Women to Watch Finalists – Arts Category
Katherine Clark
Owner, Katherine Clark Photography
Katherine Clark has been a professional photographer for nine years, but she’s been drawn to the shutter for far longer.
“(I) have been playing with cameras since I was about eight, when I realized taking photos meant I didn’t have to be in them,” she jokes.
Those early days might have been the inspiration behind one of her photo inspirations, a yearlong series she shot in 2014 called Project WIGU (or When I Grow Up). The portraits compared people between what they’d be doing as adults with who they actually became.
It was a similar personal reflection that convinced Clark to take up the camera full time.
“I felt like my job in a cubicle was stealing my soul, so I took a good hard look at what I did in my free time and decided to try it out as a professional,” she says. “I quit my job, went back to school, and earned a degree in photography, and haven’t looked back since.”
Clark, who is a freelance photographer for WILMA, has worked with two national corporations, been published in seven magazines, five newspapers, and two books.
“In addition to photography, I wrote and produced a short film – Princess and Grace – which was accepted into numerous festivals and won best short at Honolulu Film Awards,” she says.
Clark is a member of the Women’s Art Guild, a local group of professional women artists that launched this year. She also is working on an ongoing project called Fear as a Four Letter Word, a series about breast cancer with images of women who have survived cancer or are currently undergoing treatment.
What did you want to be when you grew up? “When I was little all I wanted to be was famous, which my mother always thought was strange because I hate being in front of cameras.”
Tanya Fermin
Owner, Fermintation Productions
Filmmaker Tanya Fermin’s inspiration for her first short film came from close to home.
The Arrangements, which Fermin released this year, centers on family and what happens when it’s time to say good-bye to a loved one.
The film is based on a conversation Fermin had with her mother and aunt as they were making her ailing grandmother’s final arrangements.
“My film is based on a true story wherein hospice was called in for the care of my grandmother,” Fermin says. “When the hospice nurse spoke of the need for education in black communities on what hospice does, it motivated me to write the film. This is a film that can be shown in churches, hospitals, hospices, adult care facilities, and so forth.”
In the film version, three sisters discuss arrangements for their mother, with differing opinions in a conversation Fermin describes as poignant but also humorous.
“This film is bringing awareness to the community about having the conversation of death and dying but in an entertaining way. Too many times people neglect to plan for the inevitable, and with this series of short films that I am writing/producing/directing, I bring the subject to light,” says Fermin, a member of the Wilmington Female Film Collective.
The Arrangements was picked up this year to air as part of Badami Productions’ African American Short Films, a syndicated TV show. It also was included in the fifteenth annual North Carolina Black Film Festival, held September 15-18 around Wilmington.
In the past year, Fermin also created a TV pilot for a supernatural drama called Haon, that is now in post-production.
Fermin’s goals include starting a nonprofit, making speaking appearances, and working on companion pieces to The Arrangements like workbooks and podcasts.
“My production company, Fermintation Productions,” she says, “is primed to move forward to inform people to make the best end-of-life planning.”
Who do you admire in film? “Without a doubt Shonda Rhimes. She is breaking barriers with what she is doing with diversity on TV.”
Amy Grant
Owner, Art in Bloom Gallery
Scientist-turned-business owner Amy Grant is forging new territory for herself in the art world.
“I recently transitioned from a thirty-year science career to a career in the arts and find that art and science have a lot in common,” says Grant, a former director in regulatory science and strategy who worked in the biopharmaceutical industry. “I am also discovering the difference between working for someone else and being my own boss.”
A year ago, she opened Art in Bloom Gallery, renovating a nineteenth-century horse stable in downtown Wilmington into an art gallery that features works from both local and international artists.
Besides constantly working to make the gallery successful financially, Grant says she also finds it important to give back to the community. She has goals to expand part of the gallery dedicated to working with nonprofit group.
Grant, who moved to Wilmington from the Philadelphia area in 2014, is a member of the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County and the Downtown Business Alliance. She also has served on nonprofit communities and volunteered at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard.
She also hopes to play a role in getting Wilmington better known as an arts destination.
"My mother was an artist, and my sister and others continue to inspire me with their art,” Grant says. “I am inspired to pay it forward and help others benefit from the positive impact of creating and/or appreciating art.”
What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome your first year in business? “My biggest obstacle is myself. I am learning how to pace myself and to improve my listening skills. Instead of reacting immediately, I am learning to be more thoughtful and to consider the long-term impact of my decisions and actions.”
Blaire Postman
Stand-Up Comedian; Comedy Podcast Host/Producer; Instructor; Account Executive, WECT
Working in sales for WECT by day, Blaire Postman often finds herself in the spotlight or on the microphone by night.
She started out as a media lawyer in Washington, D.C., and since then has spent years moonlighting to show off her creative and funny side. Before moving to Wilmington in 2010, she was a comedy talent manager, booking agent, and producer of a large comedy festival and other events.
“When my brain makes weird connections between things, or something absurd happens in daily life, I want to tell people about it. My friends and family are sick of hearing these stories, so I had to move onto rooms full of strangers,” Postman says.
She performs locally at Dead Crow Comedy and other venues and has featured, hosted and showcased at clubs around the Southeast including Goodnight’s Comedy Club in Raleigh, The Funny Bone in Richmond, Virginia, and Comedy Cabana in Myrtle Beach, to name a few.
This year, she was a featured performer at the Chicago Funny Women’s Fest, SheDot Festival in Toronto, NC Comedy Arts Festival, and Cape Fear Comedy Festival. She produced two shows in December featuring an all-female comics lineup that benefited Coastal Horizons Center’s Rape Crisis Center, and volunteers her services for other charities including substance abuse recovery and pet rescue related causes.
In 2015, she and her husband started a weekly podcast – My Fantasy Wife – in which they discuss sports, fantasy leagues, pop culture, and relationships, that soon after expanded to include two comedian friends. It is closing in on its hundredth episode. She and a partner are developing a network for small-to-medium podcasts, PodHive, that is scheduled to launch this year.
Who’s the funniest woman you know? “Yikes. I know countless funny women. Many are comedians, but many more are not. But my mother is probably the funniest-without-trying woman I know.”
Stephanie Weinzapfel
Former Production Manager, CFCC Wilson Center
When the Women to Watch judges selected Stephanie Weinzapfel as a finalist in the Arts category, she was working as a production manager for Cape Fear Community College’s Wilson Center.
Since then, she has moved to Tennessee where she now works as an event technical director at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.
While in the Port City, Weinzapfel was in the middle of helping open the college’s new performing arts center downtown a year ago.
“We had so many ‘firsts’ in our inaugural season and being a part of working through and solving those challenges taught me patience, creativity, and how to trust and develop the skills this industry has given me,” Weinzapfel says about her time at the Wilson Center.
“She climbs up into the rafters and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty fixing lighting and sound, making shows look beautiful,” LaRaisha Burnette, center services coordinator at the Wilson Center and the 2015 Women to Watch Awards winner in the Arts category, says about Weinzapfel’s work here. “She dispels the myth that women can’t work tech for theater.”
She says she hopes to remain in theater production.
“It has been my driving passion since I was a teenager and is truly where I feel most alive and at home,” Weinzapfel says. “The theater is incredible community of people doing the most collaborative of the arts and something I look forward to being a part of for the rest of my life.”
What do you miss most about Wilmington? “The unbelievably talented team at the Wilson Center. They welcomed and supported me so warmly and really made me feel like Wilmington and the Wilson Center were my second homes … And, of course, the beach.”
To view more of photographer Chris Brehmer's work, go to www.chrisbrehmerphotography.com
To view more of photographer Erik Maasch's work, visit ejmphotography.org
