FUNDING LOCAL ARTS
The final round of 2022 SPOKANE ART GRANT AWARD (SAGA) recipients have been announced, bringing the total distributed this year to $141,000. The latest recipients are as follows:
- Chase Ogden, for The River Speaks, a documentary on the Spokane River
- Art Salvage Spokane, for expanding its storefront and programming
- Tami Hennessey, for a multimedia art project titled "Unraveling My Mind"
- Friends of Manito, for the third annual Manito Park Art Festival in 2023
- Spokane Aerial Performance Arts, to buy stilts used in classes for young performers
- Olivia Evans, James Pakootas and Devonte Pearson (T.S. The Solution) for the upcoming multicultural Root Experience Festival and a companion film score
CHAT ME UP
Imagine for a moment that Siri could write your college essay or code a functioning app. Well, in November, research company OpenAI released its CHATGPT chatbot that's been getting eerily close. The tool went viral uber-quickly, spurring the usual conversations about AI taking jobs from translators, computer scientists and writers alike. After users sign up for ChatGPT, the world is their oyster. Ask it to do anything, from "write an obituary for Boromir from The Lord of the Rings," to "rewrite 'Baby Got Back' in the style of the Canterbury Tales," like one Twitter user did. (The response was hilariously accurate and almost exactly what you'd expect.) Personally, I won't be toying with these AI overlords anytime soon — seeing other's experiences via Twitter is as close as I'm willing to get. (MADISON PEARSON)
OUT FROM UNDERNEATH
Spokane artist MELISSA COLE is known for her paintings depicting nature in all its forms, especially underneath the surface of the world's oceans, lakes and rivers, including from her travels to far-flung places. As soon as COVID travel restrictions were lifted, Cole and her husband traveled to Egypt and Iceland, yielding the content and title for her most recent body of work, "Fire and Ice," up this month at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery. Cole's vibrant paintings explore the two cultures through their respective mythologies, from Egypt's Anubis to the Old Norse wolf known as Fenrir. Contact the gallery (kolva.comcastbiz.net) to make an appointment to view the work, or meet the artist there on Dec. 17 or Dec. 30. (CARRIE SCOZZARO)
