We host a series of brief lectures by York, PA's makers and doers, who talk about their craft. Our speakers come from varied backgrounds, but they all work systematically and intentionally to create visceral experiences.
PechaKucha Night York utilizes the 20x20 PechaKucha presentation format: 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. Learn more at PechaKucha.org.
Featured Speakers AT JANUARY 28, 2016 PK NIght Event
This was our third event, and we were once again blown away by the stories and perspectives our presenters shared.
Carla Christopher-Waid
Word Painting: Finding Words to Make People Feel, Care, and Remember
The truth of emotion often trumps truth of fact when you are speaking for results and responses. The essentials of poetic writing can turn even the most utilitarian of speakers into a persuasive, powerful and purposeful communicator.
Carla Christopher was York's fourth Poet Laureate and the 2014 Arts & Cultural Community Liaison for the City of York. Her independent press, PoemSugar Press / Community Arts Ink, is a Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center partner agency and she is the only York poet to win the Pennsylvania Poetry Society's Grand Prize. She is a multiply published and anthologized poet, the only guest poet-performer on multiple rock albums and is a regular workshop leader for YorkArts, Spoutwood Farm, and Martin Library, among others. She is also the venue host and special/large event producer behind events from Poetry Night @ King's Courtyard to Equality Fest.
Hayley Croom
The Emotional Map of Scent
Our sense of smell is primeval. A whiff of a familiar scent can make us instantly smile, can make us weep, can transport us across time and place. Follow the crafting of an atmospheric fragrance from concept to completion.
Hayley J. Croom is the founder & saponatrix of Paintbox Soapworks, with over 20,000 sales on Etsy's handmade marketplace. She has created more than 200 unique scent blends and specializes in coconut-free formulations. Born in Montreal to British parents, she has lived in York for most of her life, with eight years spent in Chicago's Far North Side. She is a trained pastry chef, amateur botanist, avid reader, and outspoken feminist.
Troy Patterson
Catch and Release: Graphic Design Practice as Fishing Practice
Through the processes and methods of tactile making and shared experiences, Troy Patterson is able to release the results of experiments, or the products he has built, out into his community. Like fishing, making is only as important as the giving. The catch and release work in tandem. For Troy, the release has become the connection between art and gift, a passing of knowledge from old to young, student to teacher.
Troy Patterson is a graphic designer, educator, letterpress practitioner, and collector of things. He is a professor of graphic design at York College of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 2003. While working with young designers is his main focus these days, he continues to be deeply involved in his own personal practice at Catch and Release Press. At C&RP he works on a range of projects, both commercial and personal where he makes 21st century digitally based graphic design and experiments in letterpress processes.
Dru Peters
Small Batch Farming and Why We Handcraft Food and Flowers
After decades working for corporations that provided a company car, matching 401k, expense account, and clean working conditions, Dru Peters traded it all in to start up Sunnyside Farm, a farm that grows handcrafted delights. Now chair of York Buy Fresh Buy Local and member of the Governor’s Task Force on Food Availability, Dru will share about the decision to grow food in ridiculous low tech ways.
Dru Peters is an escapee from the corporate world. What began as a quest for tasty dinners has rolled around to be an all-encompassing farm. Hear the why and how.
Jason Plotkin
#GettingHighWithPlotkin
Perspective plays an important role in the world of photojournalism. What does life look like through the eyes of a visual journalist from ground level to up high while covering the best and worst that life has to offer?
Jason Plotkin, a 1993 graduate of Shippensburg University, has been a visual journalist in York for over 20 years. In that time, he has covered stories ranging from fires and features to presidents and Penn State football. He is a multimedia journalist who shoots photos, produces video and makes documentaries. Jason has been married to his wife Melissa for 18 years and has two daughters, Hannah, 14, and Ella, 8.
Cal Weary
Tilt the Stage: Excellence in Community Arts Through Equal Access
The world of the arts directly parallels and contrasts with the most complex and simplistic concepts in society. By examining what happens to an individual, to a community, when embraced by the arts, we find ourselves bombarded with answers to the most human questions.
Cal Weary is the CEO of Weary Arts Group, President of the York Youth Symphony Orchestra, a husband, and father of three young artists. He has worked for over 20 years in arts education, production, and promotion.
