Duncan Clark Menzies, an interdisciplinary conceptual artist born in Snohomish, Washington and raised in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, currently resides there. His work explores the intersections of spiritual, Celtic, communal, and queer identities through shared stories and spaces. Menzies’ primary project, The Bed Sheet Chronicles, collects personal stories through community interviews in which he asks participants “What do you Cover?” The interviewee then provides him with a bedsheet. Using bedsheets, storytelling, performance, woodworking, projection, and lighting, the project delves into themes such as shame, upbringing, religion, politics, cultural heritage, and identity.
Menzies’ background in Vocal Performance from the University of Idaho spurred his curiosity about the intersection of art exhibition and staged performance. As a result, he founded Drawn Together Arts, which produces periodic performance productions in art gallery venues. These productions alchemize life experience, story, and shared humanity through devised cabaret and staged readings.
Menzies has been awarded multiple grants for community artist salons, artist collaborations, performance programming, and The Bedsheet Chronicles from organizations such as Idaho Humanities Council, Avista Corporation, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and Coca Cola. Additionally, he completed a 10-month artist residency with Lesser Known Player and a six-week residency with Borderland Art Initiative in El Paso, Texas.
Menzies has also received scholarships in performance studies for interplay movement storytelling and a funded lecture recital on the artist intersectionality of the Fin-De-Siecle in France through the art songs of Charles Debussy. This study inspired his pocket book on unblocking the artist, which is available on Amazon.
Duncan Clark Menzies 