Kelli Simpkins & Vanissa James
Kelli Simpkins (she/they) is a theater, film and television artist whose career has spanned thirty years. They are dedicated to telling stories often excluded from the mainstream that focus on class, queerness, disenfranchisement and the other. They are a company member of Tectonic Theater Project, and are one of the original creators/dramaturges/performers of The Laramie Project. She appears in the HBO film of the same name, for which she and fellow company members share a Humanitas Prize and an Emmy nomination. Kelli co-wrote, directed and devised an original play at WMU called Good Death, which was performed at the Kennedy Center’s Region III American College Theatre Festival. Currently, they are fundraising to produce QUEER IN(N), a curated, queer, generative online arts gallery based on their verbatim interviews with LGBTQIA+ youth/elders in Chicago. They will commission multidisciplinary queer artists to create new works to bring these interviews to light. After working in New York and all over the US, Kelli relocated to Chicago, where they’ve performed at Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman, ATC, Timeline, Victory Gardens and About Face Theater, where they are also an artistic associate. She has simultaneously spent numerous years developing, collaborating on and performing award winning, socially engaged, interview based documentary projects in the style of Laramie—including The People’s Temple and Spill. Kelli’s TV and film credits include Slice, Proven Innocent, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD, Patriot, Betrayal, A League of Their Own, Chasing Amy and Law & Order: C.I. Kelli is a contributing writer to the book MOMENT WORK—Tectonic Theater Project’s Process of Devising Theater. She is also a teaching artist and educator who has led training labs throughout the country. They are a proud recipient of the 2013 3ARTS award. Kelli is represented by Gray Talent Group and NYC manager Jodi Schoenbrun Carter at 1022m Management.
Vanissa James was born in Harlem NYC and lived the first years of her life in the Bronx, before relocating to Los Angeles at the age of seven. She has been a talented artist from an early age, starting with a love of paint-by-number sets and pencil drawing and moving in her adult life to painting oil portraits. Today, Vanissa paints exclusively in watercolors, with a focus on floral art, which she also teaches. Vanissa began her work life with the USPS, where she moved through the ranks from mail clerk to Postmaster Secretary to Accounting Department supervisor. She went on to work in international finance with CitiCorp for years before switching gears to become a fundraising researcher for the United Negro College Fund. She has lived all over the U.S., the Caribbean and Canada. She has been retired for a decade but keeps supremely busy. She is teaching herself to play the flute, is learning Spanish, listens to smooth jazz and is starting a new ecommerce business. She has lived a huge life—working, traveling, going to theater, museums, and concerts (where she saw Prince, Nina Simone, Sting, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and more famous musicians perform live!). Vanissa has dreams of visiting London and Tuscany on her next big adventures. She is an adventurous spirit, an entrepreneur, a curious learner—someone who never stops living her life to the fullest. Her favorite flower is the tulip. Her dad was her biggest inspiration. Learn more about Vanissa at: vanissajamesfineart.com, courses.paintinginwatercolor.com, and comfylifestylestudio.com.
Video Editing: Adithi Chandrashekar
Saxophonist: Anthony Bruno
Process
Ode to Vanissa
I learned so much about and from Vanissa during our three sessions together and I kept racking my brain to think of a gift that might mean the most in this particular time, one that might center joy and hope. I thought of making a video with everything I learned from her because she said she realized what a big life she’d had by sharing stories, and I thought about the reciprocity of sharing, listening, giving and taking space. And how it could be a gift that was like a circle. She has had a huge life, filled with immense curiosity, creativity and adventure. And she has already given me so many gifts just with her presence and stories and by her example of how she has always built the life she desires and her inherent hope in continuing to dream in huge ways. Even in this lockdown, when she has rarely left her home, she has started an e-business, started teaching watercolor classes and she continues to paint, read, learn and stay curious and hopeful. And always there is music and smooth jazz, daily accompanying her life’s activities. So I began to think gifting her a private concert might be the best idea. She had lamented not being able to see the summer jazz concerts, so I thought I could bring one to her and that could give her as much joy and hope as she’d given me. It took some time but I finally found a sax (her favorite instrument) player. He knew all of her faves and said
“you already know Kirk Whalum, Kelli… he’s the sax soloist on Whitney Houston’s song ‘I will always love you’ so everyone knows him… even if they don’t know they do.” He said he’d do a nice compilation of her favorites and serenade her outside her home.
I did research on all of the jazz artists she loved and grew to like Whalum and the others quite a bit. I also began to think of Vanissa on my drives and daily walks and began to take photos and video for her of the outside world, which I’ve included in my creative processes. She hasn’t left her home except for groceries during the quarantine and I wanted to share some of the seasons changing and the flowers with her. She loves flowers, especially tulips and she now exclusively paints flowers, so when I found one on a walk, I would take a picture for her. Our connection has already worked its magic on me. I am very inspired by Vanissa and have learned much from her and I can’t wait for the day when I can join her at a jazz concert in person or take her to the theater or to a museum. The biggest thing I have been reminded of through her is to adventure, to dare, to always be curious, to continue learning and growing and to persevere no matter what! Huge gifts!