IwMoArGdE: Fusion of Poetry and Art
Opening June 13th, 7:00pm runs through Aug. 14th
Takoma Park Community Center’s Atrium Gallery
IwMoArGdE:Fusion of Poetry and Art builds upon the foundation of last year’s successful Inspired Results exhibit, which paired poets and visual artists. In that show, poets and artists were paired by the luck of the draw. Within each pair, the poet was asked to create a new poem based on a work by the artist, and the artist, a new piece inspired by their partner’s poetry. For this new exhibit, co-curators David Fogel and Anne Becker invited seven poet and artist pairs to participate. Each pair was challenged to collaborate on a single work around the theme “Creation”. The results liberate the poets’ words to leap the bounds of the white page; and color, line, texture, and form gain speech. Some are three dimensional—incorporating fabric, and two thousand plastic eggs—others include an audio component.
Artist/poet pairs include: Sally Brucker & Ann Slayton; Bonnie Lee Holland & Anne Becker; James Landry & Greta Ehrig; Margot Neuhaus & Anne Dykers; Stephanie Ney & Carol Beane; Howard Spector & Merrill Leffler; Eric Wolinksky & Sydney March.
Today, many aspects of life isolate and force us deeper into our particular professional niches or personal spaces, and consequently remove us from people and things outside our knowledge sphere. Yet, so much of life’s value is discovered through new experiences, crossing boundaries. One of the intentions of this exhibit and project is to address and refute that trend by bringing together artists of different mediums and worlds and ask them to explore a theme that is the core and foundation of the artistic experience.
MP3 players will be available to exhibit attendees to allow them to hear the poetry that was created as a part of each piece. The exhibit will also feature corresponding events including: Talks on creativity and the creative process – July 18th 5 – 7pm; MovingWordSong a night of collaboration between poets, dancers and musicians – July 12th.
Participating Artists:
Carol Beane + Stephanie Sove Ney
Title: Done/Undone
Size: 4’ high x 8’ long diptych
Medium: Mixed on stretched canvas
Price: $200 per 16” square
In “Done/Undone” the poet’s narrative tells of an ancient romance revisited as a life nears its end. The artist’s complement of images recalls the seasons of nature and of the heart. Together the words and pictures are a seamless homage to things eternal.
Anne Becker + Bonnie Lee Holland
Title: BODY RIVER SNAKE COIL SONG
Dimensions: 100″ h X 23″ w
Medium: Mixed Media
Price: $1,500
Our piece is infused with a foundation of parallel tracks. We both had serious illnesses as children and so understood at a young age that bodies can be challenged. We both have a strong grounding in dance, an art of journeys in time, movement, and physicality, that informs our work in other art forms. Although the body presented here seems fixed, it also shows the coiling energy within that travels through the body, and the body’s permeability in its mirroring of and connection to the physical, spiritual, and imagined environments.
Sally Brucker + Anne Slayton
Title: Chambers
Medium: Paper sculpture diptych mounted on stretched canvas
Dimensions: 21″ high x72″ long
Price: $ 475- per piece $850- both
In collaboration with Ann Slayton’s Haiku- each segment of the sculpture represents one of 17 syllables.
The rhythm of the poem echoes the beating of the heart. Each segment is like a chamber of the heart, containing
remnants of thoughts, ideas, dream, and loves.
Anne Dykers + Margot Neuhaus
Title: with silence
Medium: Digital photographs on watercolor paper
Size: 37″ x 25′ 2″.
Price: Each segment (8 total) is $700. Entire piece $5,000
Listening with silence, images emerge.
Greta Ehrig + Jim Landry
Title: In The Garden
Medium: Plastic egg halves, silicon glue; audio recording
Dimensions: 4 foot square; 1 foot tall at its apex
Price: $200.00
“In The Garden” reflects the primordial attractions and repulsions between “masculine” / “feminine,” “male” / “female,” and “yin” / “yang” principles. Ehrig’s haiku explore these tensions while telling an everyday creation story from the point(s) of view of a single woman / artist. Landry’s sculpture grew organically from surplus Chinese Easter Eggs, which suggested themes of renewal / rebirth / Spring — including the male half of the creation story.
Merrill Leffler + Howard Spector
Title: Devolution #1
Medium: Digital pigment print
Size: 31” x 31”
Price: $1,000 (framed)
Sydney March + Eric Wolinsky
Title: Monk’s Misterioso
Medium: Wood panel, paper, acrylic paint
Dimensions: 4’ x 2’
Price: on inquiry
Description: Loose, yet deliberate; angular, yet fluid - capturing Thelonious Monk has no straightforward path. Here, music twines with word twines with image, on a landscape of four parts. One third is bottled Monk, one third is artful poem, one third is translated visual.
“sleeping naked”
She was 92 years old and 7 months
when she decided to sleep naked.
The first time was
when she dreamt about an old friend,
a coulda been lover
“but wasn’t—just that
he was sick, poor fellow,
so nothing ever happened;
nothing was really possible,
you know…”
Meditation on that which had been done
and that which had been left undone.
It was the first night
of the full moon
and the moon
bathed her in whispers
and silvery breezes
and faint noises of flowers opening;
mother of pearl poppies
floating on her café au lait
touch of cinnamon self;
her hair on the pillow
was moon glow and
her moon sign beauty marks
were suns in that deep night
which was her first night
of sleeping naked;
delighting in it, until dawn came,
tremulous and delicate, almost timid,
and that was only the first time.
She gave her self over
to the silence of the woods at night
and to the starlight;
joining laughing women
become wild dark dancing trees;
with them, temptresses for the while;
“he was sick, you know
so it couldn’t be, but really,
i liked that fellow so much
so very, very much…”
Moonlight
blessed
blessing—
Now she divines the time
by where sunlight
falls on her legs.
The doves’ murmurings come,
interrupting dawn,
announcing the new day.
Carol A. Beane - 2008
Your heart drums then slows,
the hollow muscle about
the size of a fist.
Anne Slayton - 2008
“Monk’s Misterioso”
If you have to choose
choose nothing but the hippest beat
with criss-cross riffs of blues
blown beyond Stravinsky’s strut.
Saxophones blow hot
against blue cool of brown skins
mocking metal skies
of steeltowns and mills.
If you have to ask…forget it
there are no answers
just Monk digging deep
into his hip pockets
pulling out melodies, rhythms
holy rolling sermons.
Out of his many hats
flatted fifths leap
to play hopscotch in no man’s land
between black and white keys
between Mississippi and Harlem.
The same old song, some say
But it’s the dance baby,
Monk does it like nobody
this side of the great walls
of China.
Sydney March - 2008
“axis mundi”
to go across, you have to crawl on your hands and knees
perhaps your heart opens
and the world, on its perfect axis, becomes itself
Anne Dykers - 2008
“Body River Snake Coil Song”
Headwaters
head
waters awakening secretions
reach brain-net digestion
weightless
wanting
tick-tuck tick-tuck tick-tuck
cells
fluid
think remember
tucka-tucka tick tick tick
extruded thoughtticka-ticka-ticka languid fibersticka-ticka-ticka
filled puzzleticka-ticka-ticka
sparse burdens raw engine pulls nourishment
relaxes
head
waters o-
ver the great
wanting
head waters o-ver boulders
headwaters over great boulders of the
tonsils slip through
tick tick tucka-tucka
the lip over the sill
mouth impels tongue
licks breath sound through the slit
out of the lips over the sill
spill
head
waters saliva shadow s wanting this
is the way in snake and coil
river oozing gesture and braid fleshy
dancing river
tissue sharpens tender claw
over the boulders
tongue disintegrating
dissolving
river snake of the
jugular jugular and carotid c a t a r a c t
and g o r g e
shuttered throat- cavern
frame burping immense sternum
infinitesimal jostle
tenuous
feathery eyelash thrusts into capsules
feet mustard sundress and naked stones
river snake coils
stuttering iridescent fingers tough mother’s
birthplace
omphalos
cord carries
river snake coils
caresses
ppppplllllllllummmmmmm
mmmmmmmullllllllllllllllllppppp
pyloric snuffle cumin fur
intestines
coil taste ticka ticka tuck-a tick
resurrects
breathy breathy opening
opening
coating
ribs settling
percolates
murkbrown body
tickling threshold
ticka-ticka tuck tuck tick
furnacebag
where
harboured fungus
licking fur
infection plumbs
cauldrons
babies bodies
succulent devour
mothers
infection parasite mosquito chamber drizzles dribbles
coils
river snake
wanting
boulders
spongy knob kneading
fruit package
river snake dilates
collates and carries
plush barred their children
mothers
constant burn
seed within seed within seed
moist moments in the river
body coil snake
river
rushing
rushing
plush barred their children
seed within seed within seed
tick ticka tuck tick
jellied sweat sweet hammock
pelvic cove
fruit packet
seed within seed
swirling
rushing through archways
of
boulders
coil body river snake
wanting
moist moist moments
singeing each exhale
each basin and bay silver water snake
river
opening
scouring
each pore each port muscular purple brown
in old pits sulking
skinblue
silken shards
winding
exploding
raveling fabric
snake river body coil-
ing
mothers’ jealousy
skulk-
ing
inside behind into
coaxing
winding
crumpled
creeps
river snake
wind-
ing
jealous and wanting
extinguish
river snake
body river snake
coils
ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka
ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka
extinguishes envy
releases
body river song
jealous
releases
the surge of
life
itself.
Anne Becker - 2008
Image is what we begin with
Is image what we begin with
What image is we begin with
We image is what begin with
Begin image is what we with
With image is what we begin
Merrill Leffler - 2008
“IN THE GARDEN”
Dicotyledon,
two small hands together, two
wings and a prayer.
Gallery of scents:
the neighbors’ prized irises
meant the world to her.
Each name, a poem:
Batik, Sambuca, Heaven,
Autumn Butterfly….
Her favorite was
Jazz Festival — bright orange beard,
fuchsia / peach petals.
For the privilege
of writing about flowers,
she paid most daily.
Do I have lice or
do I not have lice? The thought
ate her up at night.
So much in debt, she
dared not buy the garden hose
or blue hydrangeas.
She hated shopping.
How could she carry such debt?
The cost of living!
She could not afford
four bottles of lice shampoo –
so, she shaved her head!
Do I have a kid?
Yes, I have thousands of kids.
Yes, all different dads.
Those blue hydrangeas
reminded her of Cooley,
salt, sand, water, sky. . .
One city couple
she worked for had hydrangeas
and a beach house.
The deserving get
all the lilacs they want, but
she’d need to work more.
Do I like where I’m
living? I love it. Except
there’s no rent control.
Spanky’s ad read thus:
man seeks long term love to start
immediately.
Not as redundant
as Sippy’s ad: clubs, pubs, bars,
beer, wine, shots, clubs, pubs. . .
Mr. I’m-a-Vet
poisoned rabbits for the feds,
called it self-defense.
Do I like living
alone? I love it! Except
for some loneliness.
Well read, her ad read:
Beauty-full artist, geek, and
visionary seeks.
Everywhere: diamonds
flashing like eyeballs of men
working those dark mines.
Studly was a stud.
All the ladies craved him, but
he lacked tumescence.
Alcohol, she learned,
is what gave him heart and a
lifetime of limp-dick.
From front porch to back
seat, courtship is not what it
used to be. Kiss me!
A thousand frogs, green
and slimy, had crossed her path.
Still, the princess slept.
A thousand red tongues
flickering their sweet, sweet talk.
A thousand red flags.
Curiosity
killed the lovers’ paradise.
Who? What? Where? Why? When?
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways. They are
fewer than before.
How did they find love?
Where did all these people meet?
Are they still alive?
Ring fingers flash “yes!”
like eyeballs of dead miners
down in those dark mines.
The art of bonding:
bodies, brains, interests, values,
talents, spirits, heart…
Ravana looked there
at Sita and he thought Mine.
Sita loved Rama.
The son of the wind,
he crossed the ocean for her,
irresistible.
Renounce not desire.
The sermon was the flower.
No prayer like desire.
Lover of many,
wife to none, that single girl
singing their hearts out!
For the privilege
of singing about flowers,
she paid most daily.
She wanted a child
someone else would raise as well.
She would be the dad.
Wallace and Robert
could well afford their day jobs.
Such disciplined men!
The Lawyer forgot
his wallet at home so she
got to pay for lunch.
The Engineer had
lost his credit card so she
paid for their dinner.
Imagine the girl
who knows how she likes her eggs
still cooking alone.
But art is my life,
she said. Her partner nodded,
I wanna travel.
He could send ‘em up,
but The Rocket Scientist
could not aim his down.
Blessed be the girls
who will not wed stupidly
for bread — or roses.
Blessed be the girls
who won’t wed stupidity
for health insurance.
Praise be to the girls
who refuse to tidy up
the big boys’ bathrooms.
The myth of old maids
is alive and well. Some girls
deserve loneliness.
Meritocracy
has its merits: happiness
for conservatives.
When they are happy
insects sing. She had not sung –
or slept — many moons.
Everyone wanted
artistic kids (like clean homes),
but who’d pay for it?
The Student’s Mom squirmed.
Lice is not a health concern;
it is aesthetic.
Everyone knows that
social workers start crazy
and artists end mad.
Little seeds of death –
that stash of soft sleeping pills
that kept her alive.
How she liked her eggs:
over easy with a hint
of cayenne and thyme.
You should have a child.
You would be such a good mom!
You of all people….
She’d brought a bouquet
to the Seder which the cook
then whisked out of sight.
So you’re a poet,
The Banker hissed over drinks.
How do you not die?
How do I not die?,
Poets wonder over drinks.
Bankers’ nephews shrink.
Indoor hydrangeas?
Large rooms beg for large displays.
Powder rooms, nosegays.
The egg on the plate
somehow seemed obscene. Red beets,
beet red. Quite a scene.
It was after that
that he returned from L.A.
smelling like pussy.
When your life shakes down
an eight on the Richter scale,
it’s likely your fault.
Husband and wife both –
no division of labor –
she could do it all!
Change the motor oil,
Sew the couch new slip covers,
Help the cat to die….
She loved a man once.
She loved a man more than once –
but none quite like him.
It’s a long hard road
for alcoholics; and for
The Lone Moderate.
She would have a child,
even if it meant dropping
the right to raise it.
Healthy, attractive,
creative, stable, and smart,
her eggs were “picky.”
She tried to donate
her eggs again, but they were
too many weeks old.
Even though her eggs
had been to graduate school,
The Doctors shunned them.
For the privilege
of dancing about flowers,
she paid most dearly.
She could not afford
the garden soil, lice shampoo,
and health insurance.
Sixteen-hour days
and still no health insurance.
It made her feel sick.
One paramour said,
I almost didn’t date you.
No health insurance?!
One paramour said,
why not sell the piano?
You hardly play it.
Every evening,
before he came, before sex,
music was her life.
Every morning
after sex, after he left,
life became music.
Dicotyledon,
like haiku in the forest –
does anyone hear?
Her hands were birdwings
he didn’t know how to touch.
Her hands were birdwings.
Greta Ehrig - 2008