Sylvain Niles
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| I worked for the Gate department at burning man for 13 years, including cocreating the shift lead training program and being a shift lead for much of that time. I’ve been fire safety lead for all of Michael Garlington’s projects (Ego, Photo Chapel, Totem of Confessions, Chapel of Babel). I served as Safety Lead at Critical for two years and created the effigy both of those years. I created and ran Leather Sanctuary, Black Rock Cantina, Vault 21, and Neom Vice theme camps at burning man spanning a 17 year time. | |||
Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| I’ve spent the last 5 years building out Neon Vice, an 80’s arcade bus. Lots of pics at https://neonvice.style | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| I’m an advocate for diversity, inclusivity, and accountability. I’ve served on several non profits boards and would love to bring that experience to Ignition. | Volunteer burnout, diversity, and inclusivity. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| My career is about building sustainable organizations with a focus on diversity and inclusivity. I know how to create large organizational structures with checks and balances to accomplish long term goals. I believe we have a systemic problem with volunteer burnout that needs to be assessed and addressed for Ignition to survive. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| My career in sustainable organizations, service on several non profit boards, extensive experience running large organizations at burning man (my larger shifts were with 180 volunteers and two levels of management below me, and I organized all fire safety with a crew of over 140 for Totem of Confessions). | The structure of how we run events is likely a factor in why volunteers keep burning out. Being on the events committee would expose me to the process and allow me to contribute. Grants and Scholarships are deeply connected to diversity and inclusivity as stewards we need to make sure how we allocate funds is achieving those goals. Seattle has a unique burner culture, and Critical has an amazing but different feel from every other regional I’ve attended. I’d like to share my experience and perspectives and open a dialogue to understand why so many who live in our region and attend burning man choose not to attend critical. | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| I am in a place in my life where I have the time and energy to help Ignition and if the community will have me I look forward to serving. | |||
Your 2023 Board of Directors Candidates
Thanks so much to all of the community members stepping up to help keep Ignition Northwest burning!
Click the arrow to expand each section and read the candidate information. Once you’ve made your decision, the button above will take you to our web site to vote. you’ll need to log in using your Firestarter email and password.
Questions? Contact board@ignitionnw.org
You can now view the recording of the Town Hall with the candidates Here
Elections will close at midnight on Aug. 14th. Results will be announced at the board meeting on Aug. 16th.
Sylvain Niles
Alan ''Giles'' Hudson
Alan “Giles” Hudson
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| I’ve been a participant of Moonrock and Dirty Twister. I’ve been camp lead for Pot Luck. I’ve worked on many art projects, typically as a lead artist, project manager or grant writer. A partial list of those projects is Moonrock(Arborealis, Nozomi, Lake Lahontan Point, Ablation Cascade), Pot Luck(Hellascope, Simon Fire Edition, Moontower Defense, HotLantis, GetALife, Serpentine). I served on the ignition art council for a few years reviewing grant proposals. In the long past I ran raves/festivals with several thousand dirty hippies. |
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Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| Our 2015 Burning Man honorarium project Simon Fire Edition and Hellascope are the largest fire project’s we’ve completed. An important aspect for us was the financial support from Ignition NW and the ability to shake these projects down at Critical. Check out https://www.games-with-fire.com/ for our complete works. | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| Our group has made a concerted effort to teach others the skills we learn. Over the years we’ve done sound camps, big food, and interactive art focused theme camps. After we dial these in we typically spread that knowledge to others informally through something like apprenticeships and sometimes with more formal classes at our shop. | I’d like to see Ignition thrive and support our great community. I feel that COVID really knocked a whole in our lives and I’d like to help us recover from it. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| In my professional life I’ve lead a tech industry non profit as president and chairman of the board(Web3D Consortium), including experience around advocating for and directing a new executive director. I have significant experience in many technical areas. I’ve written many grants for art projects(Ignition and Burning man) and two funded projects NIST and NIH. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| I feel that my experiences are directly applicable to Ignition’s mission and I’d like to step up my participation level above the theme camp / artist level. In general I’m good at working with many different personalities and bringing them together to solve problems. | I’ve direct experience in all of them, will need to understand them a bit better to pick the right ones for me. Given I tech all day likely I’d prefer the more art/event stuff, but if the need is there I’ll help out. | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| NA | |||
Jess ''Megaphone'' Pearson
Jess “Megaphone” Pearson
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| I have been a part of leadership for my Critical theme camp Undisclosed Location for about 5 years, and last year led the camp through a transition from Uncle Louie’s to Undisclosed Location. It has always been a wonderful camp, but we’ve really seen it shine in recent years, and took it to SOAK this year for the first time and had a very successful event. I also joined production last year for Seacompression and then Reignition as Comms Co-Lead, which I am doing again this year. I find production work gives people a good foundation for understanding the hard work that it takes to put on these events, and I am grateful for the teams that I work with that make these events successful.
And as I said, I worked on my own personal grant funded art project for Critical Northwest this year, Radiant Realm. It was a big learning experience that gave me a lot of understanding about the process and the ways in which I think it can be improved. I also won a scholarship in 2019 from Ignition Northwest to attend metalworking classes at Pratt, something that I intend on getting back into now that things have opened up more. INW provides really important opportunities to the community for public art, and I want to help facilitate more resources getting into the community. |
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Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| For the first time since I started going to Burner events 6 years ago, I was given a grant and had placed art at Critical Northwest this year. I created 4 laser cut lamps that stood at the doorway to the theme camp I lead, Undisclosed Location, called Radiant Realm. I had previously been making jewelry and small projects on the laser cutter, but this is my first larger project. With inspiration and help from my peers in the arts community and online, I created these entirely on my own. A public photo can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158910159880764&set=a.10150294988790764 | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| I like to think that Burner culture is changing in a lot of ways. While radical inclusion has long been a part of our community, it feels even more important now with everything going on in the world. There was a bit of an “in group” vibe for a long time, and I think a lot of people had a hard time figuring out where they belonged. Snark for sure has its place, but I think sometimes it can go a bit far and alienate some. And I think that is changing, and I can definitely feel a difference in the PNW community. I believe that with this mindset, the projects and camps that I have been involved with benefit from this idea that everyone has their place, and that we accept everyone and find a place for them in this community. That we are a family that supports one another. | I know that the relationship between INW and the PNW Burner community can be strained at times. I want to be a part of things so that I can help facilitate a better relationship with our community. I also want to help with getting more resources into the hands of the artists out there. As a budding artist myself, I know there are people out there who don’t know where to start and I want to help those who might not feel like they are supported find the support they need to create. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| I believe that my experience leading a camp, being on production, and creating art for events gives me a good perspective as a leader in our community to the goals and challenges that INW faces today. I think that it is important that everyone works together, and so having people who have been on different sides of our events are uniquely suited to be a representative for the broader community. My communications experience and inclusive leadership skills will help me be an approachable and organized member of the board with a deep understanding of event production and the effort required to make our organization successful, working directly with other leaders and makers to create positive working relationships and grow this family that we have all built over the years. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| In my experience in my current production role and as a theme camp lead, I have built a lot of relationships with production, theme camps, artists, local performers, rangers and DPW and I believe I am the right person for this job due to those strong relationships and how much I love and care about this community and want to see it thrive and grow. I feel very passionately about community building and this is just the logical next step for me in doing so. | I’m interested in all facets of what INW does, and I think could honestly be helpful on any of those committees. I definitely have background in events, have myself received grants and scholarships, have participated in a lot of camp fundraising, and also believe that my camp is a great gateway for new burners. So all of those are a part of my passion. | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| I’m just really excited for the opportunity to do more for this group that has meant so much to me over the years. In attending INW events I have truly grown as a human and as an artist and I am forever grateful and absolutely want to give back. | |||
Lev Sapogov
Lev Sapogov
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| I work as a project manager for a nonprofit that helps immigrants. We have been organizing all kind of different events of different sizes with around 300 people maximum. I also lead the “Temple of Kindness” project that will be presented on many different festivals oriented towards self-care and community building. I have experience with organizing people and uniting them as a team. | |||
Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| I have a yurt – “The Temple of Kindness” that I and my girlfriend bring to the festivals to give people a grounding space where they can slow down, meditate or do breathwork practices. Sometimes we offer breathwork or sound bath experience, but for a limited amount of people, because that space is not too big. | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| I think that people would benefit from the worldview that we share which is oriented towards understanding your own emotions and how to deal with them by using different practices, rather than ignoring the inner world, which leads to losing connection to yourself and others. | As I said I think the community needs more compassion and kindness to elevate the relationship that unites us all and becomes the one and only reason for everything that we do in this life. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| I will bring attention towards creating healthy relationships between people. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| My desire to do good for people and my skill of creating relationships | That is where I think I can share my ideas the best way | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| I think this community is a living organism and to have something new come up we need to let go to the things that we became familiar with. If my ideas sounds like something that is worth considering and sharing, I’m happy to become a part of the team. | |||
Creating new relationships and bringing kindness and empathy to all aspects of people lives
Scott ''Feynman'' Blomquist
Scott “Feynman” Blomquist
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| Troubleshooter for Electric Sheep (Burning Man theme camp) (2019-); Radios Co-Lead for Critical (2023-); PNW Ranger (2019-); Black Rock Ranger (2022-); Emergency Communications volunteer for City of Bellevue (2022-); President of a 60-unit condo association (retired); Technology consultant (occasional volunteer CIO) for non-profits |
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Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| A recent, topical example was tuning up the Radios Department for Critical. We were coming off of a year where a handful of problems with radios resulted in some volunteer and community trauma.
I employed my background in radios to determine what we needed to change to make the radios work better than ever. Working together with my co-lead and partnering closely with the department’s many customers (DPW, Rangers, Gate, Medical, and the rest), I drove consensus around the Radios Department’s plan for the event, field tested & refined the plan at the production retreat & the stewardship weekend, and deployed & supported it. Major improvements included: 1) diagnosing and repairing a broken part on the repeater, 2) adjusting the repeater’s configuration to match the constraints of its hardware, 3) programming the event radio fleet to match the repeater and the new channel plan, 4) supporting the many users of personally-owned Radical Self-Reliance Radios to ensure that their radios were reprogrammed to match the new channel plan, and 5) procuring and deploying a fixed-mount antenna to improve Gate’s connection to Parking, Ambassadors, and Spacement. The repeater was online and reliable from the first day of build to the last day of LNT, including enabling urgent communications from one side of the site to the other. Despite an initially skeptical reaction to some of our changes from parts of the community, radios reportedly worked “better than ever” (surely an exaggeration) in the eyes of many of the Critical production team. |
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How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| As an entrepreneur, I’m a spot-a-problem-and-solve-it kind of person. Think not just “Leave No Trace”, but “Leave A Positive Trace”. I apply this at every level ranging from “this shade structure needs reinforcement here” to “the community would be stronger if its leadership modeled placing a higher value on…” | 1) Radio strategy should live within the Ignition Board’s Tech Committee, and I’m here to sponsor the initial implementation of that. Continuity has been particularly difficult for the Radios Departments for our various events when we sometimes have deeply technical (and radio savvy) volunteers as Leads and sometimes we don’t. We should have a deeply technical (and radio savvy) foundation for radio knowledge built at the Board level so that we can make events go with moderately technical (plus motivated and energized) leadership volunteers who have the benefit of access to shared central knowledge and support.
2) Continuity from event cycle to event cycle and knowledge transfer from production team to production team can be improved. The transition from 3-ring binders to searchable online folders has helped with this. An additional tool that I’m excited to help with is nudging planning conversations toward an online, shared venue. The radios team prior to mine created a Discord server for production use. The radios team this year advocated for its adoption and modeled using it to document our work. By building on the excellent work of our predecessors and applying our own effort, we reached critical mass for searchable archives of planning conversations this year. It was great to see departments knowing exactly where to go to discover answers and collaborate with their organizational neighbors. I’d like to continue to shepherd this, and related, efforts forward. |
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What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| I have consulted for many small businesses and several non-profits on technology strategy and training to maximize, on a tight budget, the effectiveness of their employees, volunteers, and collaborators. I’d love to help out on the Tech Committee and ensure that Ignition NW and its events have the best tech tools and the right tech training available for the board, the community, and our collaborators. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| I have a broad and deep background in using a diverse set of technologies to solve problems for organizations a lot like ours. I believe in using the right tools for the job, but I also believe that change is hard and must be implemented in an intentional way. | Technology (especially for non-profits and small businesses) is my home. Acculturation is a good fit because I believe deeply in the 10 Principles (plus Principle Zero), and believe that, in addition to serving as the foundation for life-changing events for our community, they have the ability to change the world for the better. | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| Fun fact: Larry Harvey originally wrote the Nine Principles of Burning Man in 2004. After he got sick of his co-founders teasing him “Nine Principles? Who has just nine?”, he added the Tenth Principle: Immediacy, which many now consider one of the most crucial components of the Burning Man experience. (Source: Burning Man Then and Now, an incredibly cool history of Burning Man, under Courses on hive.burningman.org) | |||
Heather ''Madame Heather'' Candelaria
Heather “Madame Heather” Candelaria
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| Hahahah… How about I just list the top 5:
1) Founding board member of Ignition Northwest |
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Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| I’m most proud of Ignition Northwest, the Radical Accountability Council work, and bringing the art of Chanoyu to Critical Northwest. | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| Different from what exactly? I don’t think I make it particularly ‘different’ in any way… but I think something that I bring to our community is a dedication to building inclusivity to support our ‘Ember’ (i.e. elder) community members and championing intoxicant free spaces at our events. | I want to help continue with the mission that the community entrusted the RAC to address in 2017, in an updated, improved and more sustainable manner. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| I think my largest contributions could be a big-picture/long-term perspective; a desire to be involved with/do work on-site at events; and a firm understanding of some of the problems and challenges we have historically struggles with in our community. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| I don’t know if I am what the INW board needs right now – but if I am, I’m definitely stepping up to volunteer for this work. | My biggest pick is acculturation. Inclusivity has really been getting so much better in recent years and I love it! support it! want more of it!
Events is also a required pick for me. I’m not a social person, and struggle with the chaotic dynamics of large groups BUT at the end of the day it is the large events that define our community. It is what makes us an interdependent family. I became a burner more than 20 years ago and I’m still here for a reason – this would not be true if we did not have our events. |
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In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| If elected this will be my 3rd (and all non-contiguous) term on the INW board. If nothing else I believe that shows that I’ve learned how to pace myself – and avoid burning-out. | |||
Tracey ''Marley'' Guice
Tracey “Marley” Guice
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Please provide info on any theme camps, art projects, production roles, volunteering, etc in your past. |
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| I was a part of former theme camp Balefire. I have been a part of the Costume Closet at Critical and in pop up events. I am also affiliated with the Front Porch. This year I will be camping with Do More Now at Black Rock, but just joined.
I am a long time member of the Events Committee and have been on the Grants Committee for several years. I am a former board member for Ignition Northwest. I am a production lead for Critical Northwest. |
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Tell us about any projects you’re particularly proud of and a bit about the experience completing them. If you have a picture of you’d like to share, we’d love to see it if you include a link. |
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| I’m a COO for another non-profit. It has ~50,000 members. I created a program that helps our younger members have better access to our organization’s resources and technology. The program includes its own management structure, technology and operations. It was tested in the Pacific Northwest and is now being used in 50% of the US for our organization. | |||
How do you think the burner community is different because of your involvement? |
Are you running to tackle particular issues? Tell us about them! |
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| I have a non-typical voice for a burner from multiple perspectives, and I use my voice. However, I also use all of my skills to try to improve the community in the various volunteer roles I’ve taken. | I am very interested in increasing diversity and access, better responsiveness to our production teams and expanding awareness of our grants and arts support. | ||
What would you bring to the board? How could you leverage your skills and knowledge to help INW? |
Which committees interest you? (All board members are required to serve on at least one committee. ) |
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| I have over 20 years of Executive Board experience. I am a former member of INW. I have been an operational manager in the real world, and I have been a director of risk at one of the largest companies in the world. I also produce events for two other organizations. |
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What makes you the right person for the job? |
Please elaborate on why you picked those committees. |
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| I know the job, and I understand the needs that INW has currently. I am also the only new board member to finish a complete term in recent years. | I am already a member. | ||
In conclusion- please share any final thoughts or further info you’d like the community to have. |
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| I think this will be a good time for me to come back to the board for a second term. The addition of production experience has only added to my qualifications since the last time I served. | |||
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