Filmmaker Laura Colella

2 October - Laura Colella
Filmmaker

On October 2 at 2:30 pm, artist Laura Colella will give a public lecture in the conference room of Chester College of New England's Wadleigh Library. Colella is a visiting artist, part of the college's Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Laura Colella is a Providence-based filmmaker, whose current projects are a narrative feature film (as Writer/Director), and a half-hour experimental video in collaboration with composer Alec Redfearn. Laura was one of the Sundance Institute’s eight Directing Fellows for 2000 with her project Stay Until Tomorrow. For the film’s production, the Sundance Institute arranged for extensive donations of equipment and services. Since completion in 2004, the film has been screened internationally at numerous festivals and venues, winning five awards, and was released on DVD by Passion River Films. Laura's first feature, Tax Day (1998, 16MM), and her short film Statuary (1995, 16MM) have also extensively toured festivals and venues internationally, winning a total of 13 awards. Laura is a graduate of Harvard College, and two films she made as an undergraduate also played at over a dozen festivals, winning a handful of awards. Laura has received grants and fellowships from the LEF Foundation, the Sundance Institute, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Harvard University, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She teaches 16MM Film Production and Directing at the Rhode Island School of Design, and does freelance film/video work.

COMPASS ROSE interviews Laura Colella
Compass Rose:
Did you ever see yourself as a filmmaker?

Laura Colella:
I grew up interested in theater, and in being an actress. It wasn’t until college that I discovered the possibility of making films, and never looked back.

CR:
What type of theater classes did you participate in?

Colella:
I took acting and dance classes growing up, and was in several productions at the Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence before finishing high school.

CR:
Was there a specific movie in your childhood that sparked your interest in films?

Colella:
Growing up with much older siblings, I saw a number of films before I was old enough to understand them. (more)

Interviews with Patricia Smith & Leah Gauthier

25 September - Leah Gauthier
Installation artist

Leah Gauthier was born 1963 in Chicago, Illinois. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, and is an MFA Candidate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts. She is a conceptual artist using natural materials, live plants, and food as ephemeral sculptural material and performance to explore ideas of sustainability, microfarming, self-sufficiency, and community building through shared pleasures of good food and conversation. Leah teaches new media at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and has been a visiting lecturer at Tufts University, and Chester College of New England. Her work has been exhibited at Tufts University Art Center, The Revolving Museum, 808 Gallery Boston University, The Portland Museum of Art, The Burren College of Art (Ireland), School of the Museum of Fine Art Boston, Bowdoin College, Centro Pablo de la Torriente Brau (Cuba), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

COMPASS ROSE interviews Leah Gauthier

Compass Rose: Would you say that your art is created and then its space is found, or do you create new work for each individual installation?

Leah Gauthier: My work happens when elements converge. I sometimes harbor an idea for years, and the piece materializes at the point at which all of the puzzle pieces come together (materials, place, theoretical foundation). (more)


COMPASS ROSE interviews Patricia Smith

Compass Rose: When did you discover poetry?

Patricia Smith: It was a two level thing. I grew up listening to Motown music—they always tell stories and they always rhyme—and I used to write the lyrics out in notebooks and read them as poems. Also, my father moved to Chicago from Arkansas and was very much a southern man, very much a storyteller. He would recreate his day and it was very entertaining. Pretty early on I came to think of my world in terms of the stories you could tell. That was kind of the beginning of it though I didn’t have a name for it; I just naturally thought that way. (more)

Alan Metnick & Pat Parnell Poetry Contest

18 September - Alan Metnick
Serigraphs, Drawing, Prints, Photographs

On September 18 at 2:30 pm, artist Alan Metnick will be giving a public lecture in the conference room of Chester College of New England's Wadleigh Library. Metnick is a visiting artist, part of the college's Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

The artist Metnick is someone who might be categorized as a master printer although he does not like being pigeonholed or labeled. His photographs and silk screen prints explore a rich range of techniques and subject matter. He is drawn to silk-screening as a medium because the process allows for the saturated use of lush oil inks. Many of his pieces display colors that are deep and rich and that permeate the subsurface of the support for the work. While he does not consider himself a documentary photographer many of his works relate to world events, to history, to the Holocaust and to Israeli and/or Jewish concerns dealing with heritage, tradition, and values. He calls the photographs he takes “…in reality, documents.”

For more extensive information on this artist, please visit alanmetnick.com.


Pat Parnell Poetry Contest

The Department of Writing and Literature at Chester College of New England is pleased to host the Pat Parnell Poetry Contest. Named after the founder of Compass Rose, Professor Patricia Parnell, the contest is designed to bring work of the finest quality to the pages of our magazine.

Each year, the winner of the contest receives $400 and publication in Compass Rose. All other entries will be considered for publication. The contest fee is $3 per poem with a limit of 5 poems per entry.

Patricia Smith will judge the 2007 contest. Her most recent book of poetry, Teahouse of the Almighty, was a 2005 National Poetry Series winner, selected by Edward Sanders (Coffee House Press). A record-setting, four-time national poetry slam champion, Smith has been featured in the film Slamnation and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam.

Interested poets should mail their work to:

Professor Jenn Monroe
Parnell Prize in Poetry
Chester College of New England
40 Chester Street
Chester, NH 03036

Contest entrants are asked not to include their names on poems; instead, please enclose a cover letter listing titles and contact information, as well as SASE for notification of the results. All entries must be postmarked by November 1 of each year. No email submissions or previously published work will be accepted.

Relatives, friends, and colleagues of the judge are not eligible.