The People

Kurt and Kremena, lead artists

In addition to drag queens, Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova like to photograph discarded couches, roadside attractions, and all things found on the peripheries. In 2011 and 2012 they traveled to Los Angeles, Indianapolis, New Orleans and San Antonio to photograph the people who live near the couches and easy chairs left on the these cities’ curbs. The resulting collection of images, DISCARDED: USA, is an ongoing artwork scheduled to be completed in 2014. Recently, Gohde and Todorova worked on The Lexington Tattoo Project, a public artwork that spread the words of a poem, through permanent tattoos, on the bodies of 247 Lexingtonians. They are currently working on the second work of its kind, The Boulder Tattoo Project. They have exhibited their collaborative work in Lexington, Ky.; Venice Beach, Calif.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Oneonta, N.Y.; and San Antonio, Texas.

Kremena Todorova teaches American Literature as well as classes that ask students to meet and work with their neighbors face to face. Born and raised in Communist Bulgaria, she continues to draw inspiration for her art and teaching from Timur and his commitment to community. She became an official American on December 10, 2010.

Kurt Gohde teaches Studio Art at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., and makes art to invite conversations about contemporary social issues, from marginalized sexualities to the experience of homelessness. Recently, he has become newly invigorated by plans to reseed the clouds over Kentucky with meat, in loving memory of the Kentucky meat rain of 1876.

Chelsea Pohl, project manager

Chelsea Pohl is the founder and director of Locheart Arts in Boulder. Locheart Arts is committed to integrating art into the public domain by facilitating art projects (such as the Boulder Tattoo Project), promoting local artists, offering art classes and workshops, and engaging with other arts organizations in Boulder.

Chelsea is an active member of the Boulder arts scene and a powerful networker. Her leadership skills were cultivated through 11 years of business management experience, during which she supervised 100 employees. Her artistic experience includes creating gallery exhibitions of her work; teaching workshops; and writing, illustrating, and publishing two children’s books. Her network of artists and community members has been cultivated throughout her 13 years of living in Boulder.

Chelsea is especially excited to take a project that originated in Lexington, Kentucky, her birth hometown, to her chosen hometown of Boulder, Colorado.

Anne Waldman, poet

Internationally recognized and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community, a culture she has helped create and nurture for over four decades as writer, editor, teacher, performer, magpie scholar, infra-structure curator, and cultural/political activist. Her poetry is recognized in the lineage of Whitman and Ginsberg, and in the Beat, New York School, and Black Mountain trajectories of the New American Poetry. She is the author of more than 40 books, including the mini-classic Fast Speaking Woman and a collection of essays entitled Vow to Poetry. She has concentrated on the long poem as a cultural intervention with such projects as Marriage: A Sentence, Structure of The World Compared to a Bubble, Manatee/Humanity, and the monumental anti-war feminist epic The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment, a 25-year project.

Gregory Alan Isakov, musican 

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and calling Colorado home, Gregory Alan Isakov has been traveling all his life. Songs that hone a masterful quality beyond his years tell a story of miles and landscapes, and the search for a sense of place.

Gregory will create a musical score for the final video artwork which will also feature images of the healed tattoos, photographs of the words Anne Waldman wrote for The Boulder Tattoo Project made permanent with ink on skin.

Andrew Brislin, photographer 

All photographs of the healed tattoos were captured by Andrew Brislin of Boulder.

Andrew Brislin was interested in photography long before he acquired his first professional camera. A decade ago when he got his first DSLR camera, he shot lots of landscapes and nature scenes before he began shooting candids of people. In 2009, he became interested in studio photography so he rented time in a local Boulder studio and began asking friends to pose for him. Though his day job actually involves shooting and editing video, photography holds an allure that Andrew can’t deny. It was was through a shoot for another tattoo book that he became connected to the Boulder Tattoo Project. Andrew was honored to have been chosen to photograph such a wonderful community driven art project.

Claw and Talon Tattoo

All tattoos were done by Vincent Bachert and the talented artists at Claw and Talon Tattoo.