Tag Archives: Blue Church Art

Decisions, revisions

Currently, I’m deeply immersed reading two very different new books of poetry. First, the late Harry Humes’ new and selected, Going across the Water, is out from Ohio University Press–a lovely, large collection that includes some biography and commentary, as well as some never-collected new poems (Harry’s former student and long-time friend, Daniel Donaghy, edited and co-compiled the selections). Some of the poems are a re-read for me, as I have most of Harry’s books in my own library, but they’re poems well worth many reads. And the work I’m less familiar with is rewarding. He was so good. The other collection I’m perusing at present is Daisy Fried’s brand-new My Destination, which could hardly be less like Humes’ in terms of topic, content, style, you-name-it. Katie Peterson writes that Fried’s book succeeds because of “the poet’s unapologetic curiosity about experience, and her remorseless hunger for the right words to know her moment…” I’ll concur, though I am only part-way through the collection. It’s fascinating to find myself enjoying the work of two such dissimilar writers at the same time; and I find they do have “things to say to one another,” at least through me as intermediary. Strongly evocative and well-observed poems in both cases.

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And today I spent awhile obtaining a more complete idea of how much time and effort I’ll have to put in to my own artist book endeavor. So many new things I’ll have to learn to do, and how I’ll have to be much more finicky and careful than I usually am, if I want this book to be worthy of its story. Any project of value is liable to take energy, time, resources of one kind or another, and will require at least some revision, however. That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it.

I have the layout almost correct: a few minor revisions should do it. The choice of paper? Check, except for the cover stock, still deciding on that. Of course, I have to do some math to figure out how much paper to buy and then get it cut to size. Do-able. Not a huge challenge, right? I spent an hour with my knowledgeable “consultant,” MaryAnn Miller, deciding on a cover image and learning what the steps of actually manufacturing (ha) a book will be. I was afraid my amateurish artwork wouldn’t be appropriate; but she thought that it might be best with something not so polished, something I could use without getting copyright for, something a bit–er–primitive. I experimented with linocut, something I haven’t done in decades, and with watercolor (in my class at Blue Church Arts), based upon a photograph I’d researched. It’s one of the craggy, cold mountains in western North Korea not far from the Yalu River.

I’ve no way of knowing whether this particular peak is near where prisoner Camp 5 was located, but it gave off the kind of forbidding vibes I was looking for. Trying to capture it with my rusty and limited skills kept me occupied for many hours.

This was exciting, working with something that isn’t words, wrestling with the materials, trying several techniques. Deciding, revising!

So, the process continues.

Febru-dreary

I try not to hate on February. The days do get longer; there’s often some early blooming or greening, a little more birdsong in the mornings, days that aren’t too miserable for walking. But. A lingering malaise of the spirit often natters about in the background of my days. This year, I am trying an infusion of art.

I’ve enrolled in an art class–visual art–drawing, sketching, experimenting with different media such as gouache, watercolors, pastels, colored pencils. I just want something to do with my eyes and hands that isn’t reading, writing, photography, social media/texting. I think of it as an exploration. The workshop I took with Anita Skeen and Cindy Morgan Hunter in October made me realize that using other forms of art might feel good to me, body and soul. This year, starting now (February), I’m taking an 8-week art class with Helene Parnell of Blue Church Art. We shall see how that goes. I am not doing this to create a good “product” but to enjoy the less-intellectual, more freeing aspects of the art as process…the way I did with the collages and book-making in the New Mexico workshop.

In that frame of mind, I accompanied my Best Beloved to Philadelphia to visit PAFA, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. It’s something I have been meaning to do for, literally, decades–even though we are often in the city, somehow I haven’t gone back to PAFA which I recall from a visit (in my teens!) and kept meaning to see again.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Here’s irony! The historic 1805 building I recall so well is closed for renovation until next year, and many of the paintings are “traveling,” i.e., on loan to other museums, through a show called “Making American Artists.” Most recently, to Albuquerque NM, though the exhibit closed there in September. The Academy, however, has employed the large, windowed, modern gallery spaces across the alley from the old building as temporary museum space and curated some fascinating exhibits for viewing and learning from. We enjoyed the Philadelphia-themed historical and cultural arts, crafts, and objects that came from the Atwater-Kent Museum. The mix of mostly-20th c. American paintings, prints, and sculptures in the upstairs galleries showed us how little we know about more contemporary US artists (outside of the super-famous ones like Hopper, Hockney, de Kooning etc). The plaster casts of famous European sculptures which students used–and still use–for drawing practice are now located in the lower level.

That brought back memories of when I was a teenager in love with art. I will have to go back once the renovations are done, because I remember the building as I visited it in the early 1970s, a strangely decorative place where students could be found sketching one of Michelangelo’s carvings or painstakingly drafting the composition of a painting by Winslow Homer. How I longed to be one of those art students!

PAFA interior, pre-renovations

That desire has been much altered by time, but my love of “the visual and plastic arts” stays with me. I enjoy writing ekphrastic poems; perhaps my foray into making artwork will energize me these last weeks of February and keep me going into spring.