Staff
Jon Daries, Thomas Fang, Kevin Holden, Max Jersak, Jordan Porto, Kelly Rauer, Matthew Rempes
Facilitators
Joe D’Ambrosia, Jon Daries, Casey Denton, Thomas Fang, Max Jersak, Shawn McClure, Jordan Porto, Brandon Rawls, Matthew Rempes, Archie Rizzo
Board Members
Francisco BotelloFrancisco Botello is a Mexican/American sound artist and educator born and raised in Chula Vista, California. Growing up a dual citizen on the dividing line between the United States and Mexico, their work reflects on the nature of place and belonging. Gathering and composing with field recordings, alongside electronics and computer music tools, they explore questions of identity, ancestry, geography, change, and loss. In their recent work, they have been experimenting with gestural control and working with immersive, multi-channel sound systems as ways to connect their work more intimately with their body and audience. In 2019, they helped co-found whateverSpace, a maker space offering free and sliding scale workshops as well as technology rentals with priority going to the QTBIPOC community. Their multi-channel work has been showcased at places such as Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, PNCA, Portland Art Museum as well as many other community spaces. Through their work as an instructor, artist in residence, project founder, activist, technician and designer, Botello is affiliated with Portland Community College, Portland State University, Community Power Pods PDX, Music Hackspace, CETI, and Oregon Center for Contemporary Art.
Thomas FangSound and video artist Thomas Fang uses modular synthesizers and esoteric antiques to weave reverberating textural drones with fractured granular alien glitches. After exploring the uses of vintage laboratory test equipment, handmade devices, field recordings, radio transmissions, and circuit-bent electronics, working for synth manufacturers since 2008 has led him to embrace the newest hardware while still allowing chaotic and aleatoric forces to guide creative processes. In 2001 he co-founded the Artificial Music Machine record label and began performing both solo and in ensembles. He has also been a curator for arts nonprofit Church of the Friendly Ghost, staff member of Austin Museum of Digital Art, and has taught synthesis and circuit bending workshops for New Media Art and Sound Summit, Future Music Summit, and Synth Library Portland. Thomas has been a volunteer administrator for the Synth Library Program since its inception in 2016 and continues to provide essential support services to the community and to the organization.
Kevin Holden, Treasurer Kevin Holden is a sound artist based on the territories of the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Chinook, Cowlitz, Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and Multnomah peoples. They explore the physical and affective possibilities of volume and noise. They’ve performed recently at Center for Contemporary Art Santa Fe, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon Contemporary, Performance Space New York, Yale Union, and S1. They have exhibited sound-based work at Variform Gallery, c3:initiative, ADX, and First Brick. They are professionally affiliated with Emily Johnson / Catalyst. As a volunteer staff member of S1 and Synth Library Portland since 2019, they have curated several events, managed the Artist in Residence program and other event programming, and provided budget and accounting oversight and support.
Felisha Ledesma Felisha Ledesma is a musician and designer based in Berlin. Felisha co-founded S1 in 2014 and the Synth Library in 2016, and worked as Director of Operations for Coaxial Arts Foundation, an artist-run nonprofit in Los Angeles, in addition to consulting in the creation of a synth lending program for FemSynthLab. Felisha has run project spaces, overseen festival curation and events programming, and co-founded Fors, a company which creates software tools for musical composition and sound design. https://felishaledesma.com
Kelly Rauer, Board President Kelly Rauer is a multi-disciplinary artist who utilizes video, movement, sound, and electronic and acoustic instruments to create installations and performances. She was included in the 2016 Risk/Reward Festival, the PORTLAND2014 Biennial of Contemporary Art presented by Disjecta and has traveled and presented work in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Berlin, Germany. Kelly has been managing, curating, and directing art businesses, non-profits, collectives and other art related projects in the Portland area for over 15 years. In 2016, she joined the S1/Synth Library team as a key volunteer staff member and was elected the ED and Board President in 2019 when the two founders stepped down. Since then she has provided community support and mentorship and facilitated organizational re-development to transform S1 from an ED led model to a collectively managed organization. https://soundcloud.com/kelly-rauer
Matthew Rempes Matthew Rempes is a video instrument designer, synthesist and educator based in Portland, Oregon. His work is centered around creating novel analog computing instruments to explore obsolete analog video formats and experimental sound design. He helps administer Synth Library Portland's Lending program and organizes opportunities for local and visiting artists to lead synthesis-related workshops.
Helen Spencer-Wallace, Secretary Helen Spencer-Wallace is an artist, creative coder, electronic musician, vocalist, and somatic educator based in Portland, Oregon. She makes works of sonic and personal presence. She works in installation and performance, often both at once. She messes with inconsistent and multiple selves, explicit deception, and being a scary beautiful digital choir. Her solo work centers on extended vocal technique and nonlinear song manipulation, using presence sensors in concert with digital and traditional methods of composition. Her teaching practice focuses on creating new curriculums that increase access to music and digital arts technology, particularly in creative coding and analog modular synthesis. She is particularly interested in how emotional, energetic, and somatic rapport affect the accessibility of learning in fields that are systematically exclusive to people of certain classes and identifications. She also particularly enjoys teaching and developing curriculum for classes that contain students with diverse experience levels in the subject area. She teaches creative coding and analog modular synthesis at Portland Community College and through whateverSpace collective, Synth Library Portland, and has taught students from all over the world, of many walks of life, and from ages 8-60. https://www.helenspencer-wallace.com/
Reid StubblefieldReid Stubblefield is a Graphic Designer, DJ, and Event Organizer working in Portland, Oregon. He has been working in the creative industry for the past seven years and engaging with the underground electronic community for the past ten. These dual paths have informed each other and made interesting collaborations possible. He has been the lead Designer for S1/Synth Library, providing in-kind labor for brand development support, event art and promotional materials, flyers, brochures, and website design and management since 2016. During this time, he also served as a lead event manager, curator, and producer. https://reidstubblefield.com/