Poet Joy Harjo to Deliver 2014 Alfred Edelman Lecture at PNCA
June 27, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 25, 2014
Contact: Lisa Radon, Communications Specialist
Pacific Northwest College of Art
lradon@pnca.edu, 971 255 5528
Becca Biggs, Director of Communications
Pacific Northwest College of Art
bbiggs@pnca.edu, 971 255 5511
Poet Joy Harjo to Deliver 2014 Alfred Edelman Lecture at PNCA PORTLAND, OR – February 25, 2014 – Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) in collaboration with Museum of Contemporary Craft (MoCC) is honored to welcome celebrated author, activist, and musician Joy Harjo, who will deliver the 2014 Alfred Edelman Lecture on Wednesday, March 12, 6:30 pm. Harjo will speak about her life and work in Swigert Commons in PNCA’s Main Campus building at 1241 NW Johnson Street. Harjo has published a memoir, Crazy Brave, and seven books of poetry, including such well-known titles as How We Became Human-New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses.
She has received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Harjo’s lecture is part of The Illuminations Spring Reading Series organized by Monica Drake, head of PNCA’s Writing program. This event is a featured program in conjunction with This Is Not A Silent Movie: Four Contemporary Alaska Native Artists at Museum of Contemporary Craft, an exhibition organized by The Craft & Folk Art Museum in collaboration with Anchorage Museum. Other readings in this series include Elizabeth Woody and Trevino Brings Plenty on April 10 and Stephen Graham Jones on April 17. Both of these events will be held at Museum of Contemporary Craft.
The annual Edelman lecture is one of PNCA’s four Cornerstone Lectures, which also include the College’s Convocation Address at the start of the academic year, the Homecoming Lecture during Alumni weekend, and the Commencement Address given at graduation in May. For the Edelman lecture, PNCA annually welcomes a speaker from outside the world of visual arts to leaven conversation and inspire new thinking.
About Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She just published her memoir, Crazy Brave, detailing her journey to becoming a poet. Harjo’s seven books of poetry, which includes such well-known titles as How We Became Human-New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses have garnered many awards. These include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2009 For A Girl Becoming was published. She has released four award-winning CD’s of original music and in 2009 won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year for Winding Through the Milky Way.
Her most recent CD release is a traditional flute album: Red Dreams, a Trail Beyond Tears. She performs nationally and internationally with her band, the Arrow Dynamics. She also performs her one-woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, which premiered at the Wells Fargo Theater in Los Angeles in 2009 with recent performances at the Public Theater in NYC and LaJolla Playhouse as part of the Native Voices at the Autry. She has received a Rasmusson: US Artists Fellowship and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Harjo writes a column “Comings and Goings” for her tribal newspaper, the Muscogee Nation News. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
About The Alfred Edelman Lecture
When the late Portland architect and photographer, Alfred Edelman, taught three-dimensional design at PNCA he challenged his students to consider the principles of engineering, kinetics, physics and other subjects seemingly dissimilar to art. In doing so he brought the outside world into his classroom. Founded by Carol Edelman, the Alfred Edelman Lecture was created to enhance the student’s understanding of the visual world by presenting timeless and/or unique ways to examine and manipulate three-dimensional space; and to be a catalyst for lively discussions in the classroom at PNCA.
About Pacific Northwest College of Art
As Oregon’s flagship college of art and design since 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art has helped shape Oregon’s visual arts landscape for more than a century. PNCA students study with award-winning faculty in small classes. In the last seven years, PNCA has doubled both the student body and full-time faculty, quadrupled its endowment, and added innovative undergraduate and graduate programs. PNCA is now embarking on its boldest venture yet by establishing the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design as an anchor for the College’s vision of a new campus home on Portland’s North Park Blocks. Focusing on the transformative power of creativity, the capital campaign, Creativity Works Here, was launched in June 2012 with a lead gift from The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation of $5 million. PNCA’s new home will be a bustling hub for creativity and entrepreneurship, reflecting the influential role of art and design in our 21st century economy – both in Portland and beyond.
For more information, visit pnca.edu.