Jackie Matisse Monnier - Artist / Artistic Director

"I make and fly kites to play with color and line in the sky. My kites play games with the light, hide and seek with the clouds. They push and pull on the wind. They challenge the birds. My hand grows longer and longer until I feel I am somehow in contact with that immensity into and out of which all things come and go. The kite itself is a reference to the human: so fragile and yet so strong. It is also a reference to constant movement, sinuous movement, the movement of dreams and childhood. A child on the street rarely walks in a straight line. It plays while it goes, in and out, around and about. That is what birds in flight do. That is what my kites do. I wish to create "sky works" however ephemeral. Kites are an instrument for this. They put line and color into the sky and sculpt the air. They play a game of freedom."

 

Ray Kass - Director, the Mountain Lake Workshop of the Virginia Tech Foundation

 

Tom Coffin - Technical Coordinator, NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications

 

Shalini Venkataraman with Dr. Jason Leigh - Programmer, University of Illinois at Chicago

 

Dr. Ron Kriz - Director, Virginia Tech CAVE (University Visualization and Animation Group of the ACITC)

 

Francis Thompson - Project Coordinator, Virginia Tech School of the Arts, Web Master

 

Dr. Paul Weilinga - Director, SARA (Stitchting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam)

 

Dr. Ulrike Kasper - Visual Arts Assistant Curator, La Cite Museum de Musique

 

Robert Stouse - Student of Virginia Tech University