Monday, August 31, 2015

Monday Muse: Interview with Poet Fred Foote (Pt 1)


. . . art and healing and reality are all connected.
~ Frederick Foote



Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing by e-mail one of the Washington, D.C., area's most notable local poets: Frederick Foote. A retired Navy Medical Corps physician, Fred currently leads the Warrier Poetry Project at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and works tirelessly on behalf of our veterans. His debut poetry collection is Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor's Poetry of War (Grayson Books).

Part 1 of my interview, "Healing with Poetry: Interview with Poet Fred Foote", appears at TweetSpeak Poetry. There, Fred talks about his early experience with poetry and about writing poetry as a veteran (he served in the 2003 Iraq War on the "U. S. S. Comfort". Included is an excerpt from his poem "You Made the Iraqis Their Scarves".

The second and third parts of my interview are forthcoming, also at TweetSpeak Poetry.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Thought for the Day

Tenderness does not choose its own uses.
 ~ Jane Hirshfield

____________________________

Quoted from Jane Hirshfield's poem "Late Prayer",  reprinted in Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry | Essays by Jane Hirshfield (Harper Perennial, 1998), page 211.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Saturday Short

I don't want to be a victim anymore.
~ Marcy Borders

Today's short, filmed by Mike McGregor, is a video with Marcy Borders, who on September 11, 2001, became the subject of an unforgettable photograph that quickly became famous: "The Dust Lady", by New York-based Stan Honda.

Marcy Borders, whose life following 9/11 was filled with pain, died this past Monday of stomach cancer. She was 42. May she rest in peace.

In her remembrance:



Coverage of Borders's death has been worldwide.

Friday, August 28, 2015

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ On November 24, Yale University Press will publish Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out, by his son, writer and psychologist Christopher Rothko, who chairs the board of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Read an excerpt from one of the book's 18 essays, which, among other topics, address Mark Rothko's commissioned works, his works on paper, his writings of the 1930s and 1940s, his appreciation of music, and his role as father.


Cover Art

✦ Sophia Khan, the subject of one of my Artist Watch features at Escape Into Life, is offering from September 14 to October 12 a four-week online watercolor workshop, "Let's Paint the Beauty of Italy: A Unique Online Watercolor Workshop". The workshop will include a tutorial, access to a private, dedicate Webpage providing step-by-step illustrated exercises, a private group page on FaceBook, and watercolor tips and techniques.

✦ The resource-sharing Creative Exchange offers a number of toolkits for artists, arts councils, community organizations, and other art-related groups. Among them are "Artists' Health Fair", "Pop Up Museum", "The People's Creative Toolkit", and the forthcoming "Work of Art: Professional Development for Artists".

Creative Exchange on FaceBook and Twitter

✦ The nonprofit Chicago Artists Coalition is dedicated to artists' advocacy and professional development, and champions collaborative partnerships and development of innovative resources. In addition to offering educational opportunities and promoting leadership in the arts, the coalition sponsors exhibitions. Forthcoming on September 18 is "The ANNUAL: An Exhibition of New Chicago Art".

CAC on FaceBook, Twitter, and Vimeo

✦ Sister Jacques-Marie was the "true initiator" of Matisse's Chapel of the Rosary, Vence, France, according to the artist. See the trailer for A Model for Matisse (2005), directed by Barbara Freed. Read "Matisse and the Nun" at ArtNews. [Note: I have visited the chapel; seeing it was one of the highlights of my first tour of France.]

✦ Below is A Portrait of Pat Carey (2011), a documentary about the late San Francisco activist and artist. (She died in May 2013 at age 93.) The film, by Anson Musselman, includes many of Carey's drawings and portraits and interviews by those who knew her.



Exhibitions Here and There

✭ Continuing through September 27 at Clark Art Institute is "Whistler's Mother, Gray, Black, and White". A collaboration with Colby College Museum of Art and Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies, the exhibition offers a selection of Whistler's prints and drawings, Japanese woodblock prints, and cultural ephemera. The heart of the show is the artist's iconic painting Whistler's Mother.

The Website for the exhibition includes links to a checklist of works, an image gallery, and a timeline and provides brief profiles of the artist and his mother Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler.

Read The Arts Fuse review of the exhibition.

Clark Art Institute on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ Pastel works by Rae Smith and Rhoda Yanow are on view through September 20 at Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, New Jersey. The internationally exhibited artists also are teachers.

Rhoda Yanow Art on FaceBook


Noyes Museum on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ At Colby College Museum of Art, 65 paintings, cutouts, and collages, some of which come from Katz's own collection and others from major public and private collections, are on show through October 18 in "Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s". Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue (Random House/Prestel) of the same title (see image below), which includes color and black-and-white illustrations. Click the exhibition link above for a selection of images and related articles and other features. A wing of the museum is dedicated to the work of Alex Katz.



Cover Art

Alex Katz Website

Colby College Museum of Art on FaceBook, Twitter, and Vimeo 

✭ Wall-mounted low reliefs, such as Leonard Baskin's bronze Owl; mixed media floor installations, and other sculptures, including Louise Nevelson's Thrones, John Newman's Fuchsia Unfurls in a Gilded Cage, and John Bisbee's Zero, may be seen through September 27 in "3D: Contemporary Works from the Farnsworth". The Farnsworth Art Museum is in Rockland, Maine.

Farnsworth Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

Farnsworth Blog

✭ Drawing from its own collection, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, continues through October 18 "Playing with Perception: Photographs by Florence Henri". The early 20th Century artist (1893-1982), who studied painting with Fernand Leger and others, used mirrors to create reflections, distort images, and challenge reality. 

Florence Henri at ApertureBauhaus Online, and Jeu de Paume (The latter mounted an exhibition of Henri's work earlier this year.)

Everson Museum on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Notable Exhibition Abroad

Copper wire is the material of choice of London-based Alice Anderson. More than 100 of her works currently are on view at London's Wellcome Collection. A highlight of "Alice Anderson: Memory Movement Memory Objects", which runs through October 18, is "The Studio", an immersive experience that "extends into the gallery" the artist's creative process by allowing visitors to help "mummify" with copper wire a 1967 Ford Mustang and smaller objects. See the preview below and images of a selection of works on view.



Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue that includes commissioned new photography of the artworks and essays by Wellcome Collection senior curator Kate Forde (Read Forde's "The Art of Memory") and scientist Israel Rosenfield. See image below.


Catalogue Cover Art

Alice Anderson's Website 

Alice Anderson's Travelling Studio on Tumblr

Wellcome Collection on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Thursday, August 27, 2015

'Poetry in Bronze', A Documentary

Called Iran's "greatest living sculptor", Parviz Tanavoli is the subject of the documentary Parviz Tanavoli: Poetry in Bronze from director Terrence Turner and producers Timothy Turner and Tandis Tanavoli. (Both Turners are the makers of the documentary Adele's Wish, about Gustav Klimt's painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.)

The film examines the life and artistic expression of Tanavoli, from formal training in Italy to emergence internationally, from the sculptor's break with Persian influence and traditions to his involvement in the 1960s in the founding of the contemporary Iranian art movement, the Saqqakhaneh School. In addition to interviews with Tanavoli, the documentary features some of the most prominent people in international art, including curators and gallery directors, art collectors, other artists, and art critics and writers. 

To date, the documentary has been screened at Wellesley College, whose Davis Museum held a comprehensive retrospective of Tanavoli's work February 10 - June 7, 2015; Sunnylands, Rancho Mirage, California; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It will be screened September 25 at Whitechapel Gallery, and followed by a Q&A between Tanavoli and director Turner.

Here is the trailer for the film:


Immediately below is a video from the exhibition at Wellesley's Davis Museum:


Parviz Tanavoli on FaceBook


Resources

Nadim Roberts, "The Mountain Carver", Longreads Blog, Spring 2015

Sara Dehghan, "Iranian Artist Parviz Tanavoli's 'Heech Garden' Exhibit Mixes Old with New", Voice of America, April 14, 105


Firouzeh Mirrazavi, "Parviz Tanavoli: Half a Century of Art in U.S. Museum", Iran Review, February 8, 2015

Amelia Smith, "Iran's Most Celebrated Visual Artist, Parviz Tanavoli, Speaks to MEMO about His Work", Middle East Monitor, February 3, 2015.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Danish Potter Anne Mette Hjortshoj

[T]he fundamental magic occurs at the moment when wood,
fire, salt and ashes combine with the clay to change shape
and surface. The image of perfection disappears—
the piece obtains its identity. . . .
~ Anne Mete Hjortshoj

Below is a lovely documentary about the talented Danish ceramist and potter Anne Mette Hjortshoj, who studied with Phil Rogers, a Welsh potter. In the film, which shows us the potter's workspace and where she sources her clay, Hjortshoj explains how she learned her vocation and introduces some of the artists who inspired and mentored her.

The Goldmark Art Gallery in the United Kingdom, specializing in 20th Century contemporary art and ceramics, carries Hjortshoj's work, including lidded jars, slab bottles, teapots, tea bowls, and mugs, dishes of varying shapes and sizes, and jugs. Not only is her pottery beautiful to look at; it also is functional.



The documentary is available as a DVD.

My thanks to 50 Women: A Celebration of Women's Contribution to Ceramics for the link to the video.

Anne Mette Hjortshoj on FaceBook

Goldmark Gallery on FaceBook

Another video on Vimeo is "Oval Teapots by Anne Mette Hjortshoj". In addition, Goldmark Gallery's "Anne Mette Hjortshoj '2012 Pottery Exhibition Invitation'" is available to watch on YouTube. Both are worth viewing to learn more about Hjortshoj's forms, glazes, and techniques.

The potter's salt-glazed porcelains and stoneware also can be seen at Oakwood Ceramics (UK) and Sylvester Fine Art (UK). She has exhibited in Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Hjortshoj was the subject of a Studio Visit feature in Ceramics Monthly in February 2013. 

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Inside Ship Windows (Poem)


Inside Ship Windows

From her husband's teeth, the thin lady hangs,
a grave excuse for spinning. Both eyes narrow
to a funnel, glazed, as they turn to look around

the room. Her eyes mirror the lost time both feel
as her fingers release the photograph made at sea
after the too-smooth waves round, slow the ship

for the sake of 24 good whales, undulating. Baby,
we are emulous, slow-dancing a liquid sonnet
with the uneven boat. See into the twining windows

of his dimpled pink heart? The mimosa flowers hide
the signals a mammal always blushes, that beard
we found in the carpet.

What now?
_________________________

This poem is composed of words found among "Top 10 Dip Into Poetry Lines" at TweetSpeak Poetry. Special appreciation for the first line, the opening of Majorie Maddox's "Death Defying".

Monday, August 24, 2015

Monday Muse: New Vermont Poet Laureate

Poems you love stay in your unconscious. . . .*
Chard deNiord

Chard deNiord is Vermont's eighth Poet Laureate. (I learned of the appointment from deNiord's FaceBook page.) He succeeds Sydney Lea, whose four-year term began November 4, 2011. (Lea's last work published as Poet Laureate is the forthcoming essay collection, What's the Story? Reflections on a Life Grown Long, from Green Writers Press. Read Lea's column "On Poetry: Thanks from a grateful Vermont Poet Laureate" at Vermont Today.)

Information about the state poet's position and related resources are found in my 2010 post about the late Ruth Stone. Stone held the office from July 2007 to July 2011.

De Niord will begin his laureateship officially on November 2, 2015, where an installation ceremony is planned at the State House in Montpelier.

* * * * *
I feel writing must take over
in order for me to succeed at discovering
something I didn't know I knew. . . .*

Poet, essayist, interviewer, and book critic Chard deNiord is the author of Interstate (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, forthcoming Fall 2015), The Double Truth (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), named a Top 10 poetry book by The Boston GlobeNight Mowing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003), and Asleep in the Fire (Alabama Poetry Series, University of Alabama Press, 1990).

Other publications by deNiord include Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs: Conversations and Reflections on 20th Century American Poets (Marick Press, 2011), a collection of interviews with seven "senior" American poets (Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, Jack Gilbert, Donald Hall, Gallway Kinnell, Maxine Kumin, and Ruth Stone) and essays on correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. [Note: The interview with Jack Gilbert was published at Poetry Daily.]

Some themes and subjects found throughout deNiord's poetry are loss, the witnessing of injustices, compassion, nature and animal life, self-exploration, love, sex, myth, truth and its fractures, redemption, religion and the bible, the spiritual and the transcendent—what deNiord calls "writing toward the unsayable". There is darkness in his work but also humor.

Below are excerpts from several of deNiord's poems that give a sense of his elegant style, firm command of technique, sensualness, and richly evocative imagery. Many of deNiord's poems are brief and yet pack a punch, especially in their concluding lines.

I still taste you from the time
you painted my tongue
with your scarlet finger.
It cured my heart of innocence, [. . .]
~ from "The Double Truth" in The Double Truth

[. . .] I picked up the bodies
like bloody socks and prayed to the god
in charge of this field for my own weakness
to feel this much for slaughtered chicks.
For an understanding of his need to kill
the most vulnerable thing, whether hungry or not.
~ from "In the Grass" in Interstate

[. . .] I stared at the fire that had formed a heart
and tongue together and raged in rain.
I watched it rise like a beautiful dress. [. . .]
~ from "Burning the Brush" in Sharp Golden Thorn

DeNiord's free verse and formal poems, which may be lyrical or narrative, have appeared in numerous, prestigious literary periodicals, including Agni, American Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary ReviewBlackbird, The Cortland Review, Green Mountains ReviewHarvard ReviewHudson Review, Hunger MountainKenyon Review, Natural BridgeNew England ReviewThe New RepublicPloughsharesPlume, SalamanderSalmagundi, Slate, Smartish PaceThe Southern Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Verse Daily. Some of his prose poems ("The Prodigal Driver", The Bear Speaks to the Boy", and "Say I Sound Like One of the Hosts") can be found in StoryScape Literary Journal. (See a more complete list in the Journals section of deNiord's Website.)

Some anthologies in which deNiord has contributed are American Religious Poems (The Library of America, 2006), Best American Poetry (Robert Bly, Ed; Scribner, 1999), Best of the Prose Poem (White Pine Press, 2000), Pushcart Book of Poetry, The Best Poems from Thirty Years of the Pushcart Prize (Pushcart Press, 2007), American Poetry Now: Pitt Poetry Series Anthology (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), and Ploughshares Winter 1998-99: Stories and Poems (Ploughshares Books, 1998).

In addition to the Joseph R. Accinno Faculty Teaching Award from Providence College (2011-2012), deNiord has received the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America (for his poem "Crow"), a Pushcart Prize (for "What the Animals Teach Us") from Pushcart Press, and a Best American Poetry award (for "Pasternak"). (See the Awards & Citations section of deNiord's Website for other honors.) [Note: DeNiord's "What the Animals Teach Us" is part of a book of 26 etchings of animals by printmaker Brian D. Cohen. Information about this limited-edition fine art book is available at Bridge Press. In addition, 11 of deNiord's poems are included in Brighton Press's limited-edition, The Book of Darkness, complementing 11 etchings and paintings by Michele Burgess.]

A founder of the master's program in poetry at New England College, deNiord is a professor of English and creative writing at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island.

Besides his master's degree in fine arts (creative writing) from the University of Iowa, the poet holds a master's degree in biblical studies from Yale University.

Resources

Photo Credit: Liz deNiord

All Poetry Excerpts © Chard deNiord

* Quoted from deNiord's Interview with Katie Fagan (See link below.)



Chard deNiord Poems Online: "What the Animals Teach Us", "The Thin Path", "Pasternak", "Curtains", "To Hear and Hear", "My Other Body", and "The Police", All at Chard deNiord's Website; "The Percherons", "Sunday Calls", "This Ecstasy", and "Trailer", All at Poetry Foundation; "The Double Truth" at Academy of American Poets; "An Incident at the Catholic Worker" at How a Poem Happens; "Poem on My 60th Birthday" and "A Soul Addresses Her Beloved in the Non-Green Zone", Both at Blackbird; "The Fire in the Distance", "Through a Glass", "The Bride as Scout", "All the Unlikeness", and "The Return of Jan Weiner", All at The Cortland Review (Audio Available); "Anchorite in Autumn" and "Under the Sun", Both at Verse Daily; "The Muse Writes Luis Jorge Borges A Letter on His 86th Birthday" at Plume; "Crows" and "Mr. Handsome", Both at Connotation Press; "Frog" at Academy of American Poets; "In the Beginning" at Tupelo Quarterly; "Augustine's Pears" at Slate (Audio Available); "Dumuzi Bids Innana Goodby" at The Antioch Review Blog (Audio Available); "Goshawk" at Marsh Hawk Press; "Anchorite in Autumn", "The Sweet Invisible Smoke", "Dress Poker", All at University of Pittsburgh Press Page for Interstate (pdf); "Raiding the Bees", "To Hear and Hear", "Frog", and "Sugaring", All at University of Pittsburgh Press Page for The Double Truth (pdf); "Cloud Copy", "Halfway Down", "At the Bardo Barber", and "Oh, Besotted, Critical Father", All at Body; "Poetry" at Vox Populi; "Connecticut", "I Heard a Willow Fall", "Tree of Wisdom", and "Behold, The Lord God Bird", All at OnEarth Magazine; "Jefferson's Baths", "Drive-In", and "Memoir", All at Zocalo Public Square; "Happy Hour", "Anima", and "Anchorite in Autumn", All at March Poetry Monday, International Psychoanalysis Blog; "Graven beloved", "I cannot grieve", and "What the river said", All at Cardinal Points

Ryan Pait, "Poet deNiord Shares Advice from Masters in Brown Bag", The Chautauquan Daily, June 30, 2015

Meslisa Studdard, "Chard deNiord", The Tiferet Talk Interviews, Tiferet Journal, Blog Talk Radio, July 10, 2014 (Transcript Available)

Harvard Review, "Mid-Century Modern: Conversations with 20th-Century American Poets", Interview, Harvard Review Online, June 3, 2013 [Note: This interview with deNiord also appears at the poet's Website.]

Katie Fagan, "Interview with Chard deNiord", Poetry International, April 22, 2012 [Note: This interview also can be found on deNiord's Website.]

"English Professor Receives Teaching Award", Providence College News, April 4, 2012




PoemShape

Poetry Society of Vermont

Sun Dog Poetry Center

University of Alabama Press

University of Pittsburgh Press

University of Pittsburgh Press Page for Interstate

University of Pittsburgh Press Page for The Double Truth

University of Pittsburgh Press Page for Night Nowing

Vermont Arts Council (FaceBook)

Nominations Process Explained at VAC

Vermont Arts Council Blog

Vermont Humanities

Vermont Literary Review (Castleton University)

Vermont Poetry

Vermont Resources for Writers

White Pine Press

Video: "Chard deNiord Reads His Poem 'At the Sap Wells'" (2014)

TEDTalk, "An Homage, A Prayer, A Poem" (22:38 Minutes), TEDxShepaugValleySchool, July 6, 2015:



Sunday, August 23, 2015

Thought for the Day

Sometimes, discovered bones document sin. . . .
~ Tara Betts
___________________________

Quoted from Tara Bett's "Sestina for the Sin" in The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody Publishing, 2013)

Tara Betts is the author of Arc & Hue (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2009)

Tara Betts on FaceBook and Twitter

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Saturday Short

Below is the trailer for the inspirational verite documentary Daughters of the Forest (Red Hill Productions), about a group of girls in Paraguay who learn from their school, Mbaracayu Forest Girls' School, how to protect their remote and threatened old-growth forest and create a better future for themselves. Filmws over the course of five years, the story is set in Mbaracayu Reserve, one of 250 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.

The film was directed by Samantha Grant, produced by Carl Byker, and edited by John Kane

DAUGHTERS of the FOREST - Official Trailer from Samantha Grant / GUSHproductions on Vimeo

Daughters of the Forest on FaceBook


Mbaracayu Forest Girls' School at Edinburgh Research InstituteGlobal Giving, JustGivingLAB

Friday, August 21, 2015

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Print fans, take note! Taos, New Mexico, is the site for the multi-venue, months-long "Pressing Through Time: 150 Years of Printmaking in Taos", which opens in September and continues through February 2016. Below is a brief overview of the event from the curators. (The call to contemporary printmakers  that is mentioned in the video closed in March.) Work by the selected artists will be on view at Encore Gallery of the Taos Center for the Arts from October 2, 2015, through January 18, 2016; and at Taos Art Museum at Fechin House from October 9 through the end of January. Activities include talks/seminars, workshops in printmaking, demos, studio tours, and more; see the calendar for specifics. View information about  the museum and gallery participating in the festival.


✦ Tomorrow, August 22 marks the official grand opening of the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. To celebrate the completion of the center, tours will be given of the living and studio spaces of the inaugural group of artists-in-residence. With its mission the support of local, national, and international contemporary visual artists, the center offers an Artist-In-Residence (AIR) Grant Program and the New Orleans Local Artist (NOLA) Studio Program.

Joan Mitchell Center on FaceBook and Twitter

✦ Canadian artist Glen Ronald has a background in science (he holds an honors degree in microbiology), education, and the study of chaos. He calls his paintings (they are primarily acrylics on canvas and ink on paper) "chaosmos"; a look at his portfolio hints at the reasons for that description. In the time-lapse video below, he shows a work in progress:


Prints of Ronald's work are available at the artist's Etsy Shop.

Glen Ronald's The Studio on FaceBook and YouTube

✦ September's releases of new art books include "The heroine Paint": After Frankenthaler (Gagosian/Rizzoli), edited by New York art historian Katy Siegel. (The title is taken from a poem by Barbara Guest.) A compilation of scholarly essays by, among others, John Elderfield and Barbara Guest; reprints of historic writing, and text from contemporary artists such as Amy Sillman and Tracy K. Smith, the book traces the artistic careers of Frankenthaler and those she influenced.


Cover Image

Helen Frankenthaler Page at Gagosian Gallery

✦ Last fall I featured assemblage artist Page Turner in my Artist Watch column at Escape Into Life. Since then, Page has enjoyed a run of well-deserved exhibitions of her fabulous sculptures. She also has produced the video below, which showcases some of her fine art and describes how Page's Appalachian Morman heritage informs it. Here's wishing Page much continued success!



Page Turner Studios (Zephren & Page Turner) on FaceBook

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ As part of Santa Fe's "Summer of Color", New Mexico Museum of Art is presenting "Colors of the Southwest". On view through September 20, the exhibition of paintings, photographs, prints, watercolors, and ceramics includes work by Victor Higgins, Gustave Baumann, Sheldon Parsons, Dorothy Morang, Louise Crow, Andrew Dasburg, Fremont F. Ellis, William Penhallow Henderson, Kate Krasin, Robert Daughters, Eddie Dominguez, Helmuth Naumer, Warren E. Rollins, and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie.

New Mexico Museum of Art on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube


✭ On-site installations, performances, sculpture, paintings, photographs, and video that respond to the industrial waterfront location of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, are featured in "Float", on view through September 6. Artists whose work is on view include Adam John Manley, Tyler McPhee, Emilie Stark-Menneg, and Kitty Wales, and the collective Core 5 Incident. See images.

CMCA on FaceBook, Twitter, and Vimeo

✭ Continuing through October 4 at Atlanta's High Museum is "Sprawl! Drawing Outside the Lines". The exhibition, a sequel to 2013's "Drawing Inside the Perimeter", features more than 100 recently acquired drawings by artists who work in Atlanta or its surrounding areas, such as Athens, Decatur, and Smyrna. The High made its acquisitions between June 2013 and May 2015.

Among the more than 75 artists with works on view are Ashley Andersen, Nick Bable, Corey Davis, Greg Mike, Heidi Graf, Michael Lachowski, Michi Meko, Abbie Merritt, Mac Stewart, Wesley Terpstra, Fabian Williams, and Caomin Xie. See the exhibition link for images and the Participating Artists list, which is hyperlinked to the artists' Websites.

On Saturday, September 12, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., 75 local artists, some of whom are exhibiting in "Sprawl!" will create artworks live and make them available for purchase at $75 each. Proceeds will be used to purchase additional works on paper by regional artists. Read additional information about the Monster Drawing Rally.

High Museum on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, continues through September 13 "Branching Out: Trees as Art". Offering a look at how contemporary artists use trees as inspiration and medium, the exhibition features more than 30 works made with bark, wood, roots, seedpods, leaves, and "biosignals"; a selection of interactive experiences are included. Among the more than three dozen artists are Sachiko Akiyama, Sallie Lowenstein, Cedric Pollet, Diego Stocco, and Ursula von Rydingsvard.

Peabody Essex on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Connected, PEM's Blog

✭ If you're in Santa Fe, stop in at the Art House at the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation to view "Luminous Flux 2.0: New + Historic Works from the Digital Art Frontier". On view through next spring, the exhibition showcases the brilliant and innovative work being created by Craig Dorety, Sabrina Gschwandtner (her unique film quilts, which I've seen in person, are exceptional), Jean-Pierre Hebert, Desmond Paul Henry (1921-2004), Siebren Versteeg, Leo Villareal (an animated LED sequence), and others in the digital art field. The pieces on view are from the foundation's own collection and span more than 50 years, beginning in the 1960s.


Sabrina Gschwandtner, Camouflage II, 2015
16mm Film, Polyester Thread, Lithography Ink, and Lightbox
73" x 48.5"
Photographer: Tom Powel
Image Courtesty Shoshana Wayne Gallery

Browse the color-illustrated online exhibition catalogue (pdf). 

Thoma Foundation on FaceBook

Thursday, August 20, 2015

New Artist Watch Feature at Escape Into Life


I do not set out to make a picture of a tree; instead, I want
to explore the color, shape, and light of a tree. My intention
always is to make a painting. . . .
~ Noel Paine, Artist



Noel Paine, Bow Tree Autumn, 2007
Oil on Linen, 150 cm x 150 cm
Copyright © Noel Paine

PLEASE DO NOT COPY IMAGE WITHOUT PERMISSION

You'll find me today at Escape Into Life, where I'm very pleased to post a new Artist Watch feature on painter Noel Paine.

A Londoner by birth, Noel has lived in Italy and Austria. His East London and Italian paintings and, more recently, his Viennese woodland series have been exhibited in London and Rome. When he is not painting, Noel works as a freelance lecturer at the National Gallery in London.

Today's Artist Watch column presents eight of Noel's beautiful landscape paintings, his Artist Statement, a biography, and links to his Website and galleries.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Martyr Jonathan Daniels

It is a sweet moment to remember, even in the midst of sadness,
[but racism] is as alive today as it was then. . . 
[and] my soul cannot rest.
~ Ruby Sales on Being Saved by Daniels*

Tomorrow, August 20, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist and martyr Jonathan Daniels (March 20, 1939 - August 20, 1965). This past Sunday, my own small parish joined other Episcopal churches throughout the United States in remembering him (his feast day is August 14), sparking my curiosity about Daniels.

Having heard and responded to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's call to students and clergy in the North to join the march for voting rights in Selma, Alabama [see my post of August 5, 2015], Daniels decided to embrace the cause and struggle for civil rights in the state, living with a black family and sharing his life with theirs. He continued agitating for rights for African Americans, including putting an end to segregation in a local Episcopal church. Months after Selma, he participated in a protest demonstration in Ft. Deposit, Alabama, where on August 14, 1965, he and more than two dozen others were arrested and consigned to a deplorable county jail in Hayneville, in Lowndes County. (Daniels shared his cell with Kwame Ture a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998) of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.) Six days later, following an unexpected and unexplained release from jail, Daniels walked to a nearby store with 17-year-old African-American Ruby Sales, another rights worker and marcher, 19-year-old Joyce Bailey, and Roman Catholic priest Douglas Morrisroe, at 26 the same age as Daniels. The four, wanting only to buy something cold to quench their thirst, were met at the store entrance by Tom Coleman, a deputy sheriff who, cursing, raised his shotgun to Sales, who was in front of her colleagues, and ordered them off the property. In seconds, Coleman fired his gun, hitting Daniels and killing him instantly. Daniels, having attempted to save  Sales's life, had pushed her aside; she fell to the ground. Coleman fired again, shooting Morrisroe in the back; severely wounded, he survived. Sales managed to crawl to Bailey and both were able to get away. The details of the murder and what happened afterward — an all-white jury acquitted Coleman of manslaughter charges — are set out in the recent feature "Remembering Jonathan Daniels" from Episcopal News Service (August 13, 2015); the video below, describing that day in 1965, accompanies the article:


In 1966, Episcopal Theological School (now Episcopal Divinity School), the Cambridge, Massachusetts, seminary in which Daniels was enrolled, established a fellowship in Daniels's name. Decades later, in 1991, Daniels's seminary class of 1966 created a memorial lectureship to honor him, and The Episcopal Church added Daniels to its annual commemorations calendar. Subsequently, Daniels was officially designated a martyr of the church. Other acts that pay homage to Daniels's sacrifice and legacy are noted in the article cited above. (Also see the resources below.)

Daniels also is the subject of the excellent documentary Here Am I, Send Me: The Story of Jonathan Daniels, produced in 1999 by Lawrence Benaquist and William Sullivan. I've embedded below the 57:24-minute documentary, which I have watched.

Sadly, the social justice and other issues that Daniel confronted in 1965 and for which he gave his life remain with us today. We still have so much to learn and do.

Here Am I, Send Me: The Story of Jonathan Daniels from Episcopal Marketplace on Vimeo.

* After creating this post on August 16, my hometown newspaper The Washington Post published in its print edition the next morning Michael E. Ruane's interesting article "Black Civil Rights Activist Recalls White Ally Who Took a Shotgun Blast for Her". It is from this article that I took Sales's quote that appears above this post.

Some resources worth browsing are:

Commemoration 2015 (Year-Long Calendar of Events)


Jonathan Daniels at Washington National Cathedral (A bust of Daniels, by stone carver Sean Callahan, will become part of the Cathedral's Human Rights Porch when it is dedicated in October. Read "Carving of Activist Jonathan Myrick Daniels to Be Added to National Cathedral" at WAMU.)

"The Church Awakens: African-Americans and the Struggle for Justice": Leadership Gallery: Jonathan Daniels and The Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity

Virginia Military Institute Online Resources (Daniels was a 1961 graduate of VMI.)

"The Murder of Civil Rights Activist Jonathan Daniels, August 20, 1965", Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia



Annual Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage, The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama

Steve Gilbert, "Bridge to the Past: Many touched by Jonathan Daniels's Life and Legacy Return to Alabama to Remember", Sentinel Source, The Keene Sentinel, August 15, 2015

Charles W. Eagles, Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama (University of Alabama Press, 2000)

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Haiku (after Hiroshima)



morning's cloud ascends—
the summer snow burns and blinds
stars dim in black rain

*

fluttering obi sashes
white feathers gone colorless
shrill the evening sounds

*

torn paper lanterns
pine's open arms unneedled
August mountains shiver

© 2015 Maureen E. Doallas

Monday, August 17, 2015

Monday Muse: Writers' Apps

Whether you're an established writer or an aspiring author, you needn't restrict your tools of the trade to the traditional pen and paper. Below is a selection of apps, some designed especially for writers, including short story writers, novelists, poets, script writers, even freelancers, who don't mind venturing into technological waters. 

✦ You've heard of mind-mapping? There's an app for that: MindNode, which you can use to keep your plots and characters straight. The more ideas you have to jot down, the larger your virtual canvas can become. And don't worry about tracking relationships; this tool allows you to cross-connect. The app's available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, plus Apple Watch.

Story Tracker, available for Mac and PC, is an organizational tool that lets you track your submissions (they need not be limited to stories or articles), check submission statuses, see total income earned for any poem, story, or article, store details (e.g., word counts) and guidelines for the markets to which you submit, view your submission history, and much more. See a preview in iTunes.

Story Tracker on FaceBook

✦ If you use the inexpensive WordBook, a combination English dictionary and thesaurus from TranCreative Software, you'll have no excuse for incorrect usage, origin, or spelling. The app, which uses human voice pronunciations, is compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPad touch, and Apple Watch. See the iTunes preview.

✦ With GoodReader®, organizing, reading, editing, annotating, and even signing manuscripts converted to pdfs are possible on the go. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and promoted as a tool for teachers, among others, the app will even turn pages for you—a bonus for musicians trying to follow page after page of sheet music. View the app in iTunes.

GoodReader on FaceBook

✦ Designed for iPhone and iPad, Writer's Studio from miSoft facilitates the layout of your ebook's text, art, and graphics to which you may add narration or other sound, then share your work via YouTube, email .mov or pdf, or save to Photo Roll and display on Apple TV. See the iTunes preview.

✦ Dubbed "a keyboard with imagination", the "predictive" Creative Writer is, well, for writers who need a little creative help with their sentences, verses, or rhymes. The app's designers at Resonanca IT claim it has "hundreds of uses", from story- and poetry writing, to speech writing, to recipe writing, when you're trying to compose a little something that needs to go beyond your every-day vocabulary. The app, which recently was released for iPad and iPhone, offers context-sensitive, interactively generated sentences for your consideration. Below is a demonstration of how the app works, depending on your choice of desired vocabulary. View the app in iTunes.


Also see the Talking Robot demo.

Creative Writer on FaceBook

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Thought for the Day

It is hard to unlatch a day
from noun and story.
~ Jane Hirshfield
___________________________

Quoted from the poem "Runner" in Jane Hirshfield's The Beauty: Poems (Knopf, 2015). This collection contains some exquisite writing.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Saturday Short

Today's short is about the light bulb, described as a "magic object":

Friday, August 14, 2015

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Calling carving and sculpting his passion, Lundy Cupp of Kingston Springs, Tennessee, is no mere wood carver. Cupp's award-winning work is made-to-order in natural wood. Be sure to take a look at his carved books, pumpkin carvings, and walking sticks and canes.

Here's a profile of Cupp from Tennessee Crossroads:



You'll find additional videos at Cupp's Website.

(My thanks to the Fine Books blog for the introduction to Cupp's work.)

✦ A collaboration between Sundance Institute and Women in Film Los Angeles as well as allied organizations, the Female Filmmakers Initiative Resource Map is a database of opportunities and programs for U.S.-based women who are filmmakers. The site can be browsed by resource type, platforms, location, and artist type. Its objectives are to provide support to artists, improve women's access to film financing, raise awareness of research and public programs, and promote networking industry-wide.

Women in Film on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✦ More than 22,000 images of collection materials have been released by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin as part of Project REVEAL. Included are a First World War digital collection of posters, the Alfred Junge Film Collection, the center's Julia Margaret Cameron Photography Collection, the Frank Reaugh Art Collection (see exhibition noted below), and the Elliott Erwitt Master Print Collection. Read the news release about the images and their use and future initiatives to remove restrictions on other materials.

✦ The digital publication Rights & Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions (Indianapolis Museum of Art/American Alliance of Museums) is due out by September. Its format will allow the handbook to be updated as necessary to stay current with copyright trends and best practices. Its content represents a collaboration among professionals from libraries, museums, arts organizations, and law firms. Browse a preview of the handbook. Read the press release.


Handbook Cover

✦ Gifted fine art photographer Diane Epstein is a pioneer of fresco photography. Her images of cityscapes, statuary, monuments, and natural scenes are gorgeous. New York-born, Epstein lives in Rome. Her archival pigment prints, which are published in small editions, are carried by Susan Calloway Art in Washington, D.C.; Garald Bland in New York City; and Panopticon Gallery in Boston. See Epstein's beautiful installations at Stanford University and elsewhere.

Diane Epstein on FaceBook

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ At the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona at Tucson, you'll find "The Pure Products of America Go Crazy". On view through September 13, the exhibition, whose title derives from a 1923 William Carlos Williams poem, presents work by Lucas Blalock, Owen Kydd, and John Lehr. The center describes it as "a running dialogue between photographic images—past and present—that take as their subject the accumulated byproducts of an American way of life." Featured alongside the trio's images are works by Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Aaron Siskind, Edward Weston, and other well-known photographers.

Center for Creative Photography on FaceBook 


✭ In Houston, Texas, The Menil Collection continues through November 8 "Affecting Presence and the Pursuit of Delicious Experiences", comprising a selection of objects from Menil's holdings that highlight abstraction "as an artistic means used across time, place, and culture [to] shape human experiences." The work on view includes sculptures, paintings, and works on paper by such artists as Max Ernst, Constantin Brancusi, Sam Gilliam, Eduardo Chillida, and other 20th Century abstract artists, as well as ancient bronzes, a Mali headdress, a 19th Century feathered cloak, and objects used in indigenous performance or making visual references to the natural world.

The Menil Collection on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Time is the subject of "Local Time", continuing through September 13 at Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. Five Twin Cities-based artists—Pritika Chowdhry (Silent Waters), Sam Gould (The Radical Domestic), Alexandros Lindsay (an installation using water from the Mississippi River), Marcus Young (Keep This Forever Forgetting Here), and Morgan Thorson (Still Life)—address time as subject and practice through reference and metaphor and in physical, aesthetic, and philosophical terms. Descriptions of each of the artist's projects and images are found at the exhibition link above.


Weisman Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ August 4 marked the opening of "Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West" at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Drawn from the center's Reaugh collection and public and private collections in Texas, the exhibition presents more than 100 artworks by Reaugh (pronounced "Ray") (1860-1945) that showcase his approach to landscape painting and his mastery of pastels. In addition to being an artist, Reaugh was a naturalist, inventor, and educator.

Watch a video preview here or on YouTube. Read "Frank Reaugh Project Reveals New Details of the Artist's Process" and "Digitized Access to Frank Reaugh Art Collection Allows Viewers to Peer Beneath the Frames" at Cultural Compass, the center's blog. Also see "Reaugh Reviews Are In", a June 24, 2015, article about a documentary about Reaugh, Pastel Poet of the Texas Plains (a trailer is at the link).

A companion book, Windows on the West: The Art of Frank Reaugh (University of Texas Press/Harry Ransom Center) is available (see image below).


Cover Art

The exhibition continues through November 29.



Harry Ransom Center on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Notable Exhibition Abroad

✭ Australia's Tarrawarra Museum of Art opens "Pierre Huyghe: Tarrawarra International 2015" on August 29. Marking the first solo show in Australia by the contemporary French artist, the exhibition will offer a look at Huyghe's major early works as well as more recent projects, including A Journey that Wasn't (2005), Umwelt (2011), and A Way in Untilled (2012). Using film and other media to examine time and temporality, Huyghe will launch the exhibition with a journey through ancient fossilized amber, visit Antarctica in a search for a mythical creature, and conclude with a compost heap in a park. Spiders, black ants, and other living creatures will inhabit the galleries. According to the exhibition description, the artist's projects for the museum may be seen "as a series of temporal excavations, highlighting art's potential to generate science-fictional time zones and develop alternate chronological platforms." The show will be on view through November 22.

Huyghe was tapped by The Metropolitan Museum of Art for a Roof Garden Commission. His Met installation is on view now through November 1. A catalogue is available.


Tarrawarra Museum on FaceBookTwitter, and Vimeo