We close out this podcast mini-series with writer and performer, Samantha Chanse , who has worn just about every possible APAture hat: from emcee in 2001 to coordinator in 2002 to featured artist in performance/theater in 2008.

After serving Kearny Street Workshop for seven years with four different staff titles, she passes on years of institutional knowledge today as a board member.

Perhaps Sam’s longevity with the organization can be credited to a passion for her community and an uncanny ability to laugh at herself.

Mark Baugh-Sasaki is a busy sculptor and installation artist. He’s shown all over the Bay Area including Swarm Gallery, Diablo Valley College art gallery, and Triton Museum of Art, and had a solo show at 5 Mined Fields Studio.

Yet he still donates his gallery installation skills generously to KSW.

A fine artist as well as a community artist, Mark is in the midst of fundraising for a six-month art installation at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley by invitation of the Hayes Valley Arts Coalition. Care to contribute?

Robin Sukhadia says he performed in APAture 2007 to represent South Asian artists in the festival. “Asia is a massive part of the world and we need to do more to bring all of the communities within Asia together.”

Although his APAture performance blended classical North India music mixed into a contemporary context, Robin promotes traditional Indian music through his teachings and performances. “There’s something to be said about respecting thousands of years of culture and history,” says Robin.

Robin’s musical ensemble, PremaSoul, performed in the Shifted Focus Performance Night combining sacred Indian and soulful American sound.

Matt Abaya teaches digital multimedia and video production to East Palo Alto youth and uses technological tools to make high concept, low- to no-budget films.

But back in the day, Matt helped launch the first APAture. Besides curating the APAture film night, he contributed an illustration of Asians with sunglasses for one of the APAture 2 t-shirt designs.

Matt is soooo O.G., he references Yahoogroups’ predecessor, eGroups in this following clip from 2000.

Cathlin Goulding first learned about APAture when she found a flyer at a Locus Arts event she attended for school credit.

Since participating in APAture in 2004, she has taken a number of KSW workshops and was selected to participate in KSW’s partnership with Intersection for the Arts, the Intergenerational Writers Lab, which is now accepting applications for the 2009.

Amy Ho’s work dances between film and visual art, with a psychedelic installation that required ladder-clilmbing at APAture 10. (Yes, that’s Amy dressed up as a durian.)

In addition to challenging her creative growth, Amy says her participation in APAture has introduced her to some of her closest friends.

Our third segment in the Artists of APAture features actor Michael Hornbuckle, a founding member of the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors. 18MMW are an Asian American comedy sketch group founded in 1994 .

Since then, they were the featured artist in theater for APAture 2004, were named 2005 Bay Area’s best comedy group by the SF Bay Guardian, won the 2006 International Sketch Comedy Championships, and were featured in the Emmy Award-winning documentary, “Mighty Warriors of Comedy.”

Members of 18MMW will be performing at KSW’s SHIFTED FOCUS: Performance Night at the de Young.

I cornered Michael for this interview at the 2000 APAture thank you party.

The second post in our exploration of the Artists of APAture features Pireeni Sundaralingam.

Pireeni is a poet who often performs with her husband, musician Colm Ó Riain, in Words & Violin.

She performed in APAture in 2001 with her writers group, Dhaia Tribe, and was the featured artist in literature in 2008.

Combining her dual skills as a poet and a professor of cognitive development, Pireeni is teaching the upcoming Shifted Focus workshop, Changing Your Brain, Changing Your Poetic Practice.

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Happy holidays everyone. Here at Kearny Street Workshop, the gears keep on turning as Santa made his way through the cloudy San Francisco skies and I’m here blogging on Christmas day

I’m Robynn Takayama, one of the founders of APAture and a KSW artist. Over the following weeks, I’ll be posting video, photos, and audio of APAture artists to contribute to the online portion of the Shifted Focus exhibition.

To start, here’s a video where APAture 10’s featured comic artist, Hellen Jo, talks about how APAture opened the doors to an Asian American creative community she now calls home.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)