• No Loitering (56:40)
  Documentary film made with and about youth in a small Alaskan town and their struggles to understand the world, its possibilities and their place in the community. A co-production with KTOO-TV, Juneau, with the Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for working with kids provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. The combination community arts and documentary involved Native and non-Native teens from Sitka to Good News Bay, Alaska. No Loitering premiered on Alaska PBS stations prime time, followed by airing on PBS stations across the country.
• Carved from the Heart: A portrait of grief, healing and community. (30 min)
  Words from the Heart: a follow-up video (15 min)
  Co-Produced with Louise Brady, member of the Tlingit Tribe. Funders: Rockefeller Foundation, Alaska Humanities Forum, And The Institute of Noetic Sciences. Awards and Screenings: American Indian Film Festival, Best Documentary Short; Dreamspeakers, Best Short Documentary; Sundance Film Festival, Broadcast on the PBS series "Independent Lens." Carved from the Heart began with Stan Marsden, a Tsimshian carver who decided to carve a totem pole after his son died from a cocaine overdose and brought his community together in the process. The film intertwines the carving of the pole with peoples' stories of dealing with loss, substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and their efforts to heal.
• Calling the Shots: A Community Video Project. (30 min.)
  A documentary on a community arts and media project funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.
• A Matter of Respect: Modern Alaska Natives Balancing the Past and Present (30 min, Video)
  Funding: National Endowment of the Art, Folk Arts Fellowship, the Alaska Humanities Forum. Awarded a Silver Apple, National Educational Film Festival, Finalist, American Indian Festival, Margaret Mead Festival. PBS Broadcast.
• Stuck on Sugar (28 Min, Documentary video
  The dilemma of a monocrop 300 years later through the eyes of workers and plantation owners in the West Indies.
• Women, Land & Food: Small Farmers in Barbados (25 min, Video)
  Funded and distributed by the Women & Development Unit, University of the West Indies.
• Miles From the Border: A successful Mexican-American family caught between cultures (15 min., 16 mm documentary film)
  Special Jury Award San Antonio CineFestival, Focus Documentary Award. Screenings: Margaret Mead Festival, International. Festival of New Latin America Cinema (Cuba), Mundos En Contraste (Spain). PBS Broadcast.

In addition to creating documentary films, experience includes directing, shooting, and editing educational and training films on topics ranging from whale research and marine safety to contraceptives and community wellness. Also free-lance as a producer, cameraperson, editor for non-profits and television including Earthjustice, Disney Teacher of the Year profiles, CBS, and PBS.

Selected Short Films

• Demolished (6 min)
  Creating something new is an accomplishment. What about tearing it down? Take a look at the housing project across the street from the filmmaker?s house, as white suited men remove asbestos, an excavator crunches beams, bits of insulation dance though the air making room for new homes. Anchorage Film Festival, DUTV, Busan Film Festival (Korea).
• Uncertain Passage (14 min)
  De-romanticizes the dream of sailing around the world with cockroaches, seasickness, and the uncertainty that landfall is attainable. A reflexive portrait of two people alone in a 30 foot gaff-rigged ketch, starting in Tonga and ending up off the coast of New Zealand, 27 days later.

Works in Progress

• Women on Tap
  A border and media-crossing look at gender and the service industry, in collaboration with New York City based visual artist, Shelly Lightburn.
• Time, Place, Object
  An unconventional documentary about individuals and their connection to landscape, the passage of time and the "things" they put meaning into or are letting go of.
• Open Arms (working title)
  A potentially stereotype-breaking, thought-provoking and quirky documentary about women who hunt.

Community Arts/Teaching Experience

• Artistic Director, Eyes on the Wall, Sitka School District
  A Native Elder and Artist photography project, in its fourth year. Students from three high schools interview and photograph Alaska native artists and elders. They create archival black and white images with text from participants. Images are exhibited at the local National Sitka National Historical Park, and then are displayed throughout the public schools in Sitka. A traveling exhibit within Alaska and the project itself funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum and other sources. (Fall 2001-).
• Adult Mentor, Beyond Borders
  With NYC-based Listen UP! Assisted young adults in Sitka in producing a segment for an international project involving fifteen youth production teams from around the world. Each team made a 3-5 minute personal stories about fear and security for national broadcast (2003-2004).
• Adjunct Professor, Art Department, University of Alaska, Southeast
  Black and White Photography, Introductory and Intermediate Levels (1998-2001).
  Digital Filmmaking (2004-).
• Coordinator, Carved from the Heart Follow-up
  Working with multiple communities, programs, and schools across the state of Alaska. Set up screenings, workshops, talking circles and art projects inspired by the project portrayed in Carved from the Heart. Included creating a follow-up video and user?s guide. Funded by the Rockefeller Partnerships Affirming Community Transformation Program (1997-2000).
• Artist in the Schools, Video Arts Residencies in Kake and Juneau School Districts
  Worked with students from 5th to 12 grades on animation, documentaries and music videos (1996-97).
• Community Video Project Coordinator, Alliance for Health, Sitka, Alaska
  Taught and worked with adults and youth to produce public service announcements and short documentaries, such as A Beginning of a New Life, a diary of teen pregnancy by a teen mom and her best friend (Bronze Apple, National Educational Media Network, Winner, Northwest Film Center's Young People's Film Festival). Organized "Sitkawood," an intergenerational community event. Funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (1993-95).

Education, Fellowships, Awards and Some Other Relevant Experience

• Fulbright-Hays Fellowship
• M.A. in Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California Program in Cinema, Broadcast Journalism, and Anthropology.
• B.A. Vassar College. Honors. Fellowship for graduate work.
• Member, New Day Films. National self-distribution cooperative of independent producers of social issue films & video. Steering Committee (second round) (2002-)
• Career Opportunity Awards, Alaska State Council on the Arts:
  To attend a Community Arts Workshop (1993).
  To present work at the American Museum of Natural History (1997).
• Puffin Foundation Award for Artists "who work with ordinary people" (1996).

• Salud Che
  Series of photographs and visual diary of travels in Cuba (2003)
• Land, Water, Kava
  A visual diary exploring travel, communication, the nature of transient friendships, and images of "escape" from Mexico to Tonga (1995-98)
• Intersections
  Images of community in South Central Los Angeles. Funded by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Exhibitions: William Grant Stills Gallery, St. Vincent's Church, UCLA, and the Univ. of Southern California (1990-92)
• Untitled Series on Barbados
  Images in: George Gmelch's Double Passage: The Lives of Caribbean Migrants Abroad and Back Home, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1992; George Gmelch and Sharon Gmelch's The Parish Behind God's Back, 1997.
  National Cultural Foundation Group Exhibit. Bridgetown 1988.
  Permanent exhibition commissioned by UNICEF for headquarters, 1992.
• Fillmore
  Portrait of a rural-suburban community in Southern California
• Everyday Life in a War Zone
  Photographs from Esteli, Nicaragua (1985-87). One person show Helen Lindhurst Gallery, University of Southern California, 1987.

Selected Exhibits, Workshops, and Talks

• 2004
  Solo Exhibit of Salud Che series, Fountain Café, Port Townsend, WA.
• 2003
  Group Exhibit, with 3 other artists, Visions Gallery, Sitka, AK
• 2002
  Northwest Network on Youth, Fairbanks, Alaska (Presenter)
• 2000
  Mesa State College, Grand Junction Colorado, Visiting Filmmaker
• 1997-79
  Screenings and Workshops around the film, "Carved from the Heart," from community screenings in Alaska to festivals in San Francisco and NYC.
• 1998
  Whangarei Polytechnic, Applied Arts Program (New Zealand), Visiting Artist--Screening of Carved from the Heart and discussion of cross-cultural collaboration.
• 1997
  Permanent installation of work from "A Matter of Respect," Carnegie Museum.
• 1995
  "Cultural Connections: Explorations of Transcultural Identity," Group Show, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1995
  "Experiments in Community Video," workshops presented with students from the Kake Student Video Prevention Project, Bilingual Multicultural Equity Conference, Anchorage.
• 1994
  "Constructed Relations," one-person show of photography, video, and community media; visiting artist and guest lecturer in Anthropology, University of Alaska, Anchorage.
• 1994
  "Struggles Against Racism," Traveling exhibition presented by the Photography Collective of Community Change, Inc., Boston, MA.
• 1992
  Artist-on-the-Ferry, Alaska Marine Highway (Bellingham to Skagway); photographer, organizer of the "Floating Film Festival."
• 1991
  Artsreach Inc./UCLA Extension, Program for Artists in Correctional Institutions; Visiting Artist, California Institute for Women.
• 1990
  Advanced Documentary Practice. Guest Lecturer. Academy of Arts, San Francisco, CA.

Photographs published in The Sun, Natural History, LA Parent, Anthropology Today

•View as PDF (Right-click to save)