Tuesday, May 31, 2016
About Love (Micropoems)
About Love
1
Kisses in the park
breath and heartbeat rushing—
you, crazy in love.
2
Long into the night
you whispered endless lies,
filling empty coffers.
3
When June comes, let's
moon the stars before it's nine.
Sweet are morning's hours.
4
I sat out summer,
paring the fruit of our tree.
Once, kisses sheltered.
5
You spill your riches
in darkness, your cold touch
what feeds my silence.
2016 © Maureen E. Doallas
Monday, May 30, 2016
Monday Muse: BOA Editions's 40th Year
It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
Indie publisher BOA Editions Ltd. is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. In April, at AWP 2016, in Los Angeles, California, BOA premiered a short promotional film about poetry and its meaning to those who write it and read it. The short, made by Steve Fisher of Fisher Media, also includes a group of BOA's authors, who talk about their relationship with the publisher.
As part of its anniversary events, the press published a limited-edition chapbook, The Word from His Song*, by Li-Young Lee.
BOA publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations.
AWP Conference & Bookfair (Next year, February 8-11, 2017, AWP brings its conference to Washington, D.C.)
* Sold exclusively through BOA's Bookstore until edition is exhausted.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Thought for the Day
. . . I think poetry is the mind of God. . ..
~ Poet Li-Young Lee
________________________
Quoted from "A Conversation with Li-Young Lee", LA Review of Books, April 16, 2016 (The interviewer is Ashley Nicole Beene.)
Li-Young Lee's The Word from His Song (BOA Editions, 2016), a limited-edition chapbook with eight of Lee's poems and bound with a letterpress cover, is the 11th installment in the BOA Pamphlet Series. Its publication marked the press's 40th anniversary.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Saturday Short
Today's short is about Kirsty Mitchell's The Wonderland Book (Genesis). A friend sent me the link to the video, which already has been shared by more than 1.5 million viewers. Mitchell, who deservedly describes herself as "an artist with a camera" rather than a photographer, has published three editions of Wonderland: a standard edition (3,700 copies, sold out); a limited edition, signed and numbered (250 copies); and a collector's edition (25 copies). Each of the editions is described at the link above. The book is lavish and astonishing. Its designer is Stuart Smith.
Mitchell has been deluged with requests for a second edition.
Mitchell spent more than six years making the book, which is a gorgeous homage to her mother.
Kirsty Mitchell on FaceBook
Friday, May 27, 2016
All Art Friday
All Art Friday
All Art Friday Spotlights
✦ A new series of open-access-collection catalogues is available online from Getty Publications. Downloadable as e-books, PDFs, and image-and-data sets, and also in print, the first two catalogues are Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily and Roman Mosaics. Easy to navigate, the color-illustrated digital catalogues feature interactive maps, zoomable images, a permanent url, and plain-text format, and are issued under a Creative Commons license. For additional information, read Getty blog's post, "Embracing the Digital Future of Art Books".
✦ Artist and printmaker Rebecca Jewell has perfected a technique for printing on feathers. Read Jewell's interesting feature, "Printing on Feathers" at Woven Tale Press. Jewell was Leverhulme Artist In Residence at the British Museum in 2005-2006, and currently is Artist in Residence at both the British Museum and London Metropolitan University. Most recently, she exhibited at Rebecca Hossack Gallery. Lots to explore on Jewell's Website!
✦ Artist and printmaker Rebecca Jewell has perfected a technique for printing on feathers. Read Jewell's interesting feature, "Printing on Feathers" at Woven Tale Press. Jewell was Leverhulme Artist In Residence at the British Museum in 2005-2006, and currently is Artist in Residence at both the British Museum and London Metropolitan University. Most recently, she exhibited at Rebecca Hossack Gallery. Lots to explore on Jewell's Website!
✦ The "literary jewels" of Jeremy May are eye-catching, fun-to-wear pieces made of hundreds of sheets of paper removed from vintage books. May uses a unique laminating process to craft his high-gloss, one-of-a-kind rings, bracelets, necklaces and pendants, earrings, and bespoke work. May exhibits his sculptural paper jewelry throughout the United States.
The online magazine My Modern Met featured an array of May's beautiful work in late March; read the generously illustrated article at the publication link. He appeared the same month in This Is Colossal.
✦ Paper weaver Gunjan Aylawadi, raised in India and currently living in Australia, is self-taught. Her boldly colored geometric "tapestries" reflect her computer science engineering and industrial design background. View a selection of images in her portfolio.
✦ In "Beer with a Painter", Jennifer Samet interviews painter June Leaf at Hyperallergic. Now in her mid-80s, Leaf, whose husband is filmmaker and photographer Robert Frank, currently has a show at the Whitney Museum, "June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite", continuing through July 17. View all the images at the exhibition link.
✦ A quick, good read: Alison Stine's post on inequality at Bill Moyers: "Why Art Matters, Even in Poverty".
✦ Below is a 1958 documentary about Dutch glassblowing. (My thanks to American Craft Council for the link.)
Exhibitions Here and There
✭ Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its TMA Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, offers a rare opportunity to view more than 80 pieces of modern studio glass in "Hot Spot: Contemporary Glass from Private Collections". Continuing through September 18, the exhibition includes European, Australian, Asian, and North American studio glass that has been arranged in seven thematic groups: the human figure, animals and plants, landscapes, vessel forms, the spirit world, abstract forms, and outer space. Among the featured artists are Joyce Scott, Nicholas Africano, Tom Moore, Kimiake Higuchi, Preston Singletary, Debora Moore, and Tobias Mohl. They all produce exquisite work.
✭ California's San Francisco Museum of Craft & Design continues through August 7 "Constructured Communication: Nakayama, Sinbondit, Venom | New Voices in Sign Painting, Ceramics and Quilting". The show demonstrates how Kenji Nakayama, Amy Sinbondit, and Ben Venom use traditional craft techniques to communicate in nontraditional ways: through symbols, lettering, and gestures.
✭ In Memphis, Tennessee, the Metal Museum in presenting a group show, "Inches From the Earth", for which 17 master metal artists display plant and insect life in a range of art forms, including jewelry and sculpture. The artists are Leah Aripotch, Heather Bayless, Elizabeth Brim, Peggy Eng, Emily Eversgerd, Elizabeth Goluch, Margaret Goodman, Sherri Jaudes, Micki Lippe, Agnes Ma, Tara Magboo, Wendy McAllister, Andrew Meers, Cozette Phillips, Stephanie Polk, Hosanna Rubio, and Lin Stanionis. The show concludes July 10.
Here's video featuring Elizabeth Goluch's "Lady Bug":
✭ Continuing through July 24 at Wisconsin's Racine Art Museum is "Joan Backes: Falling Leaves and Painted Branches". The Milwaukee-based Backes designed the poetic, meditative show for the museum's Windows on Fifth Gallery, where she has arranged found natural materials, primarily leaves and branches gathered from the grounds of RAM's Wustum Museum of Fine Arts and then painted, in a series of vignettes that address the artist's interests in place and especially nature. A series of installation photos are available at the exhibition link.
View the Gallery Guide (pdf).
RAM on FaceBook
✭ On view through September 18 at Peabody Essex Museum's Art & Nature Center, Salem, Massachusetts, is "Sizing It Up: Scale in Nature and Art". The exhibition comprises miniatures, sculptures, photography, and installations on loan from regional, national, and international contemporary artists, as well as work in PEM's own collection. Among the more than 20 artists whose work is featured are Christopher Boffoli, Sally Curcio, Jan Dunning, Vik Muniz, and Angela Palmer. The museum has included a number of interactive experiences that permit viewers to experiment with visual scale and understand how scale influences human perception. Several images are available at the exhibition link.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Thursday's Three on Art
Thursday's Three today presents a link to an update about installation artist Brenda Mallory and links to interviews with Kerry James Marshall and Mark Bradford.
✭ Oregon Public Broadcasting recently released an updated video about Portland-based installation artist Brenda Mallory, whose work has taken a turn since I showed OPB's first video about her work and exhibitions. (At the link, scroll down toward the end of the post to find the 2011 video.) As the video shows, Mallory is making inventive use of cast-off materials. I particularly like her honey-comb cardboard pieces.
✭ In his interview with Interview magazine, Kerry James Marshall, whose exhibition "Mastry" at the Chicago Museum of Art continues through September 25, talks frankly about his paintings, being a black artist, the "condition of visibility", and museum representation.
✭ The 2016 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize, Mark Bradford talks with Faith McClure at ArtsATL. In the interview, the Los Angeles-based Bradford describes his motivation as "mak[ing] work genuinely out of what you are really interested in." He also speaks to the issue of identity as a black artist. Bradford will represent the United States at the 57th International Venice Biennial.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Wednesday Artist: Alastair Cook & Filmpoem
. . . Listening to a poem is not like reading a poem; there's a sense
of enlivening as a poem is launched into the air. . . .
~ Alastair Cook
Based in Scotland, the award-winning filmmaker, videographer and fine art photographer Alastair Cook founded in 2010 Filmpoem, a rich source of imaginative shorts that combine images and text, usually with music. Some remarkable productions come from Filmpoem's educational and community projects, as well as its creative collaborations with poets, filmmakers, and composers.
One of Cook's most recent works, expected to be onscreen worldwide this autumn, is Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), which took three years to make. Featuring a sound track by composer Luca Nasciuti and read by poet Rachel McCrum, Amerika includes found film from the Internet Archive, snippets of which were sent to 20 poets who were invited to create exphrastic lines that subsequently were assembled as a unique poem. The collaborators are poets Polly Rowena Atkin, Jo Bell, Dave Bonta, Ian Duhig, Emily Dodd, Vicky Feaver, Linda France, John Glenday, Vona Groarke, Brian Johnstone, Pippa Little, Rachel McCrum, Jane McKie, Robert Peake, Andrew Philip, Angela Readman, Stevie Ronnie, Gerald Rudolf, George Szirtes, and Michael Vandebril.
One of Cook's commissioned projects is the excellent eight-film series for Absent Voices, an artist-led project to tell the story of the sugar industry in the Scottish town of Greenock. (View images from the Absent Voices portfolio.) Another is a series, commissioned by The Poetry Society, using the winning poems of the 2014 National Poetry Competition. Read the poems or watch the related filmpoems.
My thanks to Dave Bonta for introducing me some time ago to the creative work of Alastair Cook.
___________________
View other Alastair Cook films. Commissioned work can be found on Cook's Website under the drop down menu for Commissions.
Read Cook's views on creating and experiencing poetry on film and view "Filmpoem: A Talk and Screening" by Cook.
Cook also is the founder of Documenting Britain.
Written in My Hand, Alastair Cook Blog
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
'Neruda' the Film
Director Pablo Larrain's Neruda, about Chilean poet and 1971 Nobel winner Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), stars Gael Garcia Bernal and, in the title role, Luis Gnecco. Based on true events, the film covers a two-year period, 1946-1948, when Neruda, a member of the Communist Party and an elected senator, protested repressive government policy on striking miners and had to go into hiding to escape arrest and threats to his life.
The film, with English subtitles, was shown at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Here's the first trailer for the movie:
Jay Weissberg, "Cannes Film Review: 'Neruda'", Variety, May 13, 2016
Natalie Roterman, "'Neruda' Film Trailer: Watch Gael Garcia Bernal 'Hunt Down' Famous Chilean Poet", Latin Times, May 11, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
Monday Muse: 'Falling Lessons' (Motionpoem)
One of the consistently excellent sources of videopoems is Motionpoems, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit, co-founded by poet and visual artist Todd Boss. Motionpoems works with publishers and literary organizations to produce new poetry films annually. For Season 6, Motionpoems partnered with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts to create an all-female-poets lineup.
Released for Season 6, Falling Lessons: Erasure One is inspired by a poem by Beth Copeland; it is one of a series of three poems that Copeland "erased" to relate the gradual loss of her father to Alzheimer's. The filmmaker is Anh Vu. The sensitive and moving short film was featured last month on PBS NewsHour. (At the PBS link is a recording of Copeland reading her poem.)
Copeland is the author of Transcendental Telemarketer (BlazeVox, 2012) and Traveling Through Glass (Bright Hill Press, 2000).
Read Claire Hellar's informative interview with the poet.
Text of Poem
Beth Copeland on FaceBook
Motionpoems on FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vimeo
VIDA on FaceBook and Twitter
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Thought for the Day
. . . Alone, we live in our bodies as a question
rather than a statement.
~ David Whyte
____________________________________
Quoted from David Whyte's "Alone" in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (Many Rivers Press, 2015) (This is a splendid book.)
David Whyte, Poet, Author, Philosopher, Lecturer
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Saturday Short
Today's short is a teaser for an in-production documentary, OBIT (Green Fuse Films), and The New York Times writer-reporters who prepare obits. The film received its world premiere this year at the Tribeca Film Festival.
I look forward to seeing the completed feature-length film by Vanessa Gould. Like many, whether or not they admit to it, I'm fascinated by obit-writing, by what gets in and what's kept out of a public announcement of a person's death. The writing is not so easy as one might think.
OBIT on FaceBook
Friday, May 20, 2016
All Art Friday
All Art Friday
All Art Friday Spotlights
✦ The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize exhibition is scheduled from June 10 to July 31 at the South Australian Museum. Following that, the exhibition will appear at the National Archives of Australia.
✦ If you like kinetic sculptures, look to Anthony Howe of Orcas Island, Washington. He's made an art of using wind power to propel his sculptures, which he first designs on his computer. In The Creator Project video below, Howe speaks about his work and how he creates it.
See videos of Howe's sculptures on YouTube.
✦ The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation has published Frank Stella Prints: A Catalogue Raisonne. Written by Rick Axsom, the 432-page book is available from Artbook/DAP. It was released in conjunction with the exhibition "Frank Stella Prints: A Retrospective" at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, concluding May 22. See the Artbook page for ordering and for additional information about the book's contents.
Cover Art
✦ Mosaic artists will enjoy this 1886 catalogue from Belcher Mosaic Glass Co. of New York. (My thanks to Public Domain Review.)
✦ Visit the Art Genome Project, which maps artworks, architecture, and design objects across history.
✦ Below is the trailer for Packed in the Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Wilkinson, by Jane Anderson.
Read Francesca Lewis's article about the film, "'Packed in the Trunk'—Part Detective Story, Part History Lesson, Part Love Letter to a Kindred Spirit".
✭ Washington, D.C.'s Sackler Gallery continues through July 24 "Painting with Words: Gentleman Artists of the Ming Dynasty". The exhibition brings together works from the Wu School, a group admired for its interpretations of the "Three Perfections", poetry, painting, and calligraphy, which were deemed during the Ming dynasty (1369-1644), to be the "ultimate expressions of Chinese literati culture". View exhibition images (pdf).
Introduce yourself to the exhibition online by browsing these sections: Painting with Words: A Cultural Center, Wen Zhengming: Leader of the Wu School, At Court and Beyond, The Gentleman in Retirement, In Full Flower, and The Followers.
✭ Five photographs by British artist Tom Hunter are on view in "Tom Hunter: Life and Death in Hackney" at the National Gallery of Art. Hackney is an increasingly gentrifying borough of London, and home to Hunter. From Hunter's series Life and Death in Hackney, the NGA installation comprises images from iconic Victorian paintings that Hunter has reworked in contemporary settings.
View images of 10 photographs from the series posted on Hunter's Website.
✭ The Smithsonian American Art Museum is presenting through July 31 "No Mountains in the Way: Photographs from the Kansas Documentary Survey, 1974", which was part of a series of photo survey projects undertaken in the 1970s by the National Endowment for the Arts and reminiscent of the Great Depression photographs of 1935-1944. For the Kansas survey, artists Jim Enyeart, Terry Evans, and Larry Schwarm traveled throughout the state, each with an assigned theme: buildings (Enyeart), people (Evans), and landscapes (Schwarm). Drawing on the results of this important documentation initiative, the exhibition features 63 vintage prints from the survey of 120 photographs, all of which are in the SAAM's permanent collection.
Eye Level, SAAM Blog
✭ Earlier this week, the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened "Priya Pereira: Contemporary Artist Books from India". The show presents 10 of Pereira's artist books, through which she explores Indian culture, time, creative structures of language, use of type, and hand-drawn imagery. Originally trained as a graphic designer, Pereira has published work under the imprint Pixie Bks for the last 22 years. The exhibition is on view through November 18.
Priya Pereira at Artist's Books (Images of and descriptive information about six of Pereira's artist books can be found here.)
Read a feature article about Pereira at The Hindu (2013).
Priya Pereira at Artist's Books (Images of and descriptive information about six of Pereira's artist books can be found here.)
Read a feature article about Pereira at The Hindu (2013).
✭ Portraits of showman P.T. Barnum, inventor Samuel Morse, musician Teresa Carreno, and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher are among 20 photographs by Mathew Brady, the famous 19th Century American photographer, currently on view in "Lincoln's Contemporaries" at the National Portrait Gallery.
See the NPG's Website Mathew Brady's Portraits.
Face to Face, NPG Blog
Thursday, May 19, 2016
New Artist Watch Feature at Escape Into Life
Amy Pleasant, Sisters Likely, 2016
From the Series A Woman's Work
Acrylic on Canvas, 24" x 30"
Copyright © Amy Pleasant
Used With Permission
PLEASE DO NOT COPY IMAGE
I am delighted today to feature Seattle-based painter Amy Pleasant in my new Artist Watch column at Escape Into Life.
An award-winning, nationally exhibited artist who also has had a solo show in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Amy is known primarily as a figurative and abstract painter. Drawing deeply on her belief that art is a fundamental form of personal expression that can aid in fostering individual and collective change, Amy explores in her work autobiographical experiences, family relationships, generational transitions, time's passage, and memory and remembrance.
In addition to painting, Amy also writes prose and poetry. (Read "Artist Takes Long Journey to Healing", her debut post at The Huffington Post.) Following is an ekphrastic poem Amy wrote for the artwork that appears above:
Sisters Likely
One person on the planet, a mirror of experience, yet opposites,
a lifetime of push, pull,
push away.
A vacillating pendulum moved not by gravity,
but by a tab kept of parental slights and petty jealousies.
then. . .
an expansion of the world; a bigger, exciting, lonelier space,
sisters; confidants, defenders, a soft place among strangers.
then. . .
a shrinking of the world; witnessing parents taking their leave,
eventually we all become orphans,
last ones standing;
sisters
Showcased at Artist Watch are eight images from three of Amy's series: A Woman's Work, Shift: Journey to Abstraction, and Time and Memory. Also included are Amy's Artist Statement and a brief biography, as well as links to Amy's Website and social media sites and to her upcoming exhibition "TERRIBLE BEAUTY: under the canopy" at Gallery 110 in Seattle.
Note: My two-part interview with Amy will appear here at Writing Without Paper on June 1 and June 2.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Wednesday Artist: Derek Jarman & 'Blue'
Recently I had occasion to watch the dramatic Blue (1993), the last of a dozen films made by Derek Jarman (1942-1994), an English director who died of AIDS. In English, with English subtitles, the 75-minute film, set in its entirety as words against a blue frame, was inspired by the famous Yves Klein painting, IKB 79 (1959), which Jarman saw at Tate Gallery in London. Jarman began making the film as he was losing his eyesight, as various subtitles reference, and his medication had the effect of rendering in blue what he was still able to see.
The subtitles are voiced by Tilda Swinton and other actors, and sometimes by Jarman as well, and include a mix of poetry and prose that describes, interprets, and reflects on the color "blue". To this viewer, the film is provocative, mesmerizing, brooding, grief-filled, joyous, foreboding, and, ultimately, a highly personal and creative coming to terms with both life and death.
Below is Part 1 of Blue; the remaining parts on YouTube are listed after it. (Originally in 35mm, the film was transferred to digital media.) Simon Fisher Turner contributed the soundtrack, which includes choral singing, clock-ticking, chimes, gongs, and work by a range of composers, from Erik Satie to Brian Eno. (An interesting post on the conception and making of the film is the article "Simon Fisher Turner on Derek Jarman's Blue" at The Quietus (February 18, 2014).)
Blue Part 2
Blue Part 3
Blue Part 4
Blue Part 5
Blue Part 6
Blue Part 7
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Cold Can Be Beautiful (Poem)
Cold Can Be Beautiful
Baby, slice wedges
of snow for pillows;
I'll frost the covers
of our soft, fluffy bed
with roses the color
of meringue.
Let your eye wander
over this storied white
landscape; be patient!
We can weather-watch
alone forever, or catalog
that sweet, tender unrest
of yours in steamy words
and phrases that warm
my tattooed ears. Tracking
your breaths, that litany
of murmurs composed
for delicate skin fragrant
as June, I curl into your
sweet hollows, ask if
every night in this cold
can be beautiful.
2016 © Maureen E. Doallas
__________________________________
This found poem is inspired by a TweetSpeak Poetry post, "Top 10 Pillow Poems", a roundup by LW Lindquist for "Poem on Your Pillow Day" (May 3, 2016).
Monday, May 16, 2016
Monday Muse Asks, Did You Know?
Today's post is another in an occasional series that features poetry-related items you might have missed.
Did You Know. . .
✦ Stephen Owen of Harvard has translated into English The Poetry of Du Fu (De Gruyter, Library of Chinese Humanities, December 2015), comprising 1,400 extant poems. The translation project took Owen, now 69, nearly 10 years to produce. The collection is 2,962 pages and requires 6 volumes totaling 9 pounds. An e-book edition (pdf) is available.
Read Jill Radsken's article, "Translating Nine Pounds of Poetry", Harvard Gazette, April 11, 2016. At the link are several audio recordings.
Take a look inside the book.
✦ You can create Dadaist poetry at Sauntering Verse. Read about the artistic and literary movement at The Art Story. (My thanks to Poetry's Don Share for the link.)
✦ Explaining why he writes free verse instead of metrical verse, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser told The Writer's Almanac Bookshelf, "When I was young I subscribed to the idea that poetry was made up of elevated language. . . Now I believe that poems are most effective with readers when they sound like everyday speech." Read Kooser's interview posted during the now-concluded National Poetry Month. (Interviews with other poets are at National Poetry Month 2016.)
✦ The "Poem of the Last Judgment", published in 1446, is among the first poems to have come off Johannes Gutenberg's printing press. This and other interesting facts about the printing press and its invention and applications are at Idea Finder.
✦ According to Kevin J. Hayes's A History of Virginia Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2015), the first poem printed in Virginia (my home state) was poet and attorney John Markland's "Typographia: An Ode, on Printing" (1730).
A History of Virginia Literature on GoogleBooks
✦ There's a place online to recommend poets. The Website is called Poet Tips. Its creator, Robert Peake, describes it as "a bit like Pandora or Spotify for poetry, allowing you to find new poets based on your tastes." Peake launched the site March 28; read his post "Poet Tips Has Hatched".
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Thought for the Day
. . . So the true power of the human being is not
in giving an answer; the real power is in posing questions.
~ Adonis
___________________________
Quoted from Jonathan Guyer's interview with Adonis at The New York Review of Books Daily: "'Now the Writing Starts': An Interview with Adonis", April 16, 2016
Adonis, Syrian-born Lebanese Poet, Literary Critic, Translator, Theorist
Poems by Adonis at Poetry International Rotterdam and World Republic of Letters (pdf)
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Saturday Short
The much beloved Nora Ephron, who died in 2012, was a screenwriter, director, novelist, and more. Her life and work are the subject of the documentary Everything Is Copy (HBO Documentaries, 2015), the trailer for which is embedded below. The 89-minute film, screened last year at the 53rd New York Film Festival, is by Ephron's son, Jacob Bernstein, a New York Times writer. The co-director is Nick Hooker.
The film premiered on HBO and in select theatres on March 21, 2016.
Friday, May 13, 2016
All Art Friday
All Art Friday
All Art Friday Spotlights
✦ Drawn to the hand-made, photographer Melissa Zexter lends a personal touch to her images by adding hand-stitching. The results, called "embroidered photography", are unique and eye-catching. Read an interview with Zexter at Textile Artist and then head to her Website to see images of her embroidered portraits and other work, including her imaginative "maps" and landscapes.
✦ Is there a young reader in your life who appreciates art? Author Amy Novesky has penned a new children's book, Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois (Abrams Books, March 2016), illustrated wonderfully by Isabelle Arsenault. The nonfiction picture book, available in print and in e-format, shows the deep influence on Bourgeois of her mother, a master weaver.
Cover Art
View additional images from the book at Novesky's Website. Other images by Arsenault may be seen at The Guardian.
✦ If you failed to reach London in time for the Marlborough Gallery's April group exhibition, do the next best thing and view the catalogue online: "Sculptors in Print: Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor, Richard Serra, and Kiki Smith".
✦ Save the Date! Beloved and deservedly acclaimed Washington artist Linn Meyers, who has created a site-specific, hand-drawn, 400-linear-foot work, Our View From Here (2016), for the Hirshhorn Museum's 2nd level inner circle galleries, will be giving an artist talk at the museum on May 25 at 6:30 p.m. Her marvelous commissioned wall drawing, though temporary, will be on view through May 14, 2017, after which date it will be painted over. Shots of the drawing are included in the Washington City Paper's article on the piece.
✦ Congratulations to abstract painter Anne Shami Cherubim-Sundaram, an emerging artist who received in April a Distinguished Artist Award from ArtAscent bi-monthly magazine. I met Anne some time ago and have delightedly witnessed her continual development. She's a lovely and engaging person with an excellent eye for color and composition.
✦ The short film below features glassblower Andrew O. Hughes of Brooklyn, New York. It was shot by Vanessa Gould for POV/PBS in 2013.
Andrew O. Hughes, Glassblower, Brooklyn Glass from Green Fuse Films on Vimeo.
Andrew O. Hughes on FaceBook
Exhibitions Here and There
✭ In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrates its gift of 179 works in the Lanford Wilson Collection with the exhibition "Taking Center Stage: The Lanford Wilson Collection of Self-Taught Art", on view through July 3. Included in the lineup are folk and self-taught artists such as Clementine Hunter, William Hawkins, David Butler, Vestie Davis, Felipe Archuleta, Bessie Harvey, and Joseph Yaokum. The media include paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. An illustrated catalogue with an 1993 essay by Wilson and color images of work in the show is available.
Catalogue Cover Art
✭ Continuing through May 27 at the Black & White Gallery/Project Space in Brooklyn, New York, is "Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez: Travelers & Settlers". The exhibition comprises Friedemann-Sanchez's multi-narrative installation about identity, memory, and gender; it features paintings, sculptures, objects, and mixed media that "together and in different voices weave a synchronicity of dialogues, passages, punctuations, [and] silences about hybridity and cultural ownership." The exhibition marks the artist's first show at Black & White Gallery/Project Space. Earlier this year it was presented at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney. Friedemann-Sanchez's Artist Statement, Process Statement, and biography are provided at the exhibition link. View installation images.
✭ Last week, Rockville, Maryland's Artists & Makers Studios opened its May shows: "The Otis Street Arts Project" and "Elements of Nature", both continuing through May 26. The former spotlights eight area artists, who all work out of the same art space: Sean Hennessey, David Mordini, Jenna North, Alma Selimovic, Liz Lescault, Art Drauglis, Gloria Chapa, and M.L. Duffy; the latter showcases Alison Sigethy's and Carol Talkov's wonderful collaborations on the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, and Fire).
Otis Street Arts Project (Mt. Rainier, Maryland)
✭ A regional juried exhibition, "Deeply Rooted", at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, presents 30 works by Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) members from Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Each work interprets the meaning of "roots". The show concludes August 7. A reception is planned by Saturday, June 11. See the participating artists list and view images of quilts in the exhibition.
✭ On view at Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Ft. Worth, is "Louise Nevelson: Prints", lithographs by Nevelson (1899-1988) created at Tamarind Lithography Workshop between 1963 and 1967. (Tamarind was founded in Los Angeles in 1960. Now known as Tamarind Institute, it is part of the University of New Mexico's College of Fine Arts in Albuquerque.) The exhibition runs through July 31.
Notable Exhibition Abroad
It is not too early to book tickets for "Picasso Portraits", opening October 6 at London's National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition, co-organized with Barcelona's Museu Picasso, will showcase more than 75 portraits, some being shown for the first time in the United Kingdom, from all periods of the artist's career and in all media. The works include loans from international institutions as well as private collections. The show will run through February 5, 2017.
A catalogue by Elizabeth Cowling, emeritus professor of art history at University of Edinburgh, is available that examines the complete range of Picasso's portraiture, from formal and posed work to caricatures, sources of inspiration, and innovative approaches that defied traditional representational depictions. The 256-page book includes 200 illustrations.
Catalogue Cover Art
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Thursday's Three on Art
Thursday's Three presents a trio of videos showing artist Stefan Pabst at work.
According to his bio at Artist, Pabst began drawing at age 5. It's not difficult to understand the level of success his skill has brought him, when you look at his portfolio. A full-time painter, Pabst is known for creating paintings that appear to be 3-dimensional.
Pabst was born in Russia and lives in Hamburg, Germany.
✭ In this video, Pabst speed-draws a portrait of Nelson Mandela
✭ In this next video, Pabst demonstrates a 3D drawing of a glass of water.
✭ Finally, Pabst speed-paints an eye using his oil dry-brush (photorealistic) technique.
You'll find videos, including tutorials, at Portrait Painter Pabst on YouTube.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Wednesday Artist: Elizabeth Murray Film
[Art]'s the way I discovered. . . of trying to find an equilibrium
in the world, a place where I could balance out the different parts
of myself. I think of art as a tool. It saved my life. . . .
~ Elizabeth Murray at BOMB
Film Poster
Director/producer Kristi Zea's art documentary, Everybody Knows. . . Elizabeth Murray (RubyRed Productions & Human Arts Association), received its world premiere last month during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. (See the trailer below.)
Born in 1940, Murray moved to New York City in 1967. In 1972, she debuted in the Whitney Museum's "Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting". Almost four decades later, she became only the fifth woman ever to receive a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Her achievements were hard-won.
The 60-minute film looks at Murray's development and influences as painter, printmaker, and draughtsman; her unrelenting juggling of family life and career; and her place in contemporary art history. In addition to interviews with influential art world figures, the documentary uses home videos, film verite, and Murray's own journal excerpts, voiced by actress Meryl Streep, to relate the artist's struggles as a woman (and single mother) in a male-dominated profession. Named a MacArthur "Genius" in 1999, Murray, who died from cancer in 2007, lived to see herself acclaimed and honored, her oil-on-canvas constructions recognized the world over for their distinctive shapes and eye-catching colors.
Elizabeth Murray at Art21, BOMB Magazine, Gemini G.E.L. Graphics, MTA, Pace Gallery, Painters on Paintings, Whitney Museum
Here's an Art21 video with Murray; it was filmed in 2002.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Bey of Revenge (Poem)
Bey of Revenge
So much depends
upon
discovering
good hair—
whose it is, where.
There is
nothing hidden
that won't
be revealed. Bey's
pillow
chat's no cheater's
fare. Lie
enough, break her
heart. Bey's
hive swarms and stings
and smarts.
2016 © Maureen E. Doallas
___________________________
So much depends
upon
discovering
good hair—
whose it is, where.
There is
nothing hidden
that won't
be revealed. Bey's
pillow
chat's no cheater's
fare. Lie
enough, break her
heart. Bey's
hive swarms and stings
and smarts.
2016 © Maureen E. Doallas
___________________________
I wrote this in response to a fun prompt, "Celebrity Pillows", at TweetSpeak Poetry, where it was shared in the comments. It is included in "Top 10 Pillow Poems".
The opening stanza comes from William Carlos Williams's famous poem "The Red Wheelbarrow".
Bey is, of course, Beyonce. The poem references words ("good hair") from the singer's latest album Lemonade, lyrics from which address her husband's infidelity with "Becky" ("Becky with good hair), aka Rachel Roy, a fashion designer. On the album's release, the Twitterverse, aka the Beyhive, left its stingers in the wrong woman, celebrity cook Rachael Ray.
The statement "There is//nothing hidden/that won't//be revealed." is from the Bible: Luke 8:17. (That is intended to fill the word bubble on the pillow bearing Beyonce's face.)
I've used internal rhyme and lines limited to four and two syllables.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Monday Muse: Poet Kaylin Haught
God Says Yes to Me
I asked God if it was ok to be melodramaic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly what you want to
Thank God
I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph my letters
Sweetcakes
God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
~ Kaylin Haught
Every so often something I've missed (and I'm sure there's a lot I've missed) on its first round or two online finds a way to rise to the top again. That's the case with a recent gift to me: text of the poem "God Says Yes to Me" by Oklahoma poet and writer Kaylin Haught.
I had never heard of Haught and, ever curious, undertook to learn more about her. In my search I came across Julia Andersen's video conception of the poem, which she set to emo band Sleeping At Last's Households. (Watch the video below.) Andersen is the narrator of the videopoem.
God as portrayed in Haught's intimate poem resonates particularly with women and girls. Many find it inspirational, not the least because the language is so playful, familiar, and down to earth, like what a loving mother might say to her daughter, and especially because of that final "Yes Yes Yes": Aspire to anything; nothing is impossible! The poem delivers its sure message of affirmation — feel free to be. . . and to break the rules while you're at it — that is as current and relevant now as it was when Haught wrote its 16 lines. It's the kind of poem I imagine Canada's feminist prime minister Justin Trudeau would share with his three children, sons included.
"God Says Yes to Me" is in the late Steve Kowit's The Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop: A Lively and Illuminating Guide for the Practicing Poet (Tilbury House Publishers, 1995); the book is still in print. The poem was selected for the well-known project "Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools", hosted by former U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) Billy Collins and sponsored by and now archived at the Library of Congress. The text appears online at the Library of Congress Website, where you can find also the full list of 180 poems. Collins edited and introduced his selections in the anthology Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House, 2003).
In addition, composer Paul Carey set the poem to music (jazz, which was appropriate); access the audio at Carey's Website or go directly to the mp3 recording. Garrison Keillor selected the poem for his program The Writer's Almanac; audio is available at the link. Over the years, numerous other publications have featured or mentioned the poem in articles, including The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, the San Diego Reader, To Be Frank Magazine, and Huffington Post. It also can be found in the still-in-print Faith and Doubt: An Anthology of Poems (Henry Holt, 2007), edited by Patrice Vecchione.
Books that use Haught's poem include Healing the Purpose of Your Life (Paulist Press, 1999); Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment (Paraclete Press, 2012); When Words Heal: Writing Through Cancer (Frog Books, 2006); Life is a verb (Skirt!, 2008); The Giant Book of Poetry (Level 4 Press, 2010), edited by William Roetzheim; and Poetry to Make You Smile (Spruce, 2014). (All of these titles are in print or available electronically.)
In addition to the books and magazines mentioned above, my search turned up journals, school texts, inspirational collections, teaching texts, a considerable number of blogs, including that of my friend Drew Myron at Off the Page, and sermons that have featured, quoted, or referenced this poem. Clearly, the poem is not obscure!
As for the poet herself, the extent of Haught's biography appears to be limited to a paragraph at This Island Press and a statement found in the credits of Vecchione's anthology Faith and Doubt: Haught, by her own admission, writes primarily, she says, in "self-chosen obscurity". I wish she'd come out from her hiding place.
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