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the following program is brought to you by a generous grant by the illinois arts
council
growing up my mom
read to us all the time she would say i remembered like hot summer nights you'd
set out in the hallway and read a us treasure islands like that became a
thing
as a books and writing
always that part of my life my parents to really encouraged by reading you know
and itu as i'm a fast reader and so to read everything that you get my hands
as a kid
and and then when there was like
i'm better than this
i can write better stories charles dickens and so i started reading stories
then it was weird because it is one of things where i
even trying to say i don't consider myself a greater writer and i know
how to put words on paper but it's it's the way i guess that people at emotional
respond to what i write
and so it's nice because i i always got very positive feedback and so
when i say doing theater i realize that that theater
anne technically it's a form of writing it's just people speaking a instead of
and you know
reading it on a page in plays are meant to be performed unlike slam poetry is meant to
be performed out loud
and so when i started writing like plays and little short things like that it
became kind of exciting to see if i could write the right thing to get
somebody to say it how i wanted them to say it and so that's always kind of the
fune challenge about mixing the two worlds like that
i went to a very small school and so there wasn't a lot of them um...
you know i mean in the likes of prepared for that but it was just i'd think
growing up it was a way to
express myself because i was kind of a nerdy
you know book kid a lot of the kids in the classroom very outgoing and i and
one thing that i wasn't i want to read my books and leave me alone
and so i think theater became the way out of me expressing like
my outgoing and out i can turn it off
i haven't been performing for like as long as i can remember i remember
growing up i would watch all the double movie musicals that is kinda fell in
love with the idea of musical theater and so that was hammered out i started
christmas pagenants when i was younger and then you know i was in on the drama
team in high school
was in everything in high school in the
decided to major in the theater which was a you know which was a decesion my parents loved
that and but they were very supportive and down i was really fortunate to
select st ambrose and they have a really great theater program there so it's
really involved in the theater program there
and i started
fell into it i guess is one of those things whereas like this fits and it
works for me and it's made me pretty happy
i think there are a lot of
different ways of getting into theater like i work with the pradeep players to
our group of people
who mostly have no theater trading um... i was fortunate enough to have you know
four and a half years of being a theater major i'd had does the fortunate ability
to
take poetry classes with a very gifted poet by there's people who are
you know just is gifted and show us is talented
but you don't have those opportunities and so in my own life i've feel like my
education and what
i've been through is what brought me here but uh... in other instances like i
know there's slam poets you can still see a video on the internet saying i'm
gonna try that and they're some of the best poets i've i've seen in my life so
it's i think it's going to individual you know
tonya and I met at a summer camp
and uh...
reddaway discovered that she was the only girl had ever met to it also made
short films
with her father's home movie camera
so we had that in common
get-go
when i was young
i became interested and playing around with movie camera and i asked my mom and
dad hankering use the camera and they were in lecture
and um... while the other girls
uh... a lot of my friends were
buying dresses and clothes and passion with their babysitting money
uh... i was saving up my pennies for
uh... super eight film to put my film camera
and uh...
icestorm pretty pathetic when it comes to fashion i think that
might be a guess i get the by the early
and uh... when i found out he was interested in it as well we just kind of
clicked i remember we stayed up one night during camp
and just talked about
movies
making movies not us making movies but what it would be like to make movies and
penalty either of us that we would end up working together anything like that
but um...
it's worked out pretty well
one of the first things after tammie and i did after we met
and we were dating was to make a film
uh... ten who's teaching uh... dance and
yet right gymnastics that night and
at the end of the year they have a kind of uh... ceremony two
review the year for that
girls
and i guess for a few boys
and so we made a kind of film that the legacy call of the documentary that
showed the progress that kids makes those from the beginners are up to the
advanced students so
first things he did was make a film together
i was the youngest of six
and
cannot help but i was
kind of competing with nynex oldest brother anarchy is always drawn along
with paint nynex older siblings would kind of taught him and sell bill can
draw better than you and
and he had me has a competitor to my older brother
my kindergarten teacher let me
really go to town on this large large piece of paper and draw santa claus i
can add up the pressure on me
uh... right down here at frances willard
and from then on i was always kinda class artists and seem like that was
kind of thing that they
they knew date
saw in the early on
that i had artistic talent
i decided study abroad my junior years
and that was one of my really best friends and we decided to go to our and
he still university in warmus kirk which is
nobody's ever heard as it's about twenty minutes at liverpool
and um... i enrolled on this potery class because there is is really to blame
background was also setting abroad and he was interested poetry and i was
interested in him
sign up for this
random poetry class they hated it like i thought i was so stupid as I hate
poetry this is so done
um... the uh... it teacher's name is danielle e prime time knowing he was
like the poet laureate of switzerland at one point which is an amazing poet
and he sorta saw
the theater side of me
and some years ago when he tried slam poetry and i was like i don't even know
about this and so the you know he showed me he gave me some videos yet to be
around showed me the ropes kinda of you thought was trying to see what
happens and like
it isn't fit like i was like this is performance and its writing which i also
love
and so it is became kind of this thing that i was like wow i'm kind of good
at this i guess
coming back from england
was of weird because I was like theater and yeah
back and i was like poetry is awesom everybody was like what
happened to you over there
and
so um... etc it should begin
more about me finding a place to do it and on
it's harder to especially in the quad cities i mean there's some really
great places like that midwest writing academy
they have poetry nights and
but it's night necessarily slam not a lot of slams around here I've been
trying to get stuff organized
it's kind of challenge because even the people who come slams
they are like listen to my poemand it's a beautiful sight
but that's not what we're doing like
so it's been fun and challenging cuz i think sometimes they
show that likely to readings there everyday like like this happens
so thats been fun
they should never say never because one
things we talked about the first week we've met
tammy asked me if i want to go to los angeles
she knew i was interested in
films and i said no
you know absolutely not
so on fast-forward
number of years later we're done with college and we
i had an opportunity to apply for an assistantship
uh... pepperdine university and malibu california
tami said
if you can get that assistantship
will move to los angeles
pretty much i think she thought that i would get it
and they didn't get it
but i was the runner-up in the first person fell out for some reason after
they had so they would do it so
but that's how we got to los angeles
handy
assistantship didn't pan out in the sense that
when i got there was i was like uh... bait and switch was like a different
situation it was so different that i just didn't feel like it was gonna work
anymore
so uh...
and then uh... then look for work and within six months or so i was working at
columbia pictures and i spent about seven years at columbia pictures
and i i worked for los angeles magazine
uh... in advertising
for the bulk of the the times we are out there columbia pictures really was a
great opportunity
for us to see how
the film industry worked
and uh... when we decided we are going to do our own documentary start with
velasco living with a mystery
uh... it was kelly's experience at columbia that really kind of helped us
work through that whole process 'cause we didn't know what we're doing
he came home one day from work and said them
when you think about us making a film
uh... a documentary and set up
that sounds interesting
and uh... he said well how about if we should get on film
an insight
great okay let's do that
well that was a very expensive proposition
we shot the uh... first
interview for a veliska
in january of nineteen ninety four
and while we were in hawaii which is where we shot that interview with the
former resident of the city of aliska
uh... the earthquake happened the northridge quake in los angeles so we
missed it
uh... when we get back three days later we're still getting the aftershocks but
that's for the project started
we shut the bulk of it in ninety four
and then we
returned every year of the of the year between
ninety-four and
about two thousand
and two
and then we uh...
edited the film and released it in two thousand four
so it took us a decade
to complete the film
i didn't know exactly what to do it in high school i
i knew i passion for art
my brother was a southern illinois he brought home a catalog
and i just started and what can i make money as artists and you know i don't get
starving artists and i said well what about commercial art
amer mone on a field trip in high school that
uh... richer cotton's inch and uh... chuck white took us to will sell on
advertising
and everybody in a program settle caught go to SIU I went to SIU and majored in
commercial graphic design
and i was a very intense program
at the time
in the eighties
i consider a weed out program
anatoly
twenty a graduate of the ninety who starred in my year
so it's very intense and um... i tell my
says the horror stories when they complain about doing ten thumbnail
sketches of when we had two fifty every night
and sometimes they were displayed mind games in
rip your artwork in half
and just
see if you could handle the stress of
commercial art
and they and that they had people breaking down and quitting
i was glad to make it in a commercial art program house commercial artist for
about ten years
city rock island
uh... put article in the paper uh... and i lucky enough and saw it and uh...
in this city planner an article saying that they have all these new me
to do the new urls replaces fading meryl
that was uh... historic figures of rock island
unstable time tap next on the caves
uh... store
and like a he said well we always miller's contacted and their around
designing murals and and it's like on the day that article came out
well can i be consider being a mural artist i like to do murals
he knows what actual first-year mural artist to contact us uh... i would like to design
so we're all designs and send you pretend not to do it in
i probably short my six designs
women from the city council and they chose one of my designs and
the biggest contract ever gotten
painting is thirty five long for a sixty time a life-size train on it
slam poetry
in a nutshell is basically a f
rap music
and poetry had a baby
is kind of what it is it's it's poetry that meant to be
spoke in and me
and anything never but because you leave
read on a train is an influences from pop culture and traditional
culture on there's a lot of backgrounds in um...
like african-american culture comes down that's really where cuts are and so it's
really interesting to see it there
the real diversity that has developed within the slam community
just because on the of a lot of schools on have started programs in a lot of
um... just poets from all different types of backgrounds have become really
involved in in the slam poetry scene and so it becomes
kind it is really cool like okay well you know lake everybody's welcome here
and i think that's one of the things that i really like about it is that
everybody has a shot so
utilized i start with hand drawn
designs very quickly laid out just like it if it the grade school right on the
server math and science i showed him
very quickly roughs
in marker
before we sat down and really ironed out what we wanted
and it will get some idea to bounce ideas off
and uh... the
council or the board
who's working with you
to really have input
talking about than mural um
center of math and science
course at the top teach the principal of toby brown
uh... when we do a timeline
and i think in she had in mind that traditional timeline that looked like a
piece of the timeline with numbers and and some images may be but nothing
on the scale i ended up
showing
and i had this vision and i'm very proud of the local history here
i guess i'm uh... historian at heart
that um... of i wanna show and have two people ensues appreciate
appreciate the history of what they've done before a specially native american
history i think we don't do enough to appreciate native american
i'm a very small from our percentage mohawk indian army that comes through i
guess work writer than native americans uh...
spouse or a crowd of my but my grandpa washed all say you your related to
to uh... pocahontas you know him
the mohawks
and i just some
i what am i am native america notes this chief blackhawk i guess you could say
it's cheif blackhawk overlooking the river
pisquie was a large vision villages of indians in america the for
sequence and it shows
downton rock island with some of the native american uh... misquoted village
to talk about and i was on others on the river largest villages and village of
indians in america they're americans
and here we don't have much to remember by the second scene is no more serious
and nature it's kind of though it's winter is kind of a bleak
uh... cold i wanted that cold coloring
with the violets in the cold area
and that's come symbolically white men training in on the snow into though
native american you can still see some native americans there were two of those burned down in
the white settlers coming in
and third sequences
when the nuns first came here
and and sol that uh... father a priest took about two locations that sister
sis's where you will rest your thrown
collection
uh...poetic statement from this priesthood had taken the nuns through cal patties to
that
cashed your and they were watching really stepped into addresses people
hillside
and so is incredible vista
and then and the four sequences show
what the current would look like but that was cool there holing up in the new
school
does superintendents a lawyer over house are there and and that and the press
will with two kids looking at the painting future rock island
we've learned about the liska story
through a visit to the quad cities
we're living in kansas city at the time
uh... there is a period of time many years ago on air and the bix seven
and uh... it was a year that i was running in the bix seven
ran in the race came home in the afternoon of my parents house and are
watching television and here was an interview with
doctor edgar acrimony
a man who had studied the nineteen twelve olesco expires since he was a
student in college in nineteen fifty five
and uh...
it was just that information early that ended up on a little piece of paper in a
folder but we dug out five years later on we were in los angeles
we happened upon that subject to i'd think that a very good
time there were still people who are alive
uh... at the time that this
tragedy occurred so we were able to get some
interviews with
i guess mostly women
uh... remembered
the day that this happened in the discovery of the murders and some of
these you know some of the victims were friends of
eight that of these ladies
so
those memories for a very vivid
and uh... i was i was really glad that we came on at the scene at that time bay
they are their long gone now and so i feel like be really kind of preserved
that
that moment
velasco has a very challenging project we thought that uh... the subject matter
was interesting so we you know people are interested in *** mysteries and
this kind of thing we knew that we wanted to do a subject
at was uh... anaya last subject you know iowa
our roots are in the heartland and uh...
we know that the west coast in the east coast tend to
do the same stories over and over so we really wanted to do something
uh... subject that
people aren't aware of
and so we figured velis who would be a good film star about that
and uh... course we had no track record
so that makes it even more challenging when you're looking for funding
and of when you're going for grants down which we tried to go
to get grants frivolous kev course it's an axe *** document so
that's going to make it a little more challenging to we didn't managed to get
a couple of grants uh... and that was uh... learning process for us
that uh...
vol iska was
a fascinating story
and uh... it was interesting to return
through the tenure process because i think it made it a much more substantial
story
and um... we learn
that there was much more to the story then what happened in nineteen twelve
what was interesting was how the cement
had really changed this community and how it impact of the community not only
nineteen twelve that all the way to the present-day so because it took some time
to do the film we actually ait i've felt like we came
the film came together much better
and there was much more
there
to digest
and i will also say this about visuala while it was very difficult time we have
times felt like they were never gonna get it done we got very discouraged
once it was done and it was successful at opened the door to everything else
that we've done
i want to performing it as the kennedy center in washington d_c_
uh... through
basically accident and misadventure um... i
i went to st ambrose so they were a member of the
kennedy center merrick and college theatre festival and i was on the email
list because i had attended
and this email from the guy who runs the kennedy center and he's like hey we're
having this scholarship contest
and i was and and i am lets you know on the call of the qualifications listed
one of the list slam poets could send in poetry nose like sweet his nobody
ever sweet nobody does that slam peots don't get scholarships and so
i submitted forgot about it you know whatever and about
seven months later i was
hospital
and corey johnson theater professor calls me
she was like have you checked you email
any cuz i miss read the of the email that i got from this guy
and in the email was actually apologizing to me because he had lost
my email address and didn't know how to contact me
and cuz it was like on another computer some weird thing
until he was a partner in this county like who you want but i i only read that
i'm sorry to inform you
and as i got deleted
inside applying
for like two weeks and had no idea and so by then it was so late i had like
three weeks to prepare
to go to washington d_c_ which is like the craziest three weeks of my life is
like a rehearsal zen-like finding a dress
essen like getting my haircut like decided this became like these tiny
little things in
it was really fun though
i do have some kind of spiritual connection to art
uh... you might think i'm kind of strange and i also have a cycle of
essence recycling life about this uh...
bust in a trade then we're all it at that math and science sever math and
science
i'll be listening to the radio someone with a surreal
once in awhile and down
and as i go through pain a historical seeing from sequence to sequence when
painting
is seen but no matter what i'm listen when i'm listening to a song on
that i'll be
painting that exact thing in music in the musical deploying a song
and i will be paid net portion of that painting which is often straightening
it's kind of spiritual connection there and i think is
that there's more out there
but it's a sudden andy process to tubular had the opportunity things that
hopefully will last
outlast you and
and be around or per future vision generation is also saying i'd feel like
i've got a
work hard to to uh...
painting something if you will care about the future
we did a career day davenport
uh... last year
and uh... so it's a little bits a lot of tough love in a way
because i think a lot of younger people for maybe don't
maybe have a a more glamorous uh... view what
you know making a documentary or or making a record or
being an artists who paints or whatever there's a bit of our romantic idea about
what that's like
and so i think uh... we were with two other people
creative professions and we were kind of
toughness situated yeah we kind of laying it out really the way it was that
it's you know can be
can be very difficult
and that the only way i think people
you know can you can stay in a creative profession is to really just believe and
what you're doing and
and have the ability to
to stick with it
because it can be very difficult
i think back to that
that night that we're sitting under the stars in talking about movies
and uh...
that was a very romantic moment
uh...
uh... you know if s together but it was also i think a romantic idea of what
making movies is about
and so when i look at where we are now
you know i think we had plans like
you know that it would be
financially rewarding this kind of thing
there have been times where it's it's been good
but um...
i've learned
what's really important is
how i feel now project this time
the hardest lesson i learned is that you do not alwasy get the part you want and i think a
growing-up that was always the hardest thing for me on i'd always then and i
will
proudly say this but i have always been
rather large person he called and i've always rather busted can i say that one tv growing up i wanted to be annie and I was alwasy too tall always wanted to be in annie and always wanted to be an orphan
never could because i was too tall
and celebrating it's funny because growing up i had these experiences a
oh no your too tall or your too ***
and so they can a kind
down heartening you know because you really want to be in these plays but
but parents again were really supportive in a test that you don't keep trying keep
trying you know your you'll get what you want some day
and so
and now i'm fortunate enough to where i have in a confidence
okay you don't want me why why do we have a down so
but i've also gotten a lot better since greade school
I hope that my it five years in the future are
filled with performance and poetry uh... and fun and
figuring out what i want to be when i grow up
a break now im really and i became really interested in shakespeare
and i think its because it it's the perfect blend of everything i love it's
poetry and it's theater and it's writing
and so having me
the experiences that i've had
uh... united yelled out and have a right i will be you
reading shakespeare tommy tune like slam poetry arms and they liked what are you
doing stuff that they like it make sense in my head
and so uh... that sort of accommodation is something that i think i replied
the preceding program has been brought to you by generous grant by the illinois arts
council