1994 Artist Support Program

Hank Bradley and Cathie Whitesides are traditional folk music masters.

Hank’s Southern style fiddling began with time spent with Otis Burris and the Mountain Ramblers of Galax, VA in the ’60s. He is also adept on Greek bouzouki, Croatian tamburitsa, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. His Poison Coyote Kid LP began his reputation as song and tunesmith of great wit, able to be all the instruments in the band. He has performed and taught nationally and internationally.

Cathie Whitesides took up Irish fiddle when she heard outstanding box players Joe Cooley and Kevin Keegan in San Francisco in the 70s. With Irish music held close, she dove into New England contra dance tunes and has fiddled at dances nationally and as far away as Odessa and St. Petersburg. Interest in Greek, Romanian and Serbian fiddle tunes intensified with her partnership with Hank.

Cathie and Hank have performed as a duo for many years and also perform in numerous other bands.

Artist Support Program 1994

Craig Flory is a composer and musician who plays saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute.

Artist Support Program 1994

Grey Eagle, or Ken Jackson (1923-2008), was director of Sacred Circle Storytellers and a founding member of Read Eagle Soaring, a Native American theater group that produced his AIDS-awareness and substance abuse play, Story Circles. Grey Eagle told stories for many years in North America and Europe, especially in the Nordic countries. A book of his Raven stories has been published with parallel texts of Sami and English.

Artist Support Program 1994

Jay Hamilton studied music composition at Fairhaven College on the campus of Western Washington University with Americole Biasini and Dr. E. LaBounty. He has attended the workshops of Kenneth Gaburo, David Mahler, Meredith Monk, Simone Forti, and Pauline Oliveros. He studied piano for 6 years, doublebass for 9 years, voice with Roger Nelson and Thomasa Eckert for 4+ years, and composition with Janice Giteck for 7 years. Jay began composing at the age of 9 and has written over 200 works, most of which have had public performances. They include operas, dance/ballet pieces, and incidental music for the theatre.

He has often worked with instruments of his own design and construction, using just intonation for the basic tuning. In 1982 he formed the Quixotic String Ensemble with adults who had little musical experience, training them to read music and perform on his instruments. They performed regularly throughout the Northwest until 1989. From 1983-87 he was a member of, and composer for, Gamelan Pacifica, a group using instruments based on the instruments of an Indonesian orchestra.

In 2005 he started The Turtling Dithers with Gordon Frazier and Maurice Colasurdo. This project ended in 2015, and in 2017 Jay and Maurice started The Mystic Weirdos.

Artist Support Program 1994: The 12th

Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton cares very deeply about quiet. As The Sound Tracker® he has circled the globe three times over the last 35 years in pursuit of Earth’s rarest nature sounds—sounds which can only be fully appreciated in the absence of manmade noise. His recordings of steadily vanishing natural soundscapes have been written about and reviewed in People, Time, Newsweek, and many more American and international magazines. His work has enriched numerous television documentaries including the PBS documentary Vanishing Dawn Chorus, which earned him an Emmy. He provides professional audio services to such media outlets as Microsoft, Smithsonian, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

Artist Support Program 1994

Helen Lessick is an artist explorer. Her broad palette spans sculpture, installation, artists’ books and conceptual and performance art. She has been honored with solo museum and gallery shows across the United States and with national and international artists’ residences, fellowships and projects.

Committed to art in the public realm, Helen works outside the studio. For her solo show at the Tacoma Art Museum Helen explored significant hats and built a giant, jaunty crown for the facility.

She has realized artworks in a Los Angeles wastewater plant, a herd of cows tended by a French agricultural institute, a belltower in Belfast, North Ireland, a Nairobi vegetable stand, a Portland arboretum and a Seattle baseball stadium. Exploring context and content in each place, she creates site-specific inquires of local conditions.

Committed to art for diverse audiences, Helen consults on civic art policy, artists’ programs and projects across the country. Helen participated in the founding and operation of non-profit artists’ spaces and municipal public art programs and projects. She writes about art exhibits and public art practice and policies, and is an experienced speaker in public art conferences.

Helen Lessick was born and raised in the outskirts of Philadelphia. She earned her BA in Art from Reed College in Portland and her MFA in Studio Art from the University of California Irvine. Her practice is based in Los Angeles.

Artist Support Program 1994

Kevin J. O’Conner is a poet, editor, photographer, graphic designer, composer, and artist based in Bellingham, Washington.

Artist Support Program 1994

Sheree Seretse was born in Kansas and moved extensively throughout her childhood. Sheree pursued her studies in Ethnomusicolgy at the University of Washington. She has been teaching and performing since 1973. Sheree has traveled extensively in Africa and infuses her teaching with cultural studies, especially during the school’s annual Arts Week. Sheree teaches community classes for youth and adults throughout Seattle, and directs the Anzanga Marimba Ensemble and Zambuko African-American Marimba Ensemble. Sheree has performed and taught in China, Costa Rica, Amsterdam and Canada as well as throughout the United States. Sheree’s group Anzanga competed in the International Marimba and Steel Pan Festival in South Africa in August 2012 and placed first in the Battle of the Bands. Sheree enjoys engaging and inspiring our students with exciting musical experiences.

Artist Support Program 1994