whew

The rush to get this show together is over.  The dust has settled after the Riverside Artists Gallery Friday night opening so I finally had a chance to take a few pictures of the Poetry in Art show. Some a little skewed or fuzzy so come in to see in person if you can.  I do not have the titles the artists gave their artwork at home with me, but the poems are listed that the artwork is based on.  In the gallery the poems are displayed nearby the artwork unless the poem was chosen by more than one artist, as only one copy of each poem was printed.
The room was filled for the poetry reading, with people standing around the edges.  The reading was impressive.  I've never been to one before and many of the other artists also had not.  We agreed the poems came to life in a much different way when the poets read them.  I was going to include some excerpts from the poems here, but it was too hard to choose.  There are so many great lines.
 

Above is Geoff Schenkel's work.  Poem is "Capernaum" by Peg Clifford

 

Above painting by Beth Nash is based on the poem, "Remotely a Red Star, Our Most Fiery God" by Susan Sheppard.

 

Jen McKenna's work is at upper right.  Poem:  "The Threshold of Can We  Do This Now" by Christina Veladota.

To its left is a photograph by Robin Brandjes based on Becca Lachman's poem, "Preparation".  Below is same photograph, unfortunately with a lot of reflection.

 

 

Virginia Killian's painting is at top.  Poem is "Spring Jazz" by Martha McGovern.

Below it to the left is a fabric piece by Anna Prince inspired by Chris Friend's poem, "Owls".  Center bottom is a gourd carved and painted by Cathy Norosky.  Poem is "Learning Owl" by Sally Pebler Hannan.  To the right is a glass piece by Bonnie Proudfoot .  Poem:  "A Brief Novel with No Interior Doors"  by Christina Veladota.

 

 I wish I had another photo of this one- Jennifer Lasko's ceramic and metal piece.  I took more pictures but somehow they were all blurred, not that this one is great.  The poem is "In Threes" by Jean Mikhail. 

 

Painting by Thaddeus Brejwo.  Poem is "Preparation by Becca Lachman".  And yes, it was also chosen by another artist, photographer, Robin Brandjes, shown above.  Quite a different take on the poem.

 

 A jewelry piece by Jen McKenna inspired by Lynne Bodry Shuman's poem, "Autumn Morning".

 

Painting by Todd Morrow.  Poem:  "She sat beautifully in chairs" by Wendy McVicker.

 

There are many more great works of art in this exhibit.  If I were a better photographer I'd include all of them.  I was stymied by those glass covered paintings and photographs! 

 

 

 

Poetry in Art exhibit

It all started after reading a post on Peter's Pottery blog  in September of 2013 about an exhibit featuring artwork which was inspired by poetry.  I thought this was a great idea and the other members of  Riverside Artists Gallery agreed.  This may not be new to a lot of people, in fact I think some of the writers involved in this event have participated in similar projects.  It was new to me though, and, not being acquainted with the world of writers, it took reading a New Zealand potter's blog for me to learn of it.

The picture of the poster for the event does not show the names very well, so below is a list of the poets and artists who are participating in Poetry in Art.  There have been a couple of changes since the poster was printed, in case you have sharp eyes and have actually spotted the difference.

Writers:  Wilma Acree, Jann Adams, Peg Clifford, Chris Friend, Sally Pebler Hannan, Becca J.R. Lachman, Martha McGovern, Wendy McVicker, Jean Mikhail, Nellie Hufford Ruby, Lynne Bodry Shuman, Susan Sheppard, Scott H. Urban, Christina Veladota, Kristine Williams.

 

Artists:  Beth Nash, Scott Bookman, Robin Brandjes, Thaddeus Brejwo, Betsy Cook, Debbie Dick, Ginny Killian, Jennifer Lasko, George Longfellow, Jen McKenna, Akemi Matsumoto, Todd Morrow, Gwen Noe, Cathy Norosky, Anna Prince, Bonnie Proudfoot, Lynda Rhodes, Melissa Rohrer, Jane Ryals, Geoff Shenkel.

Writers and artists are from the Athens, Ohio, Marietta, Ohio and Parkersburg, West Virginia area.

This is my entry, based on the poem by Wilma Acree, "If You're a Water Sign".  It's going to be a busy week, but I hope to get of few pictures of the other artwork in the show. 

here today, gone tomorrow

I am in the process of getting a show together for Riverside Artists Gallery in Marietta.  More on that later.  Let's just say when it hasn't been time consuming it's been mind consuming.  My own work has been neglected.  Etsy?  What Etsy?  But then I received a convo from a potential customer about pumpkins she had seen listed in my sold orders and would I be posting more this year?  That was motivation enough to dust off the photo booth and get to it.  They were listed and gone in less than 24 hours. This is one of the photos I posted showing three out of the four pumpkins I listed on Etsy:

 

That customer purchased three pumpkins.  But before she did a customer who purchased a pumpkin from me last year bought another one to keep it company. This is what she wrote to me later on:

 I just checked your shop and see that all the pumpkins have already sold!! I have been checking regularly hoping that you would have more this year and was thrilled to see them listed yesterday. You may not be having luck with shipping labels, but you certainly know how to make a pumpkin!!

That makes the whole photographing, editing, listing process worth it. Here's the explanation about the shipping label comment:

I had to contact her to apologize that she may have been sent more than one shipping notification.  For some reason I cannot print out online shipping labels either from Etsy or direct from USPS.  But once they're up there on the screen I've paid for it and the customer is notified that it's a done deal. So I applied for refunds then went to the post office and got it done the old fashioned way.

 

I just unloaded the kiln today.  There are more pumpkins, but I'm afraid these are going to have to stay local.  We'll see after next week.