jeudi 31 mars 2016

'Out in the Open' at the Chatham-Kent Museum

OUT IN THE OPEN
(On the occasion of the Chatham-Kent Museum’s storage exhibition, March 31, 2016)

My African home is far from these walls of chrome, but I wait
and watch.
Nurse comes with her white gloves,
gently removing four jewelled hair clips
from their box of cedar velveteen,
laying them smoothly on a bed of porous foam.

I am out in the open now
witnessing Charon’s reckoning.
Each is given their number,
identified, classified, categorized,
but on my tome ledge
they pass by. Odd mastodon teeth
chatter in their glass;
my only companion is nested in her
casket of carefully woven linen,
far from river reeds of old;

I’m out of the closet
Guitars, lap harps, megaphones that once
sang in a cacophony of light
now stored,
but in a safe space
breathing and live.

I’m out of the dark
time pieces, milk bottles, my Bon Ami and a cyclops
eye
authenticized and imparting pointed purpose
to the particulars in our lives.
Vein-thin flags, garments and
balled gowns from a fading familiar past
yet wait still and silent
for

your eyes to give us voice.

jeudi 17 mars 2016

Thames Art Gallery's 'Holly King Project'

This May-June, 2016, the Thames Art Gallery, Chatham-Kent, will host the Holly King Project, an exhibition evolving out of the one-day creation event where artists, photographers, writers and musicians come together to create a single installation. Here are two of those creations:


Where Rhinos Fly
(Artist Leonard Jubenville and Photographer Reagan Smolders)

He chooses trees first
orange for green; white for blue.
Play
where the earth is sky,
and ground an Elysian azure .

She selects screens,
purposefully disturbing
his inert, careful control.
Play
where birds walk the earth
and rhinos take flight.

He threads a small string
through the scene, rewinding each
branch, rekindling the absurd.
Play
where chimpanzees chatter
in schooners of Pi.

She adds avocado filters,
aligns the scene through her
two-dimensions and
his cellular sight,
Play
where dark is illuminated,
light pushes forth a
cast to worlds yet lived.





[photo: Co-curator Sonya Blazek]



Juanita’s Babies
(Artist Laurie Langford and Photographer Mike Blazek)

Crushed, ice-
opaque cellophane,
sections of triangle light
chipped away,
brushed to reveal
soft pink limbs and
black nails pouring
forth from the Rive
Glacé.
Whether Juanita’s babies,
death camp, Van Winkle sleep
or Cenozoic drift,
they sleep,

they sleep.