Book Launch Saturday At Thunder BRidge

Resident Artist Co-authored Children’s Book

Lexington newcomer, painter, and resident artist at Thunder BRidge Christine Sajecki is celebrating the release of her first children’s book, “Rocks: What Are They Doing?” with co-author Michael Make, with a June 22 event at Thunder BRidge.

Baltimore micro-fiction author Joseph Young will also be joining to celebrate his new collection of stories, “The Thing I Was Trying To Tell You.”

Both books are being released by the independent press Publishing Genius, whose publisher, Adam Robinson, will be at the event as well. Baltimore writer Dylan Kinnet will also perform.

The book launch, along with open studios, will run from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Thunder BRidge in Arnolds Valley. Thunder BRidge is a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp on 100 acres in the Jefferson National Forest, now populated by 14 working artists in varying media.

The event will feature homemade snacks, outdoor rock-themed activities for kids, shadow puppet-making opportunities, as well as a chance to visit with the authors and their publisher, all before a 1 p.m. shadow puppet show, a reading, and a book signing in the meeting hall.

Many of the resident artists of Thunder BRidge will also have their studios open, including Susan Brady, Karen and James Pannabecker, Celeste Simon and Lauralee Sorenson Hart.

Sajecki’s studio will have the illustrations of rocks she made for the book on display, as well as process work from earlier versions of the book, and her encaustic paintings, in varying states of progress.

“As a visual artist who has often collaborated with poets and writers, rediscovering children’s books when my son was born brought me a whole lot of joy and inspiration. Kids books are a perfect meeting place of words and images, and made for the most appreciative audience in the world,” said Sajecki. “Kids live through books, they need them like food; it’s such a pleasure to watch a kid get into a book, and want the same one over and over as if it’s a friend or place they love to go.”

“Rocks; What Are They Doing” is a collaboration with Sajecki’s Seattle-based creative partner, sculptor and artist-at-large Michael Make.

Sajecki and Make met on Instagram just before the COVID-19 lockdowns, then spent much of the pandemic doing bicoastal collaborations before starting in-person studio projects once they could travel again. Young is also a longtime collaborator with Sajecki, and the two have worked together on many projects over decades, including multimedia art shows of their own work and as curators of other artists’ work.

Sajecki has been practicing encaustic painting for nearly 20 years, and she has been a guest lecturer, teacher, curator, board member and resident artist at several institutions and community centers nationally and internationally, including the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Md., the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, Ga., and FundAhrte in Panama City, Panama. Sajecki also recently joined the board of local arts and agricultural nonprofit MidMountain located in Arnolds Valley.