Reclamation TALKS Series

Reclamation \ ˌre-klə-ˈmā-shən \ : Noun; the process of claiming something back or of reasserting a right. 

This TEDx style event happened in partnership with Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center. These talks built upon the the national conversation sparked by the #MeToo movement. In the talks, speakers explore their perspective on the topic of Women and Power including body positivity, media literacy, art history, and how gender bias impacts women's lives, with the art world as one arena.

About the speakers:

August Burns

August Burns is an award-winning portrait and figurative painter who seeks to capture the character and essence of her subjects through her art. Her paintings and drawings, which have been exhibited in galleries and shows throughout theUnited States, including the Butler Museum of American Art, The Salmagundi Club, The Art Renewal Center, and Abend Gallery in Denver, Colorado, have been praised for their veracity and depth. Her career in painting follows a long career in Women’s Health and Rights, where she worked in more than 25 countries and served as a Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization among others. Burns is the co-curator of the Reclamation \ ˌre-klə-ˈmā-shən \ exhibit at the Helen Day Art Center which brings together the two passions of her life.

Lisa Hagerty

Lisa is an entrepreneur, local politician, mother of two “spectacular” young adults,  and a fierce advocate for women, young and old, to recognize their societal and economic value/importance whether they are paid or unpaid.  She has lived in Stowe for 15 years, owns Well Heeled, The Yoga Barn, and her latest venture, Five Birch Strategies and is serving her 3rd term on the Selectboard in Stowe.  She is a proud board member of the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center and is passionate about all efforts to bring intelligent, provocative and reflective conversations to this community.  Prior to moving to Stowe she had a career as an Investment Banker, was a championship figure skater, earned undergraduate and MBA degrees from Harvard and last but certainly not least was the sixth of seven children and the youngest of the five girls.  She grew up saying “me too” as an aspirational phrase.

Richard Hawley

Richard Hawley is an educator and writer. In 1995 he was named founding president of the International Boys Schools Coalition. Following his retirement as a headmaster and teacher, currently Hawley is a writer of fiction, poetry, and literary non-fiction, he has published more than twenty books and several monographs. His essays, articles and poems have appeared in dozens of literary, scholarly, and commercial journals, including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, American Film, Commonweal, America, Orion, and The Christian Science Monitor and is represented in many literary anthologies For ten years he taught fiction and non-fiction writing at The Breadloaf Writers Conference in Vermont, and he continues to teach developing writers in a variety of settings. Recent work, including work in progress, draws increasingly from depth psychology and classical philosophy to illuminate contemporary problems. He has lectured extensively at universities, schools, and conferences in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia.

Dominique Medici 

Dominique is a Figurative Artist specializing in both Egg Tempera and Oil Painting. She studied in London and has exhibited internationally, including Art in Action, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Christies Young Artist Exhibition and the Society of Portrait Painters. Medici has been a semi-finalist in both the Outwin Boochevor Portrait Completion and BP Portrait Prize and has received awards from The Portrait Society of America, Oil Painters of America, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club among others. Dominique has undertaken numerous international portrait commissions and her work in displayed in many private collections throughout the US and Europe, Dominique has a passion for teaching and has taught extensively both privately and publicly.

Kiah Morris

Originally from Chicago, Kiah Morris lives in Bennington, Vermont where she serves in the general assembly as a State Representative. She is the first African-American and person of color elected from Bennington County and the second African-American woman to be elected to the legislature in Vermont history. In that capacity, she serves on the House Judiciary Committee and Vermont Judicial Nominating Board and is co-chair of the tripartisan Legislative Women’s Caucus.  She serves on the Board of United Children’s Services, is a Sisters on the Planet Ambassador for Oxfam America, Leader with Rights and Democracy Vermont and is on the advisory councils for Emerge Vermont and Black Lives Matter Vermont. Morris also holds an accomplished artistic career, as well as an arts advocate with a passion for community-based. Her work focuses on amplification of voice of the oppressed, issues of human rights and social justice.

Dana Suchow

Dana Suchow gives parents, teachers and caregivers the tools they need to prevent eating disorders in girls before they start. Since overcoming Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder and exercise compulsion that resulted in permanent injuries, Dana has become an expert in the field of body image and eating disorder prevention. In 2012 Dana founded Do The Hotpants as a fashion blog, but once she realized fashion’s unattainable beauty standards were fueling her eating disorder, Dana made the difficult decision to leave the industry and focus on activism. In 2014 Dana founded #MyBodyStory, an ongoing storytelling series created to uplift women’s voices that so often go unheard. In 2016 Dana co-founded The Ripple, a nonprofit women’s collective, empowering women to make waves in their communities through the use of workshops, TED style panels, field trips and movie screenings.”

Nell Scovell

Nell Scovell is a television and magazine writer, producer, director and collaborator on the #1 New York Times bestseller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. She is the creator of the televisions series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and her TV writing credits include The Simpsons, Coach, Monk, Murphy Brown, Charmed and NCIS. She has directed two movies for cable television and an episode of Awkward. She has contributed to Vanity Fair, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Her recent memoir “Just the funny Parts” has been called a cross between “Lean In” and “Bossypants.”

Multimedia Performance Collaboration

Kelly Holt

Holt is an artist and independent curator, engaged in creative collaborations and public art initiatives. She is Creative Director and Curator for Edgewater Gallery in Stowe. Holt is an active member of Urban Nation in Berlin Germany as well as the Vermont Curators Group, Vermont Creative Network and the Stowe Arts and Culture Council. Studio work includes experimental photography, street photography, film, and mixed media. Exploring urban environments, and working with a call and response method to hone in on images that are visually interesting are part of her process. Holt strives for images taken from a place of no restraint or clear destination. Adding media and alternative substances, she aims to illustrate the chaos – striving to create a tension of something about to happen. Influences in her art practice include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, JR, Shepard Fairey, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Erika Senft Miller

Erika Senft Miller is a conceptual performance artist actively exploring and embracing the power of movement. Her work is deeply rooted in her scientific and experiential understanding of the human body and mind as a complex system influenced by our experiences and perspectives. Miller holds a BS in Communications & Advertising, an MS in Physical Therapy from Arcadia University, and an EdD in Dance Education from Temple University. She is a certified teacher in the Alexander Technique. Including, including five languages; seventeen relocations; and twenty years teaching at universities, theaters, design studios, and other art and community centers; Miller’s life has been as dynamic and site-specific as her creative output. The boundary between her art and the rest of her life is something she has never considered to be a necessary distinction, in her words, “To work is to play; to play is to work.”

Alder Studio

Alder Studio is a multidisciplinary design practice based in Burlington, Vermont that works across art, technology, and environmental projects. Close collaborators of Erika Senft Miller, the studio has assisted in the creation of audio and digital perspectives for collaborative projects as well as for her personal artistic work. The current manifestation, for Reclamation, is an auditory collaboration that is focused on building layered, multi-dimensional soundscapes to augment Erika’s site-specific performance.