• Eating Alaska: a Wry Search for the "Right" Thing to Eat. (56:40)
  With sixth graders enthusiastically comparing food labels at the grocery store, teens jarring gumboots at a culture camp, women climbing mountains as they hunt for their own meat and a group of passionate vegans sharing why they've rejected their fishing poles and days of meat eating, Eating Alaska is a film that generates discussion on what we eat, where it comes from and how that connects us to where we live. Screenings and events around the film range from a Slow Food group in Boston to an interdisciplinary science conference in Nome along with sustainability fairs, local food potlucks, health fairs, panel discussions and presentations to high schools.
• No Loitering. (56:40)
  A documentary film made with and about youth in a small Alaskan town and their struggles to understand the world and their place in the community. A coproduction 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 on-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.
• A Matter of Respect: Modern Alaska Natives Balancing the Past and Present. (30 min.)
  Co-Producer, Sharon Gmelch. 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. 16 mm documentary film, (15 min)
  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.

Additional Experience Summary

In addition to creating independent documentary films, experience includes producing and directing educational films for non-profits, native health consortiums and universities. Topics range from whale research and marine safety to contraceptives and community wellness. Also free-lance as a producer/cameraperson/production coordinator for non-profits and television including Earthjustice, National Resource Defense Council, Disney Teacher of the Year profiles, CBS, the Weather Channel, Showtime, Court TV and PBS. Other experience includes both working with youth and adults as an artist in schools and as a community media artist and creating short experimental films and black and white documentary photography series. Photographs published in The Sun, Natural History, Anthropology Today, and LA Parent.

Selected short Films

• Out of the Water. (25 min)
  Amidst the tales of sailing through heavy winds and storms into anchorages by exotic islands covered with palm trees, comes another reality. Out of the Water is a whimsical and at times poignant film set in a boatyard. This is a place where "cruisers" from around the world share their dreams, challenges, and choices while they reconstruct and repair their sailboats, their homes out of the water.
• 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

• Branches and Baskets (working title)
  A documentary about Haida weaver Delores Churchill. Using spruce root, cedar bark, wool, and natural dyes, Delores creates stunning utilitarian and ceremonial objects. Delores is not only a master at creating baskets, robes, hat, she has inspired a community of weavers. Now eighty years old, she spends much of her time passing on the traditional weaving techniques to emerging weavers, and researching historical southeast Alaskan baskets and Chilkat style weavings.
• Reminder
  A short film about ritual, order, and dislocation.
• 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.

Community Arts/Teaching Experience

• Artist in Residence, Lexington, Kentucky
  Through funding received by the Living Arts and Science Center from the National Endowment for the Arts, worked with students in three schools to create photography and video projects. The projects ranged from individual personal video portraits, to a documentary on technology (2009).
• Artistic Director, Eyes on the Wall, Sitka School District
  A Native Elder and Artist photography project, Students from three high schools interviewed and photographed Alaska Native artists and elders. They created archival black and white images with text from participants. Images were exhibited at the local National Sitka National Historical Park, and moved on to rotate throughout the public schools in Sitka. A traveling exhibit, within Alaska and the project funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum and other sources. (Fall 2001-2006).
• Adult Mentor, Beyond Borders. With NYC based Listen UP!
  Assisted young adults in Sitka as they produced a segment for an international project involving fifteen youth production teams from around the world creating personal stories about fear and security (2003-04).
• Adjunct Professor, Art Department, University of Alaska, Southeast & Instructor, Sitka Fine Arts Camp
  Black and White Photography (1998-2001). Digital Filmmaking (2004-). Introduction to Video and Documentary Video Production (2005-7).
• Coordinator, Carved from the Heart Follow-up and Outreach Project
  Working with multiple communities, programs and schools across the state of Alaska. The collaborations led to 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. Residencies in Kake, White Mountain, and Juneau
  Worked with students from K-12 grades on animation, documentaries and experimental shorts. In these residencies, students use photography and video to tell stories of their lives and their communities. (1996-97) & (2009-)
• 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, and Awards

• 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.
• Fulbright-Hays Fellowship
• Member, New Day Films. National self-distribution cooperative of independent producers of social issue films and video. Steering Committee (second round) (2002-)
• Wellness Champion Award for work in nutrition from the Sitka Health Summit (2008).
• 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).
• Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Artist Award (1991-2).

Selected Photography Series

• 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

• 2009 & 2010
  Workshop Presenter and Co-Leader with Julia Smith for Lead On, Youth Summit through the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.
• 2008
  Presenter with film screening of Eating Alaska, Museum of the North
  Environmental studies and anthropology classes and or/the campuses of University of Alaska, Fairbanks Anchorage and Juneau
  Sitka Public Health Summit
  Lexington, KY Public Library and others.
• 2006
  Presenter with a student participant from Sitka at the opening of the Eyes on the World photography series exhibition Alaska Native Heritage Center, Anchorage, AK.
• 2004
  Solo Exhibit of Salud Che series. Fountain Cafe. Port Townsend, WA.
• 2003
  Group Exhibit, with 3 other artists, Visions gallery. Sitka, AK
• 2002
  Presenter, Northwest Network on Youth Conference. Fairbanks, Alaska.
• 2000
  Visiting Filmmaker, Mesa State College, Grand Junction Colorado,
• 1998
  Visiting Artist, Whangarei Polytechnic, Applied Arts Program, Whagarei, New Zealand, Screening of Carved from the Heart and presentation and discussion on cross cultural collaboration.
• 1997
  Permanent installation of work from "A Matter of Respect," Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh. PA.
• 1995
  Group Show, "Cultural Connections: Explorations of Transcultural Identity," SPACES Gallery. Cleveland, Ohio.
  "Experiments in Community Video," Workshops presented with students from the Kake Student Video Prevention Project
  Bilingual Multicultural Equity Conference. Anchorage. AK.
• 1994
  "Constructed Relations," One person show of photography, video, and community media
  Visiting artist and guest lecturer in Anthropology, University of Alaska, Anchorage.
• 1993
  "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
  Visiting Artist, Artsreach Inc./UCLA Extension
  Program for Artists in Correctional Institutions, California Institute for Women. Chino, San Bernardino County, California.
• 1990
  Guest Lecturer. Advanced Documentary Practice. Academy of Arts, San Francisco, CA.

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