Empower Youth Through the Arts: Keeping Creativity Alive
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SkyCave Arts is a group of six passionate and skilled, multidisciplinary artists working together to bring a unique experience to Butte County. Together, Cameron Kelly, Christina Seashore, David ‘Dragonboy’ Sutherland, Ron Toppi, Sierra ‘Sunrise’ Chik and Tatiana Allen are uniting forces to create a multi-functional artist venue for all ages. As life-long artists we have personally experienced the transformative benefits of co-creative artmaking. As longtime Butte County residents we deeply understand the need our community has for these creative spaces that offer a rich environment to connect, inspire, heal and flourish. (See artist bios below)
Here at SkyCave Arts, our vision is to enrich and engage all who enter by facilitating creative education and experiences for all ages, using expansive creative practices. We will offer a cooperative studio space to host a variety of workshops, classes, exhibitions and events for artists and educators to serve our community. In addition, we plan to offer a multi-media makerspace, gallery/showspace and regular artist pop-ups.
After working together as resident artists of Chico Creative Reuse Mobile, a year long, grant funded program, we decided to team up and continue serving our community, sharing our skills and passions, while evolving our vision in our shared studio space on Orange Street in Chico. We are needing support to bring this vision to life and raise funds for start-up operating costs. You could also show your support by donating unused or gently used art and craft supplies. SkyCave Supply Wishlist
Connect with us and find ways to participate & become a part of our community. Watch and share our story as we unfold together.
BIOS
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Cameron Kelly, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, has called Chico her home for the past eight years. Kelly uses her experience as a Santa Cruz Waldorf kid and her BFA and MFA degrees in studio arts to facilitate creative thinking. Straight from generation-X, she is a typical working, virgo artist who wears many hats, teaching art at Butte Community College, constructing sculpture with salvaged and constructed materials and a resident artist in elementary schools, helping children express their ideas through imagery. She serves as Gallery Director for Chico Art Center, producing community based art exhibits and events that connect visual artists with art appreciators of all ages.
Kelly is inspired by the imaginations of our young makers and supports them with a wide range of materials and techniques to help their creative thinking become tangible skill based experience. Play is an awesome way to learn, working together to find a material solution to a design challenge. Kelly sees her teacher role more as a collaborator, sharing knowledge and culture to create unique objects.
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Christina Seashore, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, has a deep passion for building creative communities and thrives on supporting others to explore their creative capacities. She works in the realms of painting, fiber arts, and fashion performance, and has a Degree in Studio Arts as well as studied Apparel Design in Oakland. She has worked with several artist communities through the years in San Francisco, New York and Chico, where she was a member of the fashion performance arts group Chikoko for 12 years. She has done a variety of gallery work in Chico, New Jersey and New York. Her apparel design work was featured on HGTV, and paintings have been exhibited in shows in New York, San Francisco and Chico.
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David Dragonboy Sutherland, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, has been making art in Northern California & the Bay Area for the last 24 years. He is a delightful aquarian gen-xer and a true multi-media artist. His assemblage work incorporates discarded & everyday objects, which are assembled into “dragonmasks” or “mahakala”. These have a tribal, primitive quality which can evoke a sense of mystery or magic. Sutherland’s work is influenced by Mayan hieroglyphs, eastern philosophy/religions, esotericism, as well as the art of Jasper Johns, Joseph Bueys, Robert Rauschenberg, Eduardo Paolozzi and Robert Motherwell to name a few. At the heart of Sutherland’s work is a dedication to bringing an awareness to the Spiritual reality underlying all of existence. A self-proclaimed samurai & loyal retainer to the divine mother, his work & mission is one of creative training in the ways of love, devotion & true power.
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Ron Toppi, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, has been working to create community programs for over 20 years through bicycles and art. Since co-founding Sharing Wheels Community Bike Shop in Everett, WA in 2003, Toppi has been finding creative ways to utilize donated bicycles through programs such as “earn a bike” for at-risk youth to learn how to build their own bicycle. At his Chico shop, Chico Bikesmith, you’ll find him re-imagining used bikes and making art, exploring unique ways to repurpose unusable bikes parts, creating unique functional art pieces. For the past year he was a resident artist with Chico Creative Reuse Mobile where his passion for making upcycled art and working collaboratively with the community brought him to be part of SkyCave Arts.
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Sierra ‘SunRise’ Chik, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, devotes herself to the practice of creative living. She explores visual arts including home styling, painting, assemblage, beadwork, personal styling and slow fashion. Growing up in Chico, she has participated in a variety of groups and programs committed to offering art education, supporting artists in the community and developing her personal practices. This aquarian millennial and bold fashionista is widely known for her unique style, utilizing thrifted, gifted and found clothing to create wearable art and unique looks, inspiring others to dress more creatively and authentically. As a self-taught seamstress, she has been experimenting with clothing alteration since she was old enough to use scissors. She is drawn to mending & upcycling already constructed pieces, finding endless ways to make use of garments and fabric that would otherwise be sent to the landfills because of minor imperfections, tears or stains. She offers classes in sewing and clothing alteration for kids and adults, inviting them to think differently about style and learn practical skills while reducing waste.
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Tatiana Allen, artist and enrichment teacher at SkyCave Arts, believes in the power of art and sees the inner child in everyone she meets. Her path into the arts began after a severe traumatic experience, when struggling to talk about what had happened to her, engaged in her healing process, come back from the depths of despair and reconnect with herself, she was inspired to create a representational collage reflecting what she was experiencing. Through this process she was eventually led to her career as an artist. Over the years Tatiana’s work has been showcased and sold in galleries across California. Her work is usually centered around found objects and a visual expression of internal thoughts and feelings. This Leo, gen-Xer graduated from CSU and is the owner of the Chico Art Studio, participant of the Art Block on several Chico Thursday Night Markets and coordinator of the Saturday Flume Street Fair. Her career as an artist has evolved into a community leader who is supporting developing artists and healing communities through her art practice.
Organizer
SkyCave Arts
Organizer
Chico, CA