FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Stacy P. Sherman
Marketing Specialist
Ph: (262) 472-5705
Email: ShermanS@uww.edu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/young.aud
Twitter: www.twitter.com/youngauditorium
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/young-auditorium
Website: www.uww.edu/youngauditorium
Date: November 23, 2015
Young Auditorium Big Read Finale Event
WHITEWATER – As Young Auditorium’s seventh National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read
community reading project concludes, the community is invited to attend the grand finale celebration
and visual art project reveal on Friday, December 4th from 6-8 p.m. in the Fairhaven Senior Services
Fellowship Hall, 435 West Starin Road in Whitewater.
The evening features complementary hors d’oeuvres provided by Chef Tyler Sailsbery of The Black
Sheep, Casual Joes, and Fin & Hooves restaurants, desserts by The Sweet Spot café and bakeshop,
live music by pianist Anthony Chan, who will perform pieces by American composers inspired by the
American frontier, and the public reveal of this year’s collaborative visual art project led by artist Joel
Schoon Tanis.
Juniors at Parker High School in Janesville, 4K students from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Children’s Center, and participants from Fairhaven Senior Services in Whitewater worked with Tanis
throughout the Big Read campaign (November 2-December 4). Tanis led the groups through
-–morea collaborative visual art project inspired by this year’s book selection and campaign theme:
“Personal Journeys,” based on Willa Cather’s novel, My Ántonia (and the Little House series for
younger readers).
Cather’s book is revered as a classic novel of the American immigrant experience. Early American life
and personal journeys were central themes in all of Young Auditorium’s Big Read events, and the
project included opportunities for all ages to participate in activities.
Tanis spent time with each group, talking about how visual art can be used as a way to communicate
and gather information about a subject or idea - without words. For the youngest group, he focused
on talking to them about elements of a story – like the character and the setting – and about what a
journey is. The 4K students then shared with him their ideas about what kind of a journey or problem
their newly created character should experience from beginning to end. The result of their
collaboration is Tanis’s artistic interpretation of their ideas in the form of a 12-page book.
Among the older groups, participants referenced important events from within My Ántonia and
discussed how feelings, scenarios, setting/time period, characters, and themes can be communicated
through images alone. The Parker High School students opted to create four different canvases,
depicting four different seasons and corresponding events within the book. The participants at
Fairhaven Senior Services collaborated with Tanis to develop one piece of artwork, influenced by
their perspective of the story and their own life experiences.
The presentation of the visual artwork from all three groups will be on display at the Big Read Finale
event, with representatives from each group present to discuss their artistic process. Tanis will also
be at the event to present and discuss the collaboration from his perspective. Photo opportunities of
the artists and their artwork will be permitted at the finale event.
Joel Schoon Tanis’s paintings explore stories from a whimsical child-like perspective. He is a
celebrated painter who has shown his work around the Unites States — from Michigan to Florida to
Colorado to Washington D.C. Tanis has also shown his work as far away as Kenya where he did an
art show in Nairobi to raise money for the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. His murals can be
found in many schools, children’s hospitals and churches (including murals in both Kenya and
Zambia).
-more-
As an illustrator, Tanis has contributed to more than half a dozen books for children. Most notably, he
illustrated the New International Reader’s Version Kid’s Study Bible for Zondervan. He won the
“Moonbeam Children’s Book Award” for his book Swing! His most recent book is The One, The Only
Maginificant Me! with author Dan Haseltine.
In addition to his artistic pursuits, he is also the creator and writer of Come On Over!, a children’s
television program that has won two National Telly awards, and 13 regional Emmy awards, including
one for being host of the show. The show has had such special guests as Jars of Clay, Fred Willard
(Everybody Loves Raymond, Best in Show), Ruth Buzzi (Laugh In, Sesame Street), Luis Avolos
(Electric Company), Vicki Lewis (Newsradio, Finding Nemo), and Jason Hanson, the kicker for the
Detroit Lions. For more information about Joel Schoon Tanis, visit www.joelschoontanisart.com.
A program of the NEA, The Big Read is designed to broaden the understanding of our world, our
communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Managed by Arts Midwest, this
initiative offers grants to support innovative community reading programs designed around a single
book. Young Auditorium is one of the recipients of these grants in order to host a Big Read project,
serving community members in Rock, Walworth, and Jefferson counties.
The NEA inaugurated The Big Read as a pilot project in 2006 with 10 communities featuring four
books. The Big Read continues to expand to include more communities and additional books. To
date, more than 1,100 grants have been awarded to communities in the U.S. to host Big Read events
since the program's 2007 national launch. For more information, visit www.neabigread.org. For more
information about Young Auditorium’s involvement in the Big Read, visit
www.youngauditorium.wordpress.com.
The Young Auditorium serves as a presenting organization for the performing arts and as an
educational and cultural center enriching the lives of regional communities, offering a full season of
world-class performing arts presentations and several educational and arts integration opportunities.
To learn more, visit www.uww.edu/youngauditorium or follow at www.Facebook.com/Young.Aud.
###