For more info: www.locusarts.org
Locus 1640 Post, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Asian Pacific American (APA) artists and promoting APA consciousness and community through the arts, kicks off the 2002 season with "Clean Slate", a night of solo performances on the theme of secrets, revelations and confessions. The event features two writers and two musicians, prose writer Sasha Hom and slam poet Shailja Patel, and guitarist/vocalist Bennett Lin (of The Yearlings), and pianist/singer Vienna Teng . The four artists work in different disciplines and music styles, but all have an intimate, and revelatory, twist to their work.
"Artists reveal truth, small, triumphant or even ugly. Traditionally the new year is a time when people take stock of past events and make fresh starts. Locus is kicking off the new year by inviting four local artists to share their secrets with all of us," said Julia Kim, executive director of Locus 1640 Post.
Sasha Hom was born in South Korea and was adopted into a Chinese-American family in Berkeley, California. Her work has been published in the adoption literature anthology A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption, Going There: Essays on Creativity by Women of Color (forthcoming), Imprint the Korean American Anthology (Summer 2002),and in the independent magazines The Sun, Hip Mama, and InvAsian. She has received awards from the Julia and David White Artist's Foundation, The Voices of our Nation Arts Foundation, Adrella Mills first place award in Fiction, and the Mary Merritt Henry third place award in poetry.
The Yearlings are a vegan and pro-animal rights Oakland band that has been playing throughout the Bay Area for the past three years. After releasing their first album in 2001, "Mermaids I Have Known" and having gone through a series of personnel changes, they presently consist of one member, Bennett Lin.
Shailja Patel is the 2001 Lambda Slam Champion, Santa Cruz Slam 2000 Champion and represented Team Santa Cruz at the National Slam Championships 2000. She was a featured panelist and guest poet at the National Youth Slam Championships 2001. She has recorded her poems for the National Radio Project, and KPFA's Flashpoints, and appeared live on KPFA's APEX Express. Her work appears in Awaaz (London), Trikone Magazine, Sow's Ear Poetry Review, the Emily Dickinson Award Anthology and the CD, Best of the Berkeley Slam Poets. Her awards include the 1999 Outwrite Poetry Prize, and a Sacramento Public Library Poetry Prize. She was a semifinalist for the 2000 Emily Dickinson Award and the 2000 Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. She is a recipient of a Serpent Source Foundation For Women Artists Grant and a Voices Of Our Nations Arts Foundation Poetry Scholarship.
Pianist, singer & songwriter Vienna Teng was born and raised in Silicon Valley, and has spent much of her life being annoyed about fulfilling the Chinese-American stereotype: taking piano lessons, getting straight As, applying to a bunch of big-name colleges, and working as a software engineer. She is currently working on her rebellion against said stereotype, having released her debut album "Waking Hour" in May 2001. She performs regularly throughout the Bay Area.
Locus Arts is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Asian Pacific American artists and promoting APA consciousness and community through the arts. Locus Arts, located at 1640 Post St., San Francisco, CA, is an intimate 1,700-square foot space located in the heart of Japantown that showcases the performing, literary, musical, and visual arts of the pan-Asian American community. For more information, please call 415-614-1128 or visit www.locusarts.org.