Saratoga News

Elayne Klasson is a writer in residence at Montalvo.

Resident artists open studios, offer readings

Villa Montalvo's Artist in Residency Program presents a quarterly Open Studios and reading on April 16 from 6 to 9 p.m.

Two visual artists will open their studios from 6 to 7 p.m., and two writers and a composer will read and talk from 7 to 8 p.m. An hourlong reception will follow.

The visual artists whose studios will be open are Deborah Aschheim and Hee Sook Kim. Aschheim, a sculptor from Arizona, plans to concentrate at Montalvo on a current project which grows out of her interest in UFOs and alien abduction inspired by the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, N. M. She plans to work on drawings and sculptures that explore intersections of biology, popular culture, technology and faith.

Kim, a painter from New York City, will work during her residency on several oil paintings and drawings exploring the roles and various psychological social and spiritual aspects of women. She has taught art courses at the Printmaking Workshop, at City College of New York and at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The two writers in residence are Lisa Johnson and Elayne M. Klasson. Johnson, a prose writer from Minnesota and currently program director at community radio station KFAI-FM in Minneapolis, will continue working on a series of short pieces for radio about the effects of rape in women's lives and about her family.

Klasson, a prose writer from Los Gatos who has authored numerous scholarly papers and articles in the fields of international health and the treatment of the mentally ill before she began writing fiction, will revise and complete her first novel, Human Potential.

Also making a presentation will be Ai Kamachi, a composer from Japan, who currently works in
commercial music production. Kamachi's composition Sturgeon Fishing on the Hudson River won third prize in the Guild Composer's Contest. Kamachi plans to study the relationship between image and music during the residency.