Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Villa Montalvo resident artists hold open studios

By Shari Kaplan

With its Artist Residency Program's annual Open Studios and Readings, Villa Montalvo issues a free invitation for the public to take a trip into the creative world of the artist, the poet and the composer.

On June 16, five resident artists--Deborah Brackenbury, Barbara DeGenevieve, Denise Duhamel, Nick Carbo and Leslie Hogan--will visit with the public from 6 to 7 p.m. in their on-site studios. Readings and musical presentations run from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Carriage House Theatre, followed by a reception in the main villa from 8 to 9 p.m.

Mixed-media artist Brackenbury holds a master's degree in fine arts and teaches art at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. While at Montalvo, she is working on a body of work analyzing the concept of "wildness" and investigating the interrelationship of "humanity" and "animality." Among her methods is juxtaposing and integrating animal imagery with common objects people use in daily life.

DeGenevieve, a professor in the photography program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, holds a bachelor's degree in art and a master's in photography. She is concentrating her artist residency work on a video and CD-ROM project that uses the syntax of vernacular pornography to address issues of culturally contradictory feelings regarding desire, pleasure, excess and voyeurism.

Prolific poet Denise Duhamel is revising and completing a volume of poetry called The Star-Spangled Banner while residing at Montalvo. The holder of a master's degree in fine arts, Duhamel teaches poetry workshops and classes, works as a freelance writer in New York and pens poetry, short fiction and essays. She has already published nine books and chapbooks of poetry, including Exquisite Politics and Kinky, the latter an homage--in a surreal sort of way--to the Barbie doll.

Nick Carbo, a native of the Philippines, authored a poetry volume called El Grupo McDonald's and edited Returning a Borrowed Tongue: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino-American Poetry. He holds a master's degree in fine arts and is a creative writing instructor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is also married to Duhamel.

Leslie Hogan, a composer from Santa Barbara, will put the finishing touches on her new orchestral work, Thin Air, and plans to begin a fourth string quartet. Her music reflects her longtime interest in other art forms and the potential of music to respond to visual stimuli. She teaches composition at UC-Santa Barbara.

The international, multidisciplinary Artist Residency Program brings up to 35 artists per year to Montalvo to participate in a working residency for one to three months in a setting that offers privacy, creative reflection and--during open studios--a chance to interact with the public. The program is funded through the Friends of Montalvo.

Villa Montalvo is located at 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga. For more information, call artist residency director Kathryn Funk at 961-5818.

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