2023 Mentors

Meet the 2023 BC Culture Days Mentors

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Kay Slater

(Pronouns: they, them)
Mentor to Peisen Ding

Kay Slater is a multidisciplinary artist, accessibility consultant and arts worker. Their artistic practice explores value as it relates to process and expectations. Kay’s work is rooted in anti-oppression practices, and they employ open source and community-engaged approaches to support ongoing knowledge transfer with makers and creators at all stages of their careers. Kay is dedicated to expanding art making opportunities where verbal and non-verbal communication is used and where no one is ever turned away for lack of skill or understanding. They subscribe to the philosophy of the New Sincerity, a trend that tries to expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony. Kay is queer and hard of hearing. As a guest on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Coast Salish people, specifically the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sə̓lílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, Kay is learning, searching for joy, participating in, standing with, and witnessing landback initiatives for Indigenous Sovereignty.

Peter Corbett

(Pronouns: he, him)
Mentor to Natasha Lepine

Peter Corbett is a professional painter and biologist with a studio located in Wells, B.C. As an artist as well as a scientist, he has developed a keen sense of observation of the natural world. As a painter, Peter is most interested in working plein air, quickly capturing the effects of light and the relationship of shapes and colour on the landscape. From these painted field sketches, he draws inspiration to create larger works on canvas in the studio.

In addition to his artistic practice, he hosts annual multi-day guided residencies and workshops with an emphasis on plein air painting. He loves sharing art and artistic experiences with others and through this collaborative process finding his own artistic practice growing richer over time.

Peter’s work can be found in both private and public collections around the world. He was once represented by major commercial galleries across Canada but has since struck out on his own and can be found in his gallery/studio in the St. George church in Wells, BC.

Jeffrey Ellis

(Pronouns: he, him)
Mentor to Erin Shuttleworth

Jeffrey Ellis is a recent graduate of Capilano University’s IDEA program with a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication. Since childhood visual storytelling has been his passion. Jeffrey loves to tell stories about people and their relationships, his inspirations include Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware and Mariko Tamaki. Through his involvement in the Cloudscape Comics Society (a non-profit he founded), Jeffrey has more than ten years of experience in project management, print production, and book publishing. He has managed the production of more than fifteen different printed graphic novels many of which contain his own work. He has also produced multiple books of his own work, most notably “Teach English In Japan”, which is based on his own experience teaching English in Japan for three years. His most recent work is “Love in the Time of Covid” based on his experiences dating during the global pandemic. This comic is part of an ongoing series of stories centered around life in East Vancouver.

Patrick Lundeen

(Pronouns: he, him)
Mentor to Cameron Gelderman

Patrick Lundeen is an artist born in Lethbridge, AB (traditional Blackfoot Confederacy territory). He currently lives and works in Kelowna (unceded Okanagan Sylix territory) teaching drawing, painting and sculpture at UBC Okanagan and sits on the board of directors at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art. His artistic interests span traditional visual art-making mediums and extends to include sound art, music, food, performance and public art. His approach to visual art employs humour, sensory experience and a rough and visceral aesthetic to elicit a complex response from viewers. Recent projects include a solo exhibition of kinetic and sound-making sculptures called “CHEAP!” at the Kelowna Art Gallery. Patrick Lundeen was selected to be the City of Kelowna Artist in Residence for 2022. His socially engaged project HAPPY DAY FREE GIFT TRUCK was parked downtown on Saturdays for six weeks in October and November and gave mysterious gifts to all visitors. He has an upcoming exhibition at the Kamloops Art Gallery in January. In addition to visual art, Patrick is also a dubiously talented recording, and rarely performing, musician his fifth EP - also called “CHEAP!” - was released on vinyl in conjunction with the exhibition at the KAG.

Tim Gosley

(Pronouns: he, him)
Mentor to Ann K Chou

Tim Gosley’s four decades in puppetry include a wide spectrum of projects. He just built and performed the lead puppet for a Toronto television pilot. Currently, he experiments through puppetry with autobiographical subjects: The Heart Coffer & Le Bloke de North Hatley (under development). He was the festival director for Puppets for Peace in Victoria, B.C. He is a Gemini Award winning puppeteer on TV series including the Muppets Fraggle Rock, and was Basil Bear for nine years on Canadian Sesame Street. He creates his own shows for both families and adults in different techniques including LED shadows; low-tech live video; object manipulation; and Muppet-style manipulation. The content ranges from children’s shows like The Ugly Duckling, which toured German, the UK, Austria, Taiwan and across Canada, to the avant-garde including Michael McClure’s 60’s hallucination “The Meatball.” Since moving to Victoria (2008), he started building giant puppets, which he has created for The City of Victoria, Theatre Terrific, and Puppets for Peace. He conceived and produced a 24 cast of community mixed-nations performers with Roy Henry Vickers telling the Tsimshian tale, Peace Dancer. His latest suitcase performance is with Runaway Moon Theatre’s project, “How did you get here?” In 2020 he had an artist-in-residence fellowship at the Center for Studies in Religion and Society at The University of Victoria where he has created The Heart Coffer: an exploration into the universal heart through puppetry.

Norine Braun

(Pronouns: she, her)
Mentor to Summer Tyance

Vancouver singer-songwriter recording artist Norine Braun released her 13th album, Songs For Trees, dedicated to the forests and the spirits within the trees. As we fight climate change, trees are the lungs of the planet. Thanks to a Canada Council For the Arts Award and a First Peoples’ Cultural Council Award in 2021, Norine set her musings during the ongoing pandemic to focus on climate change and the healing power of trees. Her groove based roots, jazz and blues are blended with some rock and synthesized pop elements to create a textured and ambient soundtrack to nature. Songs For Trees is a spiritual narrative, with each song guiding us through a journey through the forest. A trip literally and metaphorically about the interconnectedness of all things. The Vancouver Sun names Songs For Trees as “one of 5 albums you need to hear!” “Songs For Trees” is unlike any other album I’ve ever heard. It’s beautiful and genius.“ Taylor Williams SubbaCultcha “Each song is beautifully tied together to create a music forest with a very important message.” A.A. Christi NYC Broadway World The single The Burning charted on SiriusXM Indigenous Music Countdown reaching the Top 10 and charted on Earshot Canadian College radio Folk/Blues/Roots. The album has also garnered play on US AAA and non-commercial stations. Norine’s ancestry is Metis and Ukrainian and identifies as Two Spirit. Norine is currently writing her 14th album set to record the album this fall 2023.

Clelia Scala

(Pronouns: she, her)
Mentor to Cherie Chai

Clelia Scala is a visual artist whose work includes mask and puppet design, shadow puppetry, installations, collage, and illustration. Her explorations into the fantastic and uncanny stem from a lifelong engagement with tales and myths and her interest in the theme of human interaction with the natural world. Clelia shadow puppetry includes a play to accompany composer Dean Burry’s The Highwayman and a shadow piece for musical duo Bridge & Wolak’s Tangorium. As a designer and fabricator for theatre, Clelia has worked with theatre companies and institutions such as Bad New Days, Carousel Players, Guilty by Association, Lemon Bucket Orkestra, the Niagara Artists Centre, Odyssey Theatre, Suitcase in Point, Theatre Kingston, University of Missouri-St Louis Opera Theatre, Yale University, and Zacadia Circus. Clelia’s visual art has shown in galleries in Canada and the United States.

Publications include collages for the book Alice in Plunderland (BookThug) by Steve McCaffery and for I Can Say Interpellation (BookThug) by Stephen Cain. She recently completed a series of collages for Steve McCaffery’s Alice Through the Working Class, which will be published by Dr. Cicero Books in 2023. Her current personal projects include Jars, a puppet play about eating, and an installation, titled The Clearing, with artist Marney McDiarmid.

Clelia is the recipient of the 2019 Established Artist Award for the City of St Catharines. Her work has been supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. She teaches design in the Dan School of Drama & Music, Queen’s University.

Shauna Devlin

(Pronouns: she, her)
Mentor to Tlanextli Coyotl (Pablo Ochoa)

Shauna Devlin is a warm and inclusive spirit. As a Group & Movement Facilitator, DJ, Activist and Catalyst for connection and joy, she uses her love of music and movement to create spaces where all can experience the many benefits of Conscious Dance.

She began facilitating bodies in motion, as a ski instructor, when she was 17 years old. On the ski hill, she aimed for her students to experience delight & fascination in their bodies as they careened down the mountain. At the age of 18 she discovered Latin dance, and spent the next 10 years deeply exploring partner dance, while living part time in the Dominican Republic. The combination of falling in love with partner dance, skiing & snowboarding, becoming a parent, listening to the cycles of the moon & the seasons of the earth all inform her ability to hold space: lovingly inviting people to discover their dance with a sense of courage, adventure, love and lots of curiosity. She discovered Conscious Dance in 2005 and has not looked back since her first encounter.

A 5Rhythms Facilitator, Dance Temple DJ, Embodiment Coach, in training, and the founder of Dance Your Ability Therapeutic Foundation Shauna provides opportunities for a large variety of people to feel welcome to do their own unique dance while having an experience that is healing, positive, life affirming and community building.

Based in British Columbia, Canada, Shauna lives in the Gulf Islands with her partner, and a blended family of 5 kids & 3 cats. She offers public classes, workshops & retreats (indoors, outside & online) as well as Outreach Classes & Facilitator Trainings with Dance Your Ability.

Miriam Libicki

(Pronouns: she, her)
Mentor to Lindsey Tyne Johnson

Miriam Libicki is an Eisner-nominated author, cartoonist and illustrator concentrating on narrative nonfiction, with a BFA in Visual Art from Emily Carr University and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She teaches illustration and humanities at Emily Carr University and Langara College. Her short comics have been published by the Nib, Abrams, Rutgers University Press, and the Journal of Jewish Identities. Her 2008 Israeli Army memoir “jobnik!” has been used in over a dozen university courses. Her book of drawn essays, TOWARD A HOT JEW was named a FORBES Top 10 graphic novel of 2016 and received the 2017 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature. Her painted essay WHO GETS CALLED AN UNFIT MOTHER was nominated for a 2020 Best Short Story Eisner. Libicki was the 2017 Writer in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library, and is currently working on a nonfiction graphic novel about the exodus of Soviet Jews from the collapsing USSR, and its impact on the last three decades of Jewish culture, called GLASNOST KIDS. 2022 saw the publication of BUT I LIVE, (University of Toronto Press) a trio of illustrated accounts by child Holocaust survivors aimed at general readership and high school classrooms. Miriam collaborated with survivor David Schaffer to paint his story for this volume. BUT I LIVE received two PROSE awards, and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and has been nominated for a 2023 Eisner Award. Libicki exhibits at galleries and comic conventions, and lectures on cartooning in Canada, the US and overseas.

Stephanie Springgay

(Pronouns: she, her)
Mentor to Regan Shrumm

Stephanie Springgay is Director of the School of the Arts and Professor at McMaster University. She is a leading scholar of research-creation with a focus on walking, affect, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. She directs the SSHRC-funded research-creation project The Pedagogical Impulse which explores the intersections between contemporary art and pedagogy. She directs WalkingLab – an international network of artists and scholars committed to critical approaches to walking methods. She has published widely on contemporary art, curriculum studies, and qualitative research methodologies.