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2008 Panelist Bios

Bush Artist Program Selection Panel Biographies — 2008

These panelists served as members of the preliminary and final selection panels for the Bush Artist Fellowship (BAF) and the Enduring Vision Awards. All artists and arts professionals, the BAF panelists are from outside Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Panelists for the preliminary EVA selection committee live and work in those three states.

NICK CAVE is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute (BFA 1982) and the Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA 1989) in fiber arts. He designed and marketed his own line of men’s and women’s clothing and ran a successful retail clothing company in Chicago before turning exclusively to his artistic and teaching practice. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe, including the American Craft Museum and Studio Museum in Harlem, the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh and the Arts Connexion in Amsterdam. He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Recipient of a prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant in 2001 and Creative Capital Grants in 2002 and 2004, Cave has also been featured in such publications as ARTnews, American Craft, Fiberarts and the New York Times. In his clothing- and fiber-based sculptures, collages, installations and performances, Cave explores the use of textiles and clothing as conceptual modes of expression. Whether displayed in performances or videos, Cave’s intricately constructed garments and “wearable art” pieces pose fundamental questions about the human condition in the social and political realm. The Chicago Cultural Center Foundation received a coveted Joyce Award in January 2006 to commission 20 to 30 new pieces by the artist for its exhibition Nick Cave: Soundsuits, a retrospective of Cave’s signature “soundsuits” that included video and live presentations of their use in performance works.

Cave joined the School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty in fashion design in 1990 and served as the department’s chair. In fall 2008, he began his tenure as director of the graduate program in the masters of design in fashion, body and garment.

ROGER CUMMINGS is a public artist and educator whose work is informed by his knowledge and passion for urban culture and social justice. He is best known as the artistic director of Juxtaposition Arts, where he has mentored hundreds of North Minneapolis youth since co-founding the organization in 1995. He has lectured, participated in symposiums and conducted workshops at major education and cultural institutions including Macalester College, the College of St. Catherine, the University of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center, the Weisman Museum, the Children’s Theater, the Ordway Center for Performing Arts and Intermedia Arts.

Cummings’ artistic direction gravitates towards large-scale public works and functional art. Most recently he has been commissioned to create works for the City of Minneapolis and the Chambers Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Cummings also has received awards and honors from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board and COMPAS.

JOHN DAVIS is the founder of the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center and the Great American Think-Off. His work has resulted in the town of New York Mills, MN, twice being named one of the top 100 art towns in America, and New York Mills has been recognized as a national model for rural economic development in the arts. Davis has dedicated his career to working in small town arts and community development, and is a nationally recognized leader on rural arts issues. Davis is an artist, philosopher, strategist and national speaker on rural arts issues and creativity, and is also an award-winning visionary. His work has been featured on National Public Radio; broadcast on C-Span, and also featured in Corporate Report Magazine, USA Today Magazine, The New York Times, and on the NBC Today Show. Davis currently serves as the executive director of the National Kids Philosophy Slam and Cornucopia Art Center. He resides in Lanesboro, MN.

LESLIE FIELDS-CRUZ is the director of programming at the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC). Fields-Cruz oversees NBPC’s production fund and manages the distribution of its programs to the public television system. Prior to joining NBPC in 2001, she served as the program coordinator at the Creative Capital Foundation during its first year of administrating the Rockefeller Foundation’s Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund, she was the membership director at the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF), and served as the artistic director at City Lights Youth Theater in New York City. Fields-Cruz is on the board of Women Make Movies and is a member of New York Women in Film and Television. She has served as a program review panelist for the Jerome Foundation, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Urban World Film Festival, Tribeca All Access, the New York Department of Cultural Affairs’ Cultural Challenge Grant and ART/NY’s Nancy Quinn Fund. She holds an MA degree in cinema studies from New York University.

TROYD GEIST received his MA in anthropology from North Dakota State University and is the state folklorist for the North Dakota Council on the Arts (NDCA) where he administers the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. His responsibilities include conducting ongoing research and documentation of folklore/folk art in North Dakota, advising the NDCA and its sub-grantees on appropriate ways to expand the state’s awareness of its cultural heritage, producing folk art and folklife exhibits, administering the NDCA’s continuing education classes and assisting with folk artists in the artist-in-residence program. He has produced nine CDs of traditional music and storytelling, four of which received national awards. Geist also has examined the interplay between folk art/folk culture and health in the following areas: the impact of arts on the “three plagues” – loneliness, helplessness, and boredom – that affect the health of elders in long-term care facilities, fetal alcohol syndrome and the impact of traditional storytelling as a counseling tool, Bell’s Palsy as viewed and treated in traditional cultures, and familial Alzheimer’s disease tracking using anthropological methods.

JORDAN KANTOR is an artist and associate professor at California College of the Arts, where he teaches both artistic practice and theory. Kantor earned his undergraduate degrees in history and studio art from Stanford University, and studied painting at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, Germany, before going on to earn his MA and PhD in the history of art and architecture from Harvard University. Kantor’s paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions including at Artists Space, New York (2006); Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal (2007); Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2007); Lombard Fried Projects, New York (2007) and Ratio 3, San Francisco (2008). From 2002 to 2005, he was assistant curator of drawings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; he has written extensively on contemporary art subjects in exhibition catalogues and such journals as Parkett and Artforum.

BRIAN KNEP is a new-media artist who uses science and technology to explore change, healing, struggle and acceptance. Often his works are dynamic and respond to changes in their environment. Some are simply aware of the passage of time while others are interactive, sensing and reacting to the people around them. Knep has had solo shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and Arizona State University, and has been part of group shows at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Laval Virtual in France, MobileArt in Sweden and the Insa Art Center in Korea, among others. His works have won awards from Ars Electronica, Americans for the Arts, AICA/New England and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2005, Knep became the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School in a program cosponsored by Harvard’s Office for the Arts. Knep lives and works in Boston and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, and Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston.

ANN LEDY returned to her hometown, Saint Paul, MN, in 2004 after spending 28 years in New York City as both a practicing artist and academic. In 2004, she assumed the role of executive vice president and dean of academic affairs of the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul. In 2006, she became president of the College. Ledy graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BFA degree and went on for a MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her long career in higher education began in 1979 at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where for 25 years she taught drawing and served as a department chair. Ann has exhibited her artwork extensively in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Germany and Korea. Her works on paper can be found in many collections including Harvard University Fogg Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Walker Art Center and Yale University Art Gallery.

YONG SOON MIN is an artist and independent curator. Her artistic practice, inclusive of curatorial projects, incorporates diverse media and processes that engage issues of representation and cultural identity, the intersection of history and memory, and the role of the artist and the arts as agents of social change. Her artwork has been exhibited and reviewed widely since the early 1980s. Recent curatorial projects include transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix at ARKO Art Center/Seoul and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/San Francisco, humor us at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Exquisite Crisis and Encounters at the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Institute of New York University, Fallayavada: Bahc Yiso Project and Tribute at UC Irvine’s University Art Gallery and THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora an international exhibition at the Fourth Gwangju Biennial in Korea. She is professor in the department of studio art and affiliate faculty of the culture and theory PhD program at University of California, Irvine.

CHRISSIE ORR was born in Scotland, a descendant of the Picts (the painted ones), and attended the Edinburgh College of Art. She is an artist, animateur and activist who focuses on developing “an aesthetic around community and site with issues relevant to both.” Orr has created innovative community-based projects in Australia, Iran, Turkey, Europe, Mexico and the U.S. She has lectured internationally on her work, especially regarding the Bridge Project, which addressed issues on the border between El Paso, TX, and Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. She was the founder of the nationally acclaimed Teen Project in Santa Fe, NM, receiving recognition from Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2000, Orr completed a nine-month residency in Georgia as part of the Artists and Communities for the Millennium Project. In 2006, she was the artist-in-residence at Grand Central Arts Center in Santa Ana, CA. She is presently completing two community-arts-based projects in Santa Fe, NM.

PAULA OWEN holds an MFA degree in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, an MS degree in art education from Minnesota State University-Moorhead and a BA in art and political science from Luther College in Iowa. Prior to joining the Southwest School of Art and Craft in San Antonio, TX, as president and CEO in 1996, she was the director of the Visual Art Center of Richmond, VA, from 1985 to 1996, and held positions in business and education. She has organized regional and national conferences, served on national boards and panels, is a frequent lecturer and has written for various art periodicals and exhibition catalogs. Objects and Meaning, New Perspectives on Art and Craft, a book of essays she co-authored with Anna Fariello, was published by Scarecrow Press in 2003. Owen is a practicing artist whose work is in public and private collections.

SUSAN OXTOBY joined the staff of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in October 2005, relocating to Berkeley from Toronto, Canada. The Pacific Film Archive presents a diverse range of classic and contemporary film programs (450 events per year) and is considered one of the leading film institutions in North America. For 12 years, Oxtoby worked for Cinematheque Ontario, where she was the director of programming from 1997 to 2005. She was also the programmer of Wavelengths, a forum celebrating avant-garde film at the Toronto International Film Festival, between 2001 and 2005. Oxtoby served as a member of the executive committee of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) for two consecutive terms. In October 2005, she was appointed to the National Film Preservation Board, an advisory body organized by the Library of Congress (comprised of film critics, academics, filmmakers, programmers and studio representatives) that advises the Library on films named to the National Registry. Oxtoby’s other professional experience includes guest programming the 50th anniversary of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar at Vassar College in 2004. She completed two degrees between 1981 and 1988: one in English and cinema studies at the University of Toronto and another in media studies at Ryerson University.

LORI LEA POURIER (Oglala/Mnicoujou Lakota), an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has served as the president of First Peoples Fund based in Rapid City, South Dakota since 1999. First Peoples Fund is a national nonprofit organization that supports the advancement of American Indian arts through its three funding areas–the Community Spirit Award, the Artists in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital programs. Pourier has 22 years experience in the Native arts field and philanthropy. She served on the Board of Directors of the Western States Arts Federation, the Honor the Earth Fund, the Chinook Fund and the National Indian Business Association. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Grantmakers in the Arts, Native American’s in Philanthropy and the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce. She holds a master’s of science from Southern New Hampshire University, Graduate School of Business. Ms. Pourier was recently selected for the Center for Social Innovation Fellowship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a partnership between Stanford University and National Arts Strategies. She has served on numerous arts panels over the years, most recently the United States Artists, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the National Endowment for the Arts–National Heritage Award.

LYNNE SPRIGGS, curator of special projects for the C.M. Russell Museum, holds a Ph.D. in American Indian art history from Columbia University. Her areas of specialization are in American Indian art, images of the American West, and contemporary folk and self-taught art. Following doctorate fieldwork on the Blackfeet Indian reservation in Montana, Spriggs taught graduate and undergraduate courses at University of Michigan and Harvard University. She also served as curator of folk art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and has worked as a consultant for numerous arts projects, films and documentaries.

ANGELA STRASSHEIM received her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 1995. Immediately following, she moved to Miami to pursue a career in forensic photography. After completing a 10-month preceptorship program, she took a job as the head forensic photographer at the Division of Forensic Science in Richmond Virginia. While attending graduate school at Yale University, she worked part-time for three years in New York City for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner following September 11, 2001. Strassheim earned her MFA in photography from Yale University in 2003, and returned to Minneapolis in 2004 as a visiting artist at MCAD.

Strassheim has had two solo exhibitions in New York at Marvelli Gallery. She has received several grants including the Jerome, McKnight Photography, and Bush Artist Fellowships. In 2006, she was selected to exhibit in the 2006 Whitney Biennial Exhibition Day for Night. The following year she had her first solo museum show at the Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College in Iowa for the series Left Behind. Her first monologue was published for that exhibition and was curated by Daniel Strong with text by Jean Dykstra. Her work also has been exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts and Des Moines Art Center.

DR. ROBERT T. TESKE has held the position of executive director of the Milwaukee County Historical Society since 1998. Teske received his BA in folklore and mythology, summa cum laude, from Harvard University in 1970. He also received an MA and PhD in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and 1974, respectively. Teske taught at Wayne State University and Western Kentucky University before joining the staff of the Folk Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts from 1979 to 1985. Thereafter, Teske served as associate curator of exhibitions at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI, from 1985 to 1988, and as the executive director of the Cedarburg Cultural Center from 1988 to 1998. While he served as director of the Cultural Center, the organization was awarded the Reuben Gold Thwaites Trophy by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Governor’s Award for the Arts by the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts. Teske has published numerous articles in academic journals and has edited a number of exhibition catalogs including Wisconsin Folk Art: A Sesquicentennial Celebration.

VA-MENG THOJ is a filmmaker, community activist, and a mayoral policy aide in Saint Paul, MN. He trained in film and literary criticism at Indiana University, in film production at Third World Newsreel, and in public policy and administration at the University of Minnesota. He has produced and directed TV commercials and documentaries on social issues, including Slaughtered in Hugo (2002), Death in Thailand (2003), Goodbye Wat Tham Krabok (2005), and public affairs programs for Twin Cities Public Television. He has authored several feature screenplays and directed a short film, Flight (2004). He is currently directing two documentaries, American Soil and Catches of the Spirit. American Soil is about Hmong American farmers and their American dream, while Catches of the Spirit investigates American multiculturalism and racial discourse, challenging the portrayal of Hmong Americans as aliens incapable of Americanizing. He has co-authored with Louisa Schein for American Quarterly, “Occult Racism: The Masking of Race in the Hmong Hunter Incident,” a dialogue that juxtaposes his screenplay Die By Night with public discourse on Hmong Americans to illuminate the racial dimension of the Hmong/white hunter murders in Wisconsin in 2007. A recipient of several peer awards for TV commercials, he has also received the Bush Artist Fellowship, the Bush Leadership Fellowship and the Media Artist Fellowship.

NAMITA GUPTA WIGGERS is curator of the Museum of Contemporary Craft Arts in Portland, OR.