Artists of Arts Commons - Part three
Time to read: under 6 minutes
On stage at Arts Commons there’s no doubt that you’ll see amazingly talented people. Whether they’re delivering a classic sonnet, challenging your perspectives with a new work, bringing the house down with an evening of soul-energizing music, or sharing their stories of exploration and discovery around the globe, Arts Commons is a building filled to the brim with talent. Few people think about the individuals behind the scenes that make it all happen.
In part three of this multi-part series, we’ll introduce you to some of our staff who have been secretly (some much less secretively) practicing their art in their off-hours. For some it’s a hobby, and for others it’s a separate career fueled by their passion.
MICHAELA JEFFERY
Michaela Jeffery has been working with Arts Commons for four seasons, first as the Executive Assistant to the President and CEO covering a maternity leave, and later as a Development Associate, working with donors and sponsors in the Development department. When she’s not drafting agreements and helping to create incredible artist engagement events, she’s crafting stories destined to come to life on stage including her highly acclaimed play The Listening Room.
My dad is a retired drama teacher and my mom is a visual artist. I grew up in a household where making things and telling stories was part of the fabric of coexisting and a necessary tool in understanding one another and connecting to the broader world. Creative projects weren’t extracurricular – something outside of the day-to-day that it was necessary to carve out time and space to accomplish – they were just threads that ran through every other experience.
Throughout elementary and junior high I loved dance (I took ballet for nine years). I drew. I painted. I built whole massively immersive Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy worlds for friends at sleepovers. I read obsessively. I watched lots of theatre and was also in plays. I don’t think I really began writing (deliberately, for anyone else’s consumption) until High School. I took a weekly student playwriting class with playwright Eugene Stickland. It felt like a lot of the other things I loved could come together in writing plays – it was an exercise in storytelling that felt fuller than anything else I’d tried. I think, from that point, I was hooked.
As I writer I think of myself mostly as a listener: curious, passionate, thoughtful and deeply, genuinely interested in human story. My work is characterized by vibrant, visceral imagery, evocative language, and complicated, hungry characters. While the tonal quality of my writing shifts from play to play, some descriptors that might be used to give a sense of my body of work in broader strokes include: vivid, humorous, eerie, wild, audacious, meticulous, raw, playful, vulnerable and earnest.
I write across a spectrum of theatrical genres; from the bold, contemporary comedic-drama, WROL (Without Rule of Law) – a play about rogue Girl Guides – to Wolf on the Ringstrasse, a historical biopic on the life of 19th century Austrian composer Hugo Wolf, to a feminist crime thriller called The Extractionist about cult-breaking I am currently developing under commission by Vertigo Theatre.
I think theatre, by its nature, is a collective act. It is reliant on a community of collaborators, creators and audiences to be realized. I am grateful to live and work in a community that reflects my rigor and imaginativeness – that wants to challenge accepted ideas and existing practices and forge new ways of thinking and working. For me, the most rewarding aspect of playwriting is all of the different moments in the process of developing a play where the story meets new groups of people within that community who will ultimately shape what it becomes – from the first creative team on the first read-through of a first draft through to the opening night audience.
To me, this connectivity is not only necessary to the work I am already doing but critically informative as to the what I will do next.
I really began playwriting in a focused way when I was accepted to the playwriting program at The National Theatre School of Canada. In that conservatory context I had a lot of dedicated time and focused support to develop my skillset and explore more deeply what kind of work I was most interested in making.
Since leaving school I’ve been committed to deepening that work – actively seeking new opportunities, challenges, and collaborations in order to keep honing my own creative voice.
For me, ‘keeping it fresh’ is about curiosity – writing (or any other kind of storytelling) is always only as active and interesting as the questions it is trying to resolve or the ideas it hopes to explore. Because my subject is (usually) people – there is always mystery – a reservoir of unknowables. (Which is the fun bit.)
This upcoming spring, my play WROL (Without Rule of Law) is being published by Playwrights Canada Press. I am really excited to be able to share this one – it’s a lot of fun.
Photo credit (in order of appearance)
Production of The Listening Room. Image courtesy of Nylon Fusion Theatre Co., NYC. Production of The Listening Room. Image courtesy of The National Theatre School of Canada. Production of The Listening Room. Image courtesy of Nylon Fusion Theatre Co., NYC. Production of WROL (Without Rule of Law). Image courtesy of Persephone Theatre.
KATIE KLINGVALL
Theatre Calgary’s Katie Klingvall spends her days as a key member of the wardrobe team, but when she’s not helping beautiful costumes come to life on stage, she’s exploring a completely different side of her creativity, through make-up art.
I have always loved makeup and being in theatre, I love being able to transform into different characters and makeup gave me a fun way to do that at home. It was SFX makeup that really got me hooked into the creative makeup and explore that area. I love bath bombs and Lush Cosmetics ones the most and wanted try to creating looks inspired by the colorful bath bombs or products they have in store.
I am the Assistant Head of wardrobe at Theatre Calgary and have been working here since 2005 after I graduated from the University of Lethbridge in Dramatic Arts. It depends on the month, week, and also what show we are building that determines how much time I can spend on my creative makeup but I like to do at least one a week. You can see my creative makeups on my tiktok (unbeautyguru) or Instagram (unbeautyguru1).
I love seeing how it all comes together. Finding a product or a makeup look that inspires a makeup look and how I can create it in my own way. There have been so many looks that I wasn’t sure how they would turn out but I would trust the process and keep working on it! So when it turns out even better than how I thought it would, that is my favourite part.
While I have always loved creative and colourful eyeshadow, it was only about a year ago before Halloween 2019 that I wanted to try an inspired makeup look and see how it would turn out and since then I have just been exploring new areas like SFX makeup and different products like body paint to expand my skills.
I have loved seeing the progress of my makeup looks and how it is a skill that takes time to build up and keeps getting better the more you do. So I love going back and seeing old looks and comparing it to today and how much I have improved in just a year and where I will be in another year from now! I have been reposted on Lush Cosmetics social media accounts and just knowing people get inspired by my work is a success to me. But getting on Makeup PR lists would also be amazing!
ALEX BONYUN
Alex Bonyun usually works in the world of text rather than art, drafting media releases, website text, marketing language, and reports as Arts Commons’ Communications Manager, but when she’s not drafting the latest communique, she’s drawing and painting.
I’ve been drawing since I was young enough to hold a pencil, and at some point along the line I wanted to give colour to those drawings. I spent years painting digitally and sharing my work online. It was only after my son was born that I started painting miniatures, mostly from board games that I owned. With a baby to take care of, I couldn’t spend the time I used to drawing and digitally painting, whereas miniature painting was something I could do for a few minutes, then jump back into later.
With my miniature painting, I’ve just started to share it outside of my own personal social bubble. I have a twitter and tumblr account, and I also participate in local painting competitions to continue to push myself to improve my craft. This past October I placed second in a Grand Clash painting competition which I lost by only one point to a highly regarded professional painter.
For my drawing, I recently completed my first children’s book, Macie’s Big Adventure, which follows the story of a cat who creates a world of discovery through her overactive imagination.
For model painting it’s both a meditative exercise, and a deeply satisfying hobby. Every time I finish a miniature, and I can see how much I’ve improved, it feels great. There are always new techniques to try, or new colour combinations. A friend recently gifted me an additional set of miniatures that I had already owned and had painted a year ago. I decided to go with a completely different colour scheme and compare the two. It was so satisfying to see the improvement in my brushwork and blending.
It’s the same when it comes to my drawing. I love bringing something new into the world that’s beautiful (hopefully) and gives people a bit of joy.
I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, and painting is a natural extension of that for me. When it comes to art, you can never be perfect at it. There’s always room for improvement, and being able to look back a year and see how much better you’ve gotten is very satisfying.
Sharing my work is a huge part of why I keep doing it. It’s exciting to post a painted piece, or a drawing to my online sketchbook and see that 50 or a 100 people have liked it. It feels very much like you’re putting your artistic stamp on the world.
