Artists in Residence
Margie Livingston
Multidisciplinary ArtistMargie Livingston (b. 1953, Vancouver, Washington, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Seattle, Washington.Her practice spans egg tempera on panel, acrylic on canvas, performance-based works, and sculptures made entirely from acrylic paint — always through the lens of painting.She is best known for a hybrid of Action Painting,performance, and land art, as well as for creating objects in which paint supports itself.
Livingston’s work has been exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles; the Portland Art Museum; Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle; and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Her work is held in collections including the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, China; the Seattle Art Museum; the Portland Art Museum. Her honors include a Fulbright Scholarship in Berlin, Germany; residencies at MONA FOMA in Launceston, Australia, and the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute in China; and Artist Trust’s Arts Innovator Award and the Behnke Foundation’s Neddy Fellowship.
Mary Holscher
Writer
Mary Holscher has enjoyed what her mother would call a “checkered" life. Born and raised Catholic in Eastern Washington, she has lived in Seattle for sixty years. She has continued to write (and occasionally publish) poems, fiction and flash and short-form memoir since her first short memoir, “Unwed Mother, 1970” was anthologized in Single Mother’s Companion (Seal Press, 1994). A retired psychologist, she is intrigued by what moments stay vividly in memory and why. She loves small daily creative practices to strengthen attention to her internal life and to the world at large. For fourteen years, she’s shared a daily writing practice with four others via email and has participated in a Mark A Day Group with six other artists, in which each participant makes a daily mark (drawing, painting, collage) and shares it with the others via a photo.
Paul Finley
Composer & Musician
Paul Finley started composing and improvising three months after his first piano lesson at age ten. The piano was where he turned when he felt his strong childhood emotions. Jazz, salsa, and classical piano have been in the mix ever since, where he has played in numerous Seattle venues. He also loves to teach music, leading the secondary school band at Summit K-12 for three years in the ‘90s and teaching private piano lessons since 1985. Recently he has been collaborating with the writer Patricia Smith, weaving spoken prose and piano music.
Patricia Canwright Smith
Writer & Visual ArtistPatricia Canright Smith is an old writer and visual artist living outside Seattle, a retired psychotherapist with advanced degrees in psychology and art. Her interests include humans and other entities, natural phenomena, and interconnections. Her essay, “83 Problems, A-Z,” which appeared in The Jabberwock Review, was a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays, 2014. Her work has appeared in Shenandoah Literary Magazine, Quiddity Literary Journal, Calyx, North Dakota Quarterly, and others.
She collaborates with Paul Finley, a jazz musician, to create duets using prose and piano, which they record and perform live.
Beth Graczyk
Dance Artist & ScientistBeth Graczyk is a Brooklyn/Lenapehoking-based choreographer and published research scientist working at the intersection of art and science. As founder and Artistic Director of Beth Graczyk Productions (BGP), established in 2020, she creates performances, installations, and films centering femme-identifying, queer, and neurodivergent perspectives. Her practice explores the tension between concrete knowledge and the elusive, felt experiences of the body. Moving between scientific observation and embodied inquiry, she uses sensation, humor, material experimentation, and imagination to explore perception, adaptation, identity, and belonging. Her choreography has been presented throughout the US, Japan, China, and India, including at Velocity Dance Center, Gibney, La MaMa, JACK, and Movement Research. She has been awarded residencies at Hambidge Center, Vashon Artist Residency, and Marble House Project (2017 and 2027). Graczyk received her MFA in Dance from Montclair State University in 2026, is currently on faculty at Peridance in NYC and a Research Specialist in the Ruta Lab at The Rockefeller University.