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THERESA WHITEHILL, BIO

A California poet, graphic designer, and letterpress printer, Theresa Whitehill's literary work includes commissioned poetry, travel writing, poetic essays, and culinary poetry,with an emphasis on dramatic performance. Evora a Doce, her poem about Portuguese food and soul, was published in a limited edition braodside by Alice Waters in 1999. Whitehill's Flash-animated version of Evora a Doce was featured in the American Film Institute's 1998 Annual Report as part of her work with their innovative California Digital Arts Workshop.

Whitehill's poetry, poetic essays, and travel articles appear in a variety of regional literary and travel publications, including Appellation Magazine, Semi-Dwarf Quarterly, The Montserrat Review, Yellow Silk, Art/Life, the Redwood Coast Literary Review, and Oxygen.

Her first book of poetry, A Natural History of Mill Towns, was published by Pygmy Forest Press in December of 1993, and is currently out of print.

Trained in letterpress printing in the Book Arts program at Mills College, she has published literary letterpress broadsides throughout her career. Many of these broadsides are collaborations with her husband and partner, artist Paulo Ferreira. The broadsides of Colored Horse Studios are in the collections of major libraries and universities, as well as private collections across the country.

Copywriting for many of Whitehill's commercial design projects grew naturally out of her poetry talent, and many of her brochure projects have benefited from her articulate prose.

Poet in Residence: In the spring of 1998, Whitehill participated as Poet-in-Resdience in a series of salons at Stags' Leap Winery in the Napa Valley. In collaboration with artist Patrick McFarlin and prose writer Rod Smith, she attended salons that extended over six weeks, interviewing members of the Napa community as they sat having their portraits painted by McFarlin, writing literary portraits to accompany the paintings.

The work produced during these sessions was exhibited at the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville in 1999, and was the subject of a CBS Special in March of 1999. The exhibit of paintings and writings has traveled to Atlanta and Philadelphia.

The catalog from this exhibit, Napa Valley: Portrait of a Community, which contains Whitehill's poems along with the prose of Rod Smith and the paintings of McFarlin, is available.

Culinary Poetry: Whitehill has been collaborating since the year 2000 with chef Shannon Hughes on a series of culinary poetry events, including Saudades, recently commissioned by Stags' Leap Winery. Together they have developed a new genre combining poetry with food which is performed in an intimate setting. They are currently working on their third project together.

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