About Miss Brown (Long Form)

Tiffany Lee Brown (www.magdalen.com) is a writer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist based in Portland. Author of “A Compendium of Miniatures,” she co-edits PLAZM magazine and is the editor/director of the non-profit literary and multidisciplinary project 2GQ. She has performed for Wordstock, PICA, Performance Works NW, and the Enteractive Language Festival, among others. Her writing appears in publications including Utne, Bookforum, Tin House, Portland Monthly, Wired, and Bust, along with numerous books and anthologies. Most recently, her music and spoken word pieces appeared on the Ubuibi Records compilation “Women Take Back the Noise” and on the newest CD from Gargoyle, a literary journal. Willamette Week calls her "a publishing and performance powerhouse."

Integrating a wide range of artistic and literary media—including music, street interventions, relational/participatory work, independent media, ritual practice, video, fiction, poetry, curatorial practice, and online media—Brown explores themes of relationship, madness, fertility, life transitions, the American West, the confluence of humans and nature, and the meaning of "home." Improvisation, collaboration, and a focus on process characterize her work. Her favourite materials at the moment are seeds, moss, trash, food, and words.

Brown graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in Dramatic Art, where she received a certification in Mikhail Chekhov Technique. She has also studied at Harvard University and The Samuel Beckett Centre for Theatre Studies at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and receives her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in summer, 2008. She has been fortunate to work academically or in workshops with Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Tom Spanbauer, Joanna Rose, Devora Neumark, Jacqueline Hayes, Laiwan, Bonnie Schock, Lisa Volpe, and many other generous, talented people.

Miss Brown has been the recipient of the Mark Godson Award, the Creative Professional Grant from the City of Portland, and residencies to Caldera Arts, Soapstone Writing Retreat, and Hypatia. She sits on the selection committee for the Visual Chronicle of Portland, a collection of works on paper administered by RACC, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and is the Chair of the Board of Directors for 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts.

She directed the six-week series “Public Works” at the Someday Lounge earlier this year, and together with collaborator Clare Carpenter, created a 24-foot wall installation at the Construct/Re-Construct group show at Cathedral Park Place. This fall, she conceived and co-curated “The End of War,” a project encompassing work by writers, designers, and artists from Marvin Bell to Yoko Ono; the work manifested as a printed magazine showcase, a presentation at the Wordstock festival, and an art exhibition benefiting Veterans for Peace. Most recently, she collaborated with Joshua Berger on "Give and Give," a work comprised of salt and pepper on archival paper.

Brown is presently at work on “House Bound,” a kinesthetic salon, installation, and performance with the artists of Works Corps at Performance Works NW, and an installation called “American Battery,” which will be presented in the decaying concrete bunkers of a decommissioned military base. Her series of ephemeral actions and furtive street interventions, “I Will Follow You to the End of the Earth (and when we get there i won’t let you fall)” has been in progress for the last two years. Brown is also at work on “Easter,” a nine-month artistic gestation culminating in a performative action on Easter Island in the South Pacific. Additionally, she is finishing up a book of short stories, entitled Half of These Stories are True. She is excited to write a book whose title is grammatically incorrect.

Interests and skills: Miss Brown is interested in the fierce need to explore, share, and communicate with honesty and integrity. In addition to the above, her skills and interests include: journalism, zines, online communication, “quiet noise” music and sound, sense of place, the art/life movement, gender roles and feminist perspectives, fostering community, DIY culture, the social and aesthetic function of subcultures (punk, Goth, hippie, etc.), and working outside established institutions in environments such as Burning Man and the dUdU Collective.