Who Are Anne & Mark?

In A Nutshell

Anne Sconberg and Mark Henderson

are two people who woke up one day and wondered  — in this Valley renowned for its creative vibe —where all the artists were.  They emptied their house, boarded up the windows, and put a call out to everyone they knew (not that many people) to come and hang their art.  They told everyone to invite their friends.  And they did it every year.  Turns out, most people don’t do that.  And there are a lot of artists out there.

Their event — a One Night Stand for the Arts — exploded beyond their house, beyond a warehouse, and now headed towards the fairgrounds where they will set up shop for a week.

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ANNE:

Anne is always trying to find things and make sense of them.  She has spent her entire life in an attempt to live in the creative hub of the universe. Starting out in Salinas, California, she has lived in Stockton, Palo Alto, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Adelaide (South Australia), Madrid, London…. Now she lives in San Jose, CA, where she dedicates her time to knocking down walls, planting trees and offering unsolicited advice.

 

In addition to Anne and Mark’s Art Party, she has founded Backwater Arts artists’ colony and has served on the City of San Jose’s Creative Entrepreneur’s Panel as well as SJ’s Peer Review Panel for Creative Industries Incentive Fund.

 

She attended Stanford University, where she received a BA (with distinction!) in English Literature and spent an inordinate amount of time in the photo lab. She has a degree from the Inchbald School of Design in London, where she received numerous awards. She also has a degree in Multimedia Design from Tracor Arts in Madrid, where she did NOT get any awards but did manage to complete the yearlong course in Spanish.

 

She has an extremely talented fourteen-year old daughter named Charlotte who is serving as an informal creative advisor to this project, and who — though generally supportive — in many ways wishes this whole thing were over so that that her mother would chill out.

MARK:

Mark was born in England, in the county of Kent, grew up in New England (doesn’t that sound idyllic?) then went back to England, where he studied at the Bath Academy of Art and received an honors degree in Ceramics and Three Dimensional Design.

 

Due to a variety of reasons that are far too complicated to go into here (but involve driving his brother cross-country, living in a teepee, and working in various ceramics studios in Santa Cruz) he ended up in the Bay Area, where he spends most of his time building anything anyone can think of (mostly remodels), collecting and testing cookbooks, and hanging out in his ceramics studio.

 

He is patient, pragmatic and optimistic and deals with artists, guests, city officials, and a whole variety of logistical problems with equanimity and good cheer. He also does crosswords puzzles, which he sometimes completes on Sundays.

Click For Computer-Generated "Artiste" Version

woodcuts_about_artisteDon’t you ever wonder who makes up all those mystifying artist statements you read in museum catalogues?  Well, it turns out there is a secret to it: a magic website called “500 letters”.   Try it yourself and find out what an artist you really are!  It’s fun and it only takes about three minutes.

 

CLICK HERE TO CREATE YOUR OWN ARTIST STATEMENT!

 

* Disclaimer: real artists and art institutions actually come up with their own copy, but this sounds pretty good to us!

ANNE

Anne Sconberg (Salinas, United States) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, Sconberg formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works. The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, are frequently revealed as assemblages.   Her artworks directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, she tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following form in a work.   Her works never shows the complete structure. This results in the fact that the artist can easily imagine an own interpretation without being hindered by the historical reality. With a conceptual approach, she tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.   Her works feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies.

MARK

Mark Henderson (Pembury, United Kingdom) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By focusing on techniques and materials, Henderson considers making art a craft which is executed using clear formal rules and which should always refer to social reality.   His artworks are based on formal associations which open a unique poetic vein. Multilayered images arise in which the fragility and instability of our seemingly certain reality is questioned. By choosing mainly formal solutions, he tries to develop forms that do not follow logical criteria, but are based only on subjective associations and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal associations.   His works are notable for their perfect finish and tactile nature. This is of great importance and bears witness to great craftsmanship. By emphasizing aesthetics, he seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.   His works sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. Mark Henderson currently lives and works in San Jose, CA.

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Actual (Not very retouched) Photograph

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