an Arts in the Park grant (2017), Second Place for Three Dimensional Work in Artistry in Fiber 2016 and Best of Show, Artistry in Fiber 2014, Second Place (2015) and First and Third Place (2011) in Surface Design at the Indiana State Fair, recipient of the Stutz Artists Association Studio Space in 2002, and an Arts Council of Indianapolis Creative Renewal Fellowship in 2001.

Some of her exhibitions include Invocations: Reliquaries for the Discarded (Artsplace, Portland, IN), Tiny IV, V, VI and VII (Gallery 924, Indianapolis, IN), Ivy Tech Community College Arts and Design Faculty Show (Gallery 924, Indianapolis, IN), Wrestling with the Infinite (Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, IN), TBI Prayers (Indianapolis International Airport), and The Infinite Moment of Now (Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN).

Artist Statement

"Prayer made visible. For children and mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. For family for friends. For health and safety, prayers of compassion and empathy, fierce prayers and gentle prayers. For communities and the lost, for Mother Earth and Father Sky, for oceans, forests, flowers and crickets and creeks. For beauty, for peace, for love. For fires and food and keeping the faith for those who are wandering.

The fabric begins as a blank cloth, waiting for our conversation to begin. We sing, we pray, we say "yes", "no", "this". The fabric and the prayers tell me their story and I serve as the storyteller. I pray."

Artwork by Stephanie Lewis Robertson

Prayer Rug

Going Walkabout

Rust Detritus, detail

Frida . . . A Self-Portrait

On Saturday, July 11 at 5:00 p.m. EST the South Haven Center for the Arts—in collaboration with actor and playwright Vanessa Severo and South Haven’s SHOUT Theater—will present a virtual production of Frida...A Self Portrait, a one-woman performance by Severo about the life of Frida Kahlo.

4:45 p.m. Pre-Show Cocktail Mixer with Vanessa Gather your ingredients and join Vanessa to say hello and mix your Paloma cocktail—also known as “the workingman's drink"—to enjoy during the performance. Frida was a great supporter of the working men and women of Mexico and particularly favored this traditional tequila-based drink.

KOSHER SALT

1 GRAPEFRUIT WEDGE

¼ CUP FRESH GRAPEFRUIT JUICE

1 TABLESPOON FRESH LIME JUICE

1 TEASPOON SUGAR

¼ CUP CLUB SODA

¼ CUP MESCAL OR TEQUILA

(Leave out the tequila for a mocktail)

5:00 p.m. Live performance 5:30 p.m. Q&A with Vanessa Severo moderated by filmmaker Diana Densmore Spots are limited so register here to reserve your place. Thank you for registering and use the Zoom link you will receive in your confirmation email. Don't worry if the Zoom room is full, you can still view the live stream beginning at 4:45 p.m. EST on the South Haven Center for the Arts Facebook page. Note that this is a live event only. The recording will not be available after the performance.

Vanessa Severo as Frida in "Frida . . . A Self-Portrait

Photo courtesy of Cory Weaver

“Set on the eve of Frida Kahlo’s death, the story plunges into the gorgeous, nuanced world of Kahlo’s tumultuous and brilliant life. Severo cracks open a powerful portal between herself and the artist, offering breathtaking physicality and raw honesty in this theatrically stunning production.”

Severo studied at Missouri State University and The American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, and received the TCG 11th Round of the Fox Foundation resident Actor Fellowship in 2017. She has performed for the past twelve seasons at The Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and is certified in the Suzuki Method and Viewpoints under the instruction of Ellen Lauren, SITI company. Severo is passionate about utilizing the element of Suzuki in her work to challenge the boundaries of storytelling, and explore the depths of movement, composition, and the power of stillness.

Diana Densmore of South Haven will facilitate the talk-back segment with Severo after the thirty-minute performance. Densmore is a writer, multimedia artist, and filmmaker who has screened across the globe, from Beijing to the Cannes Short Film Corner. She has worked on independent feature-length films, music videos, commercials, and studio television shows as production assistant, background actress, production designer, and producer. She was an intern for the writer's room on the hit CBS series Criminal Minds, wardrobe mistress for “Like Whoa,” a music video featuring actor Shemar Moore, and co-founder of Reel Lemonade Productions, a five-year experiment in collaborative, experimental short films. Densmore has an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and a BA in Film & Video Studies and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She currently studies Animation at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

During the performance, the art center invites viewers to enjoy their own Paloma, a traditional Mexican drink known as the drink of the “working man." Frida was a supporter of the working men and women of Mexico. Gather your ingredients and mix your Paloma with Severo before the play! Google “Paloma” and “Paloma Mocktail” for alcoholic and non-alcoholic recipes.

This event is funded by the South Haven Community Foundation.

Please visit southhavenarts.org/Frida to learn about other events planned by the art center to celebrate the life and art of Frida Kahlo.

Photo courtesy of Cory Weaver

southhavenarts.org, South Haven Center for the Arts on Facebook, Instagram: @southhavenarts