O&S NOVEMBER 2009
Steven DaLuz Josie Jones Toni Simon Eric Cator Jonny Andvik Maya Pindyck Jess Burnquist
Mark Neely Michele Ramirez Karen Head John Wentz David Moolten Duane Keiser Jason Waskey
VOLUME 2 ISSUE 7
Grace Cavalieri interviews
Sandra Beasley
and more inside!
on the cover
Steven
52
DaLuz
Landscape oil on metal leaf on wood 48” x 48”
Amberscape oil on metal leaf on wood 48” x 48”
CON poets and artists 5 12 15 20 22 23 20 32 38 40 46 50 60 62 65 66 71 78 83
Laura den Hertog Josie Jones Toni Simon Paul Watsky Ernie Wormwood Eric Cator Melinda Palacio Jonny Andvik Jory M. Mickelson Karen Yee Maya Pindyck Margaret Gilbert Cristina J. Baptista Sandra Beasley Jess Burnquist Mark Neely Michele Ramirez Karen Head Justin Vicari
TENTS
Publisher / E.I.C. DIDI MENENDEZ Creative Director I. M. BESS
84 86 92 94 96 103 104 106 114
Christine Klocek-Lim John Wentz David Moolten Samantha Thornhill Jason Waskey Renata McCormish Laura Sobbott Ross Duane Keiser Steven Breyak
Poetry Editors DAVID KRUMP WILLIAM STOBB Reviewer GRADY HARP Interviewer GRACE CAVALIERI
poetry and art reviews
47 Jason Kowalski 68 Jee Leong Koh 80 Ray Turner interview
63 Sandra Beasley
Copyright reverts back to contributors upon publication. O&S: PoetsandArtists.com requests first publisher rights of poems published in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc. The full issue is available for viewing online from the Poets and Artists website. Print copies available at www.amazon.com. For submission guidelines and further information, please stop by www.poetsandartists.com
Laura
den Hertog lauradenhertog.com
Laura den Hertog entered the fine art scene in 2004 and quickly captured the attention of galleries in the US, Canada and the UK. As a member the International Guild of Realism she is currently included in The New Reality: The Frontier of Realism in the 21st Century, a three yearlong Museum tour in the USA. Her work has graced book and magazine covers and she has appeared in a feature interview on PBS television. She has participated in juried shows all over the USA. Her recent addition of landscape paintings has brought further acclaim and her work can be found in galleries across North America. Born to Dutch parents and raised in Canada, den Hertog’s cultural background is rich in the arts. She credits a love for the masters to early exposure to the 17th C. painters in Dutch museums. Trained as a commercial artist at Montreal’s Dawson College, the artist spent her early years working in illustration and design. With a strong desire to create art that reflected her own sensibilities, she left behind the commercial world to study traditional, old master painting techniques. The artist currently lives and works in a small town north of Montreal.
Encircle oil on canvas 16” x 20”
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“I walk the edge between two worlds: solid reality and the ethereal. I use classical techniques to express the here and now, blending the two paths together into the fabric of a painting.� 8
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LAURA DEN HERTOG
Ascend oil on canvas 24” x 36”
Love Song oil on canvas 24” x 48”
Q&A
Laura den Hertog
What is your primary medium and your secret weapon? Over the years I have experimented with all the mediums, but my work really took off when I finally settled into oils. Although I studied commercial art in college, I have no formal training in painting techniques. This is my secret weapon, as I learned classical technique from reading books, looking at the masters and with lots of trial and error. I am not chained to any one way of painting. Being self-taught has given me a freedom to be experimental, to blend classical technique with rule breaking oddities. It suits my personality, part traditional and part independent free spirit. Do you have a ritual you must do first before you place your hand on your creation? My best paintings are conceived and painted in my mind before I put brush to canvas. So I can often be found staring off into space in front of an empty easel. The real work is internal, done in stillness.
whole. I use an extremely limited palette when painting, 2 colors blended plus white, with the occasional addition of a third to highlight a certain area. This almost monochromatic palette allows me to express the land and sky as a whole while the color itself whispers emotion and tone. Do you base your work on photo, models, or out of the blue? It’s really all of the above. Inspiration often strikes out of the blue where my figure work is concerned, while landscapes are always based on an area near my home or a place I have visited. I never leave home without my camera so that I can record and collect fleeting skyscapes and varying landscapes. The recent acquisition of an old VW camper bus allows me to travel with all my gear and stay in far flung places. At times the models come along for the ride to pose for me while I make sketches and take photos for reference. Of course I am sometimes working with models in my studio as well. What are you conquering next?
Once I begin painting I often use music as a catalyst to action. I crank it up loud and play music that gets me moving, often pop music, the stuffyou simply have to dance to...from the 50’s on up to now. As I settle into the work the music changes and I will choose sounds that move me emotionally, uplifting and expanding and keeping the mundane world at bay. When I get down to the detail that requires a certain intensity and focus, silence descends again. For me the painting process is not of this world, it’s a meditation, a walk in exalted space and time. Music helps facilitate the transition between worlds. How do you bring emotion across to a flat surface? If I am working on a figure painting the emotion is often expressed in the body language. I like to keep it subtle, the small clues in hands, tension in the shoulders, a tilt of the head. Our bodies speak long before we open our mouths. All artists are observers; we perceive keenly and notice the small clues within the big picture, so my job as an artist is to interpret what I see. When painting a landscape I rely much more on color to evoke emotion. Normally we experience the landscape as a series of separate and distinct entities, sky and land, trees and field. Our attention shifts from one thing to another. I see the land as a whole, a vista that moves me in it’s harmony, ever changing yet continuously united, the elements coexisting to form the
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I have a very definite objective in mind. I have been playing around the edges of my personal vision, leaving small clues about the underlying essence that binds all life together. I will be bringing this concept to the forefront of my work, changing both the figurative and landscape paintings. The beginning of this journey can be seen in my recent painting “Love Song” where I painted the model’s energy being transformed by the music she is listening to. I am still experimenting with the visual language I will use to portray what I see and feel, but I love the idea of mixing up perfectly rendered areas with more abstract flowing sections. What do you do between creations besides the normal functions of life? I love spending time in my garden where I can plant seeds and watch things grow and evolve. The fresh produce allows me to indulge my other passion...cooking. As far as I am concerned cooking is art too and experimenting with flavors and exploring different cuisines means never being bored with what’s on your plate. Gatherings are all about the food, and even on ordinary days the cooking is a creation (to the delight of my family and friends). My garden also provides me with the base ingredients for my herbalist leanings, not to mention getting me out of the studio for a while. I concoct all sorts of items from herbs: teas and healing salves and rubs, even my own face cream.
LAURA DEN HERTOG
Extravagance oil on canvas 36” x 24”
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Josie Jones
was born and raised on a farm in Fort Collins, Colorado. She received a BA in Spanish and a minor in English from Northern Arizona University. After living for a short time in Spain and Nicaragua, she earned a MFA in Bilingual Creative Writing at the University of Texas El Paso. Recently, Josie has worked at an alternative high school in Anthony, New Mexico as an English teacher. Her poems have appeared in Border Senses and Rio Grande Review. Currently, Josie lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her husband and dog. She plans to continue teaching at alternative high schools and writing poems in the desert.
God is Building My Mother a Pond Because No One Else Will At least this is what she tells me. Our big red house: a labyrinth of empty rooms, tunnels, and ladders. The pond God builds her rests in the make-shift baseball field she sees through hoards of vines from the kitchen window. It had the biggest bullfrog I have ever seen. His majesty serenaded us in a singsong ribbit . He died last summer, decomposed into the brackish God pond. This fall, the pond morphed into a sinkhole tunneling its crablike legs beneath our now submerging home. We know no mortal man can build this pond. Only mother’s methodical prayers as she nudges a dirt clod into the abyss. I fear, if things continue, our house will one day be an island surviving the pond God built mother and that perhaps mother will be last frog.
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Family History I was born with a yellow head. My mother sold me to the Indians. My uncle stole me back and left me with the three legged cat that never left my side. On the day my uncle died my mother saw a skunk. The cat already dead. And sent me to the bald grocer to buy flowers. My father built fences around my mother at their wedding. On the day his mother died he offered to take the skunk under the house and left with the three-fingered secretary. My brothers and I hung kittens in our windows and bought more flowers for our balding mother.
My Brother is Burning He says he is playing with fire when I call him on the way home from work. Literally? I ask. I got an old barrel from this job site. It looked like a good place to burn things, he says. What are you burning? I ask wanting also to be burning something, anything Receipts he says, old check books, papers from the office and some garbage from the kitchen, stuff I won’t use anymore. I can see him through the phone, standing alone in the driveway, leather boots planted deep in damp pea-gravel out front of the blue-tin barn. Standing before divorces, cold stews, strangers’ houses, dead horses, piles of worn tires, lost money, and that old brown ford truck the dent in the passenger side door. He is smoking a series of camel lights underneath the cloud’s drunken rumbles and watching the ashes drift asunder, lifting through the neck and stomach and ears of the burn barrel out the top of its thinning blonde hair.
JOSIE JONES
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In Praise of Captain Cook Since sunrise we are only certain there is no land to the south, led to believe by such westerly swells in diving birds with necks like swans hung beak-down in our sails. For at these latitudes fog is endemic, we must take on ice for fresh water. In this excessive cold I clothe my crew in a fearnought jacket, a pair of trousers. Together, with a glass of brandy for breakfast, we bow our heads to tabular ice fields and offer fistfuls of blue petrel feathers once inside the Antarctic.
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of In Praise of Captain Cook
Captain Cook’s voyage to verify the existence of the mythical southern continent, Antarctica, was a perilous search for a place that was correctly presumed to be uninhabitable. The prize was worth little to no economic gain, yet it became a worldwide obsession leading adventurous men to the bottom of the earth. In the end, for Captain Cook, the expedition failed as these things sometimes do, but it does not mean we quit searching. I began this poem fascinated by the story of these men and the language of their journals. The poem was also influenced by a personal expedition to discover solid ground in a relationship. I was hoping to find out if the I-You of myth existed. In writing this poem, my obsession and Captain Cook’s sifted together. I was able to combine the language and landscape of early Antarctic discovery with my own search for “land”. JOSIE JONES
Sebek Gouache on paper 7 1/2”H X 4”W
Toni
Simon
the-otolith.blogspot.com/2008/04/toni-simon.html
Toni Simon was born in NYC
and grew up a few blocks from
the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she spent her spare hours. Her father was a jazz musician and artist and her mother was a designer of interiors and a sculptor. Toni lives in Brooklyn with her husband, poet and psychoanalyst Nick Piombino. She received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, has exhibited at the Drawing Center and at the AIR Gallery in NYC and has worked as a textile designer. She has also contributed covers and illustrations to many poetry books and been featured in magazines including Mipoesis, Otoliths, Green Integer Review, HOW2, Avec, Central Park and Generator. Recently she collaborated on Contradicta, a book of aphorisms by Nick Piombino with over 80 illustrations inspired by the 19th century French caricaturist Grandville which is due out any day from Green Integer.
Pegasus Gouache on paper 6 1/2�H X 7�W
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“As an artist I’m a restless time traveler traveling through different art historical periods and taking that art as my subject matter. I like to go so far back in time that the meaning is obscured, then move forward to early modernism and back around again to 19th century illustration. My focus is constantly shifting.”
Thoth Gouache on paper 6”H X 3 3/4”W
TONI SIMON
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Q&A
Toni Simon
Do you base your work on photo, models, or out of the blue? These are based on Egyptian tomb paintings and figurines. I do a lot of research then reinterpret. How do you bring emotion across to a flat surface?
Bastet Gouache on paper 9 1/4”H X 4 1/2”W
I find balance and equilibrium in painting variations on squares, circles and other geometric shapes. It’s a meditative process. Through working as a textile designer I became interested in the Bauhaus, the work of Anni Albers, and many of the constructivists with a spiritual dimension, like Mondrian. I also became fascinated with geometric design throughout the ancient world, and particularly on Egyptian mummy cases. Do you ever read poetry? I’ve included my sculpture of Pegasus, the symbol of poetic inspiration. I feel very fortunate to know so many incredible poets here in NYC and to have heard them read their work throughout the many years of living with my husband, poet Nick Piombino. Their work has been a source of inspiration for me and led me in many new directions. Nick’s writing in particular, his perceptions on the nature of time and time travel have influenced my work. In poetry
as in visual art I don’t like anything too literal. Recently I helped Nick edit the poetry magazines OCHO 14 and OCHO 21 and illustrated Original Presence by poet Laynie Browne. I’d like to include a quote about my work from one of my favorite poets, Elaine Equi: “What cool hybrids! They seem part Egyptian, part Native American shamanic, part avant-garde art. Definitely the product of your unique intersection of interests and incarnations.” Explain your process. Working 3-dimensionally is a departure into new territory for me. The inspiration for this series of paper sculptures came from the photos of Freud’s desk covered with ancient deities. Apparently Freud wasn’t too concerned with their authenticity (many were fakes) as much as with their symbolism, and as a bridge to the unconscious. It was Nick’s birthday and since I could never afford to buy Nick the priceless original statues of Egyptian deities I started to recreate them in paper. Having always worked two dimensionally, it’s very challenging to figure out all the logistics and gluing. I enjoy the way in which their personalities emerge, almost independently, like magic. It’s also a chance to add some humor, something I prize generally in art.
Anubis Gouache on paper 9 1/2”H X 4”W
Paul
Watsky grew up in New York City
and began
writing poetry during high school. He now lives and works in San Francisco, where he earns his living as a Jungian analyst, specializing in issues concerning
the
creative
process.
He
has
published two chapbooks, More Questions Than Answers (tel-let 2001) and Sea Side (tel-let 2003), cotranslated
with
Emiko
Miyashita
Santoka
(Tokyo, PIE Books, 2006), and has poems in various journals, including Poetry Flash, The
If I Were A House and could choose my own address I’d settle these joists in Topanga Canyon. For all I know the place teems with termites, fire-hazards, earthquakes, and industry assholes. Who cares. I could be dumpy as a salt box, weird as an igloo, allergenic as a horsehair yurt and you’d still drive miles to pay me tribute: the Topanga yurt, so exotic one can’t help but sneeze.
Cream City Review, onthebus, The Asheville Poetry
Review,
as
well
as
forthcoming
in
Confrontation, The Pinch, and The Alabama Review. He is seeking a publisher for his poetry book manuscript Telling The Difference.
Thank You for Asking. It Shows gracious condescension to an underling. It shows you work for state security. It shows you noticed the blood in my stool. It shows sometimes you force yourself to act polite. Shows you realize what can hide in toilets. Shows your desire to get loaded. Also that you appreciate the consequences of unwanted pregnancy. 20
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The Closest to children of their own were me (nephew) and a stunted grapefruit he’d raised from his breakfast leftovers, nurtured with post-drink ice cubes and whatever sun found its way to their only window sill, where my spindly two-foot-tall elder sib absorbed opera and football oozing across the seat of Uncle Jay’s armchair from a plastic-cased Zenith radio. Their entire domicile: one stuffed room— large bed, repro colonial tallboy, expanding table, etceteras and kitchenette—which they managed on my aunt’s buyer’s pay from Gimbels, while tracking the upward creep of Uncle’s margined brokerage account until, just shy of a mythic million, it collapsed. Fifteen years younger, quiet and refined, she wanted kids but listened to him and tolerated the abortions, while continuing to extract tiptop entrees and desserts from a miniature stove. Everything transpired in an upscale ocean-linerish hotel, where dozens of deck chairs on its roof commanded the river’s great gray palisades—plus a cage for hitting golf balls. Though he never endowed me with an authoritative swing, I could balance, thanks to him, on a bike. After my potted brother took a twelve-story dive down the light well, I was promoted to #1 in Jay’s unreflective mind and Clara’s seething heart. PAUL WATSKY
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Ernie
Wormwood
is a poet and transformative mediator. Recently, she has published in Rhino, the Naugatuck River Review, and the Broadkill Review. You can hear her read on Grace Cavalieri’s Library of Congress webcast at www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html. New work will be in Gargoyle and the Ars Poetica Anthology. She is currently in the Jenny McKean Moore GWU community workshop with the poet Ed Skoog. See her blog at www.erniewormwood.blogspot.com
For Allen at the Southampton Writers Conference Oh, Moon, where are you flying to? Someone here said motherfucker on the radio. For the poet, Chuck Taylor All Stars are more than a pair of shoes, They guard against Mother Goose and Nike. Allen Ginsberg howls over this motherfucker business With Coleridge and Wordsworth, whose meeting was the luckiest in literary annals. Sam gave Bill a mind and Bill gave Sam a will. But only Allen imagined someone saying motherfucker on the radio. He knows the real culprit in our sedentary society could be Gorilla Glue, The toughest glue on the Planet Earth and he goes around saying: Why are you addicted to this, man? I have not said all. Some of what I said is true. Oh, Moon, come back to pick me up if it rains!
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of For Allen
This poem was begun at the Southampton Writer’s Conference in 2003 where I was a workshop participant who had been awarded a full scholarship in the land of literary luminaries such as Marie Howe, Frank McCourt, Billy Collins, Roger Rosenblatt. Such generosity and recognition had just about paralyzed me. I could hardly breathe. So I resorted to the poet’s insurance policy, one’s journal of bits and pieces, and came up with this sonnet for Allen Ginsberg (in terms of lines, at least) from things that were in the news, Chuck Taylors being subsumed by Nike, the Gorilla Glue ad, and a line I had written down years before about the magnificent collision that resulted from the meeting of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Allen Ginsberg is always in the back of my mind. HOWL not being read on the radio. One of the most amazing poems ever not allowed to be read on the radio. I’m also a lawyer poet so that’s always on my mind—free speech, what’s obscene. Another inner sidebar running is who’s hanging out in heaven now that this one or that one has gone over to the other side. And then there’s the moon, always gibbousing in my poet consciousness. In another poem called The Woman Who Thought She Was the Moon, I wrote the line “…lost all her hair.” The next year, I lost all my hair. So I’m a true believer in the power of the poem and how you mix it. The eternal surprise of the illuminatively ingrediented poem. Finally and suddenly, in the summer of 2003 at the Southampton Writer’s Conference (now the Stony Brook Southampton Writer’s Conference) someone said motherfucker on Bob Reeves’ radio show. And that brought me “For Allen.”
ERNIE WORMWOOD
Eric
Cator www.ericcator.com
The Sound Recordist acrylic on wood panel 30” x 24”
After spending his college years bouncing between the dark room, the wood shop, and the printmaking lab, Eric graduated with a fine art diploma and a realization that he no longer had access to any of these facilities, so he taught himself to paint. A decade of
Q&A
Eric Cator
Do you feel you have already found your “style” or are you still processing? While my paintings have evolved over the years into a recognizable style, I am always making small shifts in my approach and techniques, so that my “style” remains a fluid and changing thing over time. I hope that continues for the rest of my painting career. How do you feel about formal training? I don’t believe formal training is necessary to create great art, but I personally found school to be a great place to meet people who share similar interests and also want to spend excessive amounts of time creating art. That can be a great thing when you are young and occasionally unsure of your path. School can also be a great place to discover mediums and techniques that you might never have found on your own.
painting later and he has participated in dozens of gallery shows, been interviewed on radio programs, collected in private and corporate collections internationally, and has been featured in a half-hour biopic on Bravo television, all while living and working in Toronto, Canada.
Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? The figures in my “Standing” paintings are based on photographs, so I spend a great deal of time preparing images before I paint. Once I have a concrete idea in my head, I wander the city with my camera looking for appropriate subjects. This process used to make me very nervous, but over the years I have discovered that strangers, in general, are rarely opposed to me taking their photograph, and I have had many great conversations with people interested in my work. It is now one of my favorite parts of the process. How has the current economic situation affected your art? Much more than the current global economic situation, my personal economic status as a new father has affected my attitude towards my art in a surprising and welcome way. Knowing that my son is witnessing my life and taking lessons away from my actions, I feel doubly inspired to pursue my passions in the hope that he will choose to do the same for himself as he grows up. How do you know when a work is done? Once I decide that a painting is finished I walk away from it, and leave it alone for a little while. If I can enter the studio several days later, spend some time with it, and not feel compelled to add, subtract, or alter the image, I know I’m really done.
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ERIC CATOR
“Like a good episode of “The Twilight Zone” my “Standing” series of paintings depict ordinary people in extraordinary situations. With a subtle sense of the unreal, I strive to create images that are at times playful, and at others disquieting, but always captivating.”
Open Manhole acrylic on wood panel 12” x 12” ERIC CATOR
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Long Halloween acrylic on wood panel 30” x 30”
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ERIC CATOR
Crossing Guard Convention acrylic on wood panel 42” x 48”
ERIC CATOR
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Bullseye acrylic on wood panel 30� x 24�
INTROSPECTIVE:
The painting process of Bullseye
The idea for this painting initially came as a quick sketch in my notebook, but took many months to refine. Along the way the composition saw drastic changes, including the sky being littered with jet fighters, the officer running madly from the centre of the bullseye, and the horizon erupting in violent thunderstorms. Thankfully I abandoned all of these ideas and settled instead on a scene filled with subtle disquiet. This is a very good example of why I decided a long time ago to sit on ideas for a while before turning them into paintings; they generally get much better when given time to evolve.
ERIC CATOR
Melinda Palacio www.melindapalacio.com
is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow. She lives in Santa Barbara where she is an editor at Ink Byte Magazine. Her chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won the Sense of Place contest by Kulupi Press and will be published Spring 2010.
Boyhood Bop: B Train The story is simple A bored boy playing by the railroad tracks doing what inner city boys do best drive their mothers batty hang by the railroad sin sifts softly chug-a-chug-a-choochoo-chug-a-chug-a-choo Manny found a black man’s toes by the railroad he dumped his marbles out of his treasured jar and tucked the toes away Bury these toes, he thought but couldn’t resist telling Tony and Oscar, scaring his sister Blanca who ran to mama who said it was a sin to keep a man’s body parts sin sifts softly chug-a-chug-a-choochoo-chug-a-chug-a-choo A boy too curious boxed in the ears mama’s regret, the paddle wins again He never picked up a spray can to tag a wall Can’t say the same for Oscar, Tony, or the rest A Black man’s toes a blessing taught Manny a lesson sin sifts softly chug-a-chug-a-choochoo-chug-a-chug-a-choo
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Water Mark A river runs beneath my house white foam, greenblue mud, a Eureka stream of gold Water so urgent, rushing like a stampede, catching tomorrow’s California claim jumpers. Wild west talk of black bears and banana bread. Don’t leave your doggy biscuits in the car. The river rattles innocence and much to my surprise my heart aches for the child I once was, before broken levees and the floodgates of hell descending upon my town. Water rising trumpeting untoward Mississippi seeping into the space of sighs pray for a rooftop rescue. In my borrowed house in Truckee, a scene so serene broken by the rolling river below. Woken up by a sleepless river wailing a lullaby. When sleep finds a crook in the neck of dreams, I hear water, bathtub water. Water poured into a porcelain tub, to bathe we girls. A game invented by grownups for three bored girls in a tub. A sweet olive tree on Tchoupitoulas Street scrapes against the bathroom window. Two sisters plus the neighbor girl me, all in the same tub naked. Sneaking peeks at what the other sister doesn’t have, breasts, beauty marks, underarm hair, a head of wet hair theirs short and curly, mine long strands straining to a half-hearted twist. Our little girl dirt leaves a water mark on the tub. Bath salts and bubbles drain slowly. Bless my beauty mark, one sister offers and I receive her little girl kiss in a bathtub on Tchoupitoulas Street.
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MELINDA PALACIO
Abuela’s Higuera I remember the time your father was trying to kill my daughter with a brick. Beneath the shade of my fig tree, he beat her. She stood there, letting him slap and punch her. Your abuelo told me to stay out of it. But if it weren’t for me, the good-for-nothing would’ve killed mija with a brick. On my way out the kitchen door I grabbed my rolling pin. He didn’t even see me coming when I whacked him on the head. I would’ve finished him off with his own brick if your mother hadn’t stopped me. ‘You’ll get in trouble with the police,’ she said. The hell I cared if I got in trouble. He was on my property, trying to kill my daughter. After that happened, the sad fig tree didn’t give good fruit anymore. Only these dried little nuggets with sticky milk. We had to wait a whole year for the fig to produce again. Your father ruined the tree. My poor higuera.
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of Abuela’s Higuera
“Abuela’s Higuera,” was certainly a gift poem. One of those quick lightening poems that I didn’t think about when I first sat down with my pen and notebook (I always begin a new poem on paper, sometimes with pen, sometimes with pencil). As I began to write the poem, I was aware of the familiarity of the narrative. The narration demanded a prose poem. The form was another surprise because I rarely write prose poems. In fact, after “Abuela’s Higuera,”I forced myself to write more prose poems, knowing that the form and the idea of channeling a narrative were intertwined. I say channeling a narrative because that is precisely how I felt about “Abuela’s Higuera.” I shouldn’t be surprised by the story or narration because the poem interprets my grandmother’s words, as best as I can recall them. Whenever she’d start telling the story, I wanted to tune her out because the event was so unpleasant. I didn’t want to hear the awful truth, but I could never close my ears to a good story. Truth and a good story are what make this poem a surprising success. I may have not wanted to hear my grandmother repeat what happened to her tree or to her daughter, but it was a purging for her. She enjoys telling her stories in Spanish, both the unpleasant and funny events, and usually leans toward the tragic. I know now to welcome unpleasant situations and embrace sad stories, especially when a beloved elder is speaking.
MELINDA PALACIO
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Jonny Andvik was born in Norway in 1966. Ever since he was a child, he chose to express
himself through images instead of words. Jonny’s beloved grandfather, Alf Andvik, a artist, taught him the basics of oil painting at a young age. By the time he was twelve years old he considered himself a painter. His paintings, never marked by political motivation or religious purposes, are driven by a desire for personal expression.
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Noecken oil on canvas 75 x 91 cm
JONNY ANDVIK
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“I believe in the rebirth of traditions. My works are in an Old Master style, based on contemporary ideas.� JONNY ANDVIK
Springtime Promises oil on canvas 24.8 x 31.8 cm
Leik (A traditional Norwegian dance) oil on canvas 200 x 140 cm
JONNY ANDVIK
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Lost Love oil on canvas 75 x 60 cm
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How do you feel about formal training?
How do you know when a work is done?
There are many good reasons to acquire a formal education. Not everyone does it, since old traditional studio practice almost is a forgotten art. But I will say that it can be an advantage to do a formal training if the school is good. Is it not so, that to be really good at something, you must thoroughly make a study of it? If we are born with a talent, we have to acquire the skills based on experience that humans have been developing throughout time. I do think of talent as the outcome of knowledge which we have built up through the evolution of mankind. Take for example the discovery of early agricultural implements on different locations in the world continents apart - the tools originate from around the same time period and have very similar qualities and form. This shows how ideas arise from a kind of evolutionary climate, where people think likewise and learn new things at the same time without being aware of it. It is natural capabilities that some have in greater proportions that make the difference between the common and the genius. The best way to develop your talent is to be taught by someone who already knows to communicate the insight and to handle the materials - that’s where a master comes in if a school is not available.
It will always takes a long time to create a masterpiece. This has not changed with time. When I start a new image, I often think of Rembrandt’s depth, nuances and technical mastery, this makes me humble and patient. To become a good painter you have to know the materials in and out - to know all the advantages and weaknesses. This knowledge makes you free as a painter, because you can work close to the edge of what’s possible to do with the materials. I love to construct and build the painting - layer for layer and find this process as compatible to the mindwork as with the drying time of the material. It pays off to spend time on the planning and by this avoid what I call “the lazy eye”. Finally when the work is done the piece comes towards me and tells me when it’s there - it is finished.
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What is your secret weapon? If I told you my secret weapon it would no longer be a secret, now would it? You know the history of the great studios of Europe - The workshops of all the Italian, Spanish and Flemish masters, as well as for Holland. Titian, Velazques, Rubens, Rembrandt
JONNY ANDVIK
By The River (self portrait) oil on canvas 116 x 98 cm
and many more - they all had their secrets to hide. To unveil these secrets I think that you have to look close at what these masters did with their hands on the canvas surface. By careful examination of all the particles you are able to see, you can literally tear off the knowledge from the package sheet by sheet - maybe you find the formula inside. It all depend on what you already know about oils, pigments, techniques and so on. Who said painting was dead? I know very well who said that, but to me that phrase is dead. I look at painting like something that is reborn over the years. I am a natural born painter and art history can never change me from believing in my talent. Art historians have a great influence on how we tend to think about painting - like something from the past - a tradition that is dead.
JONNY ANDVIK
But since I am not a writer neither an art historian, I decide to make something for them to write about instead of taking there dictate. What is your day typically like as an artist? After breakfast at 7:00 the day starts in the studio with a cup of coffee and some good classical music. The first studio hour I use for study and development of ideas – my library is used diligently for research. I work with multiple images at once – from two to five active and 20 to 30 pictures in the long term. After a while looking at the paintings I have on the easel, I begin the painting process by adding up the palette and preparing brush sizes. I work until lunch and have that in company with my wife, model and assistant. The work continues often into the evening and on average I work a total of 9 to 12 hours daily.
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Jory M.
Mickelson Middle Burnt Fork, Good Friday Schools of fingerlings spill from his hands unspooling in great green rays. His arms are thrown outward to cast away or embrace. Christ’s outstretched fish swimming. To be caught and released. Caught and released.
extensis manibus prosequitur he extends his hands and continues: North Burnt Fork, Middle Burnt Fork, South Burnt Fork Road I wriggle and swim away, flashing like a trout. The noise of water pouring from a pitcher and into a glass. The imperceptible sound of condensation: an outward sign of invisible water vapor. Water spills over stones and decades of grit wear granite smooth. The suspension of struggling fish over rock by current and resistance.
elevat oculos ad cœlum he raises his eyes to heaven: Stratocumulus, altocumulus, cumulonimbus Learning to tie a nail knot, the follow and lead to the hook with awkward movements. A red opening and closing of filamented gills, fingers spread out from the hand. A two-chambered heart pumping blood in only one direction and the salmonid sense for return. It took twenty years to revisit these waters.
et ab omni perturbatióne secúri safe from all trouble: The white farmhouse, the galvanized aluminum gate.
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Jory M. Mickelson was born and raised in rural Montana.
He earned his B.A. in creative writing from Western Washington
University in Bellingham, WA. His work has appeared in New Mexico Poetry Review, FuseLit, Plainsongs, Collective Fallout and The Penwood Review. He is the nonfiction editor for the literary magazine 5x5. More of his work and writing can be found on his blog, Literary Magpie www.jorymickelson.blogspot.com
Ice Fishing, Ninepipe Reservoir The sky’s a dome of low milk glass while we watch for holes in the dim, those blue shadow layers that sit, nesting on a flat white wave. A gray haze obscures the sun like the filmed eyes of a catfish It lies there, abandoned with its entrails scavenged for bait. An auger shocks us with its grinding, winching itself through the ice and the rebreaking and refreezing of the black rounded gap. The world grows so still it enters into the tumular eye of the fish. Until a passing truck wheel cracks the ice while crossing, waking us. Shaking us loose from our huddle with brandished rods and string, an attempt to reach further than what we can see or know. We lower some borrowed organ for bait into the lake’s slow depth, until it’s lost from the eye, taking our faith with it.
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www.karenyeefineart.com
Karen
Yee
was born into an artistic
environment, and has always expressed her creativity in different forms, but her foray into the fine arts world came after a cataclysmic event dealing with and surviving cancer. This was the impetus that propelled her to explore her long held desire to paint. With rapid momentum, her paintings have evolved and gained recognition and acclaim in the local art scene. She has won many awards at juried exhibitions and continues to advance in her art. Ms. Yee lives in El Segundo with her husband and two daughters. She is a member of the Portrait Society of America, Inc., the El Segundo Art Association, the California Art Club, the Redondo Beach Art Group, and a board member for the Torrance Artists’ Guild.
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Self Portrat - Speak No Evil acrylic on canvas 9” x 12”
KAREN YEE
Kaizoku acrylic on linen 16” x 20”
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Q&A
Karen Yee
Explain your process.
First, I should say that I have no set process. Each painting is different, and I approach each one as I feel and
Study sketch of Paul Mellender for portrait
think. Not having formal training, I don’t know if what I do is “right” or not, but there are procedures I tend to follow, and this painting illustrates that process well. First I will make studies of what I have in mind, working out the composition and focal point/s. In this particular painting, I wanted to emphasize and draw attention to his furrowed brow, and the intensity of his gaze. Also I liked the way one eye was light and clear, and the other was more shadowed, so I wanted to make sure I captured that. Next I draw the image on canvas, and lightly block out colors, not necessarily the intended finished color. From the start, I try to establish the darkest points of the painting. Then I just work with the values, building it up until it looks right to me.
Work in progress of portrait
“I am forever trying to move forward— to improve my art; my technique. I am compelled to discover what more I am capable of creating; what painting is right around the next corner.” 42
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KAREN YEE
KAREN YEE
Portrait Of Paul Mellender - The Table Turned acrylic on canvas 16” x 20”
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Friday Night acrylic on canvas 24” x 36”
KAREN YEE
Summer Breeze acrylic on canvas 18” x 36”
Have any of your mistakes become a success?
How has technology influenced your work?
Who said painting was dead?
I’m not sure if this actually qualifies as a mistake, or more of a lucky accident. I asked a mentoring artist friend of mine how I could avoid making my skin tones appear too orange, and her advice was to start with an under painting of green. So I tried it with this painting of David Gilmour. As I was building up the paint, I discovered I liked the green and allowed it to show through the more traditional skin tones, using it in the shadowed areas. After that, I added purple tones to the hair, and thought it worked pretty well.
I use photographs as reference when I paint. The better the photograph, the better my reference, and the better my painting turns out. I also take pictures of my works in progress and upload them to my computer. This allows me another perspective to see what’s working and what needs improvement.
Paul Mellender, for one. He wrote that for art to be living, it has to have an effective purpose. If that purpose is to manifest something, the artist is doomed for failure, because it is impossible to attain the ideal he wishes. That is to say, “…the pursuit of art today, to make art, must necessarily fail, as the purpose will forever shift away” (from its original purpose). Of course, I am paraphrasing, and probably doing a poor job of it. To learn more of this fascinating point of view, please visit www.paulmellender.com.
How do you know when a work is done? When it looks right to me, or I feel I have taken it as far as I can go with it. I can’t really answer the question any other way than that.
KAREN YEE
How has the current economic situation affected your art? It has deeply impacted my sales, I believe. People are much more cautious with their spending money, and I think art is seen by most as a luxury. These are the things that people cut back on when their purses get tight. It has not stopped me from painting, however. I’m not sure anything could.
(If this were a quiz for an art history class, the answer I suppose the instructor would look for is that the artist Paul Delaroche is alleged to have made the comment, upon seeing primitive photographs.)
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Maya
www.mayapindyck.com
Pindyck
’s first collection
of poems, Friend Among Stones, won the Many Voices Project Award from New Rivers Press. Her chapbook, Locket, Master, received a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. Alongside words, she works with images and sounds.
My Favorite Queendom After Li-Young Lee My favorite day rests between S and S. My favorite color is the crush of late summer berries staining the sidewalk. My favorite memory is my mother waking us at three in the morning to offer the only muffins she ever baked. My favorite dream is where I fly over fields of boys to save them, one by one. My favorite lake is sisterhood— murky waters turning green in sunlight and the spread of seaweed finding our root. My favorite food is the first halva grain, stuck on the lowest lipsticked lip. My favorite body has two doors: mahogany and wind. Another woman opens each door this way and that way, guiding me towards my self, urging me to follow the lines that lead to the smallest version of a woman ever made.
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FORSAKEN DINER
Jason
Kowalski Brushing Life into Neglected Relics of the Past Review by Grady Harp THE ARTIST IN HIS STUDIO
J
ASON KOWALSKI is an
old soul at age 23. As he steps out of art school from Laguna College of Art and Design into the all too often repeated architectural patterns of Southern California au courant lifestyle, replete with identical strip malls and pseudo-important gated communities, he is finding his visual vocabulary more focused on the elements of his past than painting the stimuli around him. His paintings of places and buildings and fragments of vanishing memories are surfacing from his respect of his youth. Born in Florida but spending his childhood in the heartland of America’s
Midwest, Kowalski now realizes the impact of his appreciation of the passage of time on the commonplace structures so much a part of rural life he now fondly recalls from his home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and the surrounding stretches of constancy that form the countryside. And in observing the frequent demolition of things old that ‘blemish’ Southern California to make way for the hasty architectural tropes stamped on the ongoing leveling of hillocks and natural spaces, Kowalski is currently devoting his attention to encouraging his audience to remember, appreciate, and admire the remnant structures of the past. ‘When I think back to
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ABANDONED CABIN
my hometown I miss seeing all the old and worn things. They exist for generations because they’re being reused and reapplied to contemporary society.’ ‘There is undeniable beauty that people often look past,’ and these elements of recollection and salvage are the topics of his quietly gentle paintings. Kowalski may be young of years but his degree of artistic sophistication enables him to create memoryscapes that not only are of excellent painterly construction, but also are able to draw the viewer into his depictions of tattered and worn but durable buildings with the warm dignity of an elder Dream Keeper. Classifying Jason Kowalski’s style presents the same sort of conundrum as matching his youthful appearance to his timeworn painted subjects: he is a Modernist, experimenting with form that draws attention to the processes and materials used leading toward abstraction, and yet his visual voice is that of representation, his method of communicating directly with the viewer, seducing them to connect with the past, refreshed, respected. As TS Eliot wrote “[W]e shall often find that not only the best, but the
SANTA ANA ROOFTOPS
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JASON KOWALSKI
most individual parts of [a poet’s] work, may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.” Kowalski prefers painting with flat brushes that allow him to lay down large swatches of pigment while simultaneously allowing him to control a sharp line. He begins a works without preconception of an emotion he wishes to convey, but instead allows each painting to evolve as his shapes develop, adding bits of newspaper scrapes not so much for the value of collage, but as a means to provide recognizable data to the viewer, information that conjures individual responses of personal memory, incidental words or letters being visible enough to jar recognition to urge the viewer to approach the painting and participate visually. It is this connection that encourages the viewer to pause and consider human emotion and spirituality. ‘I hope to invite the viewer to seek the stories of the past. Perhaps they’ll be able to relate to these places and be reminded of what once was, or rather, what still is but continually being ignored.’ Though Jason Kowalski is PALM SPRINGS NEWSPAPER STAND
589
succeeding in his goal of connecting with the viewer at a very young stage in his career (his initial commercial art exhibition, this year, was sold out immediately upon hanging!), we are left to wonder where his path will wander. Though he continues to create his memoryscapes, his eye is also on the figure: he lists among his ‘heroes’ in art such brilliant figurative artists as Egon Schiele, Ann Gale and Alex Kanevsky (two contemporary brilliant masters of the figure whose brush technique and field development can be found in areas of Kowalski’s work), and the pinnacle of retrospection Andrew Wyeth. Good company for a young artist’s future focus, and likely he will have equally important things to say. He is at his beginning, at that alone makes his art all the more exciting.
JASON KOWALSKI
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Margaret
Gilbert is the Third Place Winner
of the 1999 Mudfish Poetry Prize selected by C.K. Williams for excerpts from her long prose poem, Sugaring Off. She has published poems in Crazyhorse, Callaloo, Poetry East, The New York Quarterly, Mudfish, The Hollins Critic, Exquisite Corpse, The Potomac, and The New Jersey Review of Literature. “Sugaring Off in the Maple Orchard” was presented at the C.K. Williams Master Class of Poets at Poets House in April 2007. “Eating Oatmeal” is included in the Everyman Library anthology Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Other Poems (Alfred Knopf, 2007).
from SUGARING OFF
37. Joy Ride 100 When Fred came back to my apartment the next night, he suggested we invite Sir Rudolf over. Now he reminded me of Dr. Tamkin in Seize The Day: “She was an epileptic, and a most bad and serious pathology too. I’m curing her successfully. She hasn’t had a seizure in six months, and she used to have one every week.” I was the beautiful epileptic girl, his mistress. I would be cured, like the girl in the book, and never have a seizure for six months. From every side I heard pianos, and the voices of men and women singing scales and opera. Then Sir Rudolf and Angel arrived. She was wearing a $156 black and white dress she had bought with Sir Rudolf‘s money to wear to the opera, and her blond hair was slicked back in a chignon. She constantly fawned over Sir Rudolf. It disgusted me, but I tried to be polite. He was fascinated by Angel. She had opened up hundreds of charge accounts in Sir Rudolf’s name. Angel wanted to go dancing, so we went to a night club called Heaven in Harlem, where Angel and Sir Rudolf searched for a notary public, so that they might be secretly married, and everyone danced until four in the morning. I wore my purple jeans from Saks Fifth Avenue. In the rented limousine taking us there, Sir Rudolf suddenly put his hand between my legs into my pants in front of Angel and Fred. I was sure the limousine driver had seen him because the glass that separated us was open. Then he kissed me, and I pulled away, but neither Angel or Fred seemed to notice. Fred had offered Angel a singing contract with RCA, and they were holding hands. 50
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102 While I was sipping a cocktail in the center of the dance floor, I felt the middle of my head surge forward, like a huge wave crashing against a shore. I felt the lunge in the front of my forehead with the sensation of free fall, just letting go. I thought I would faint. Then it was gone. I was having a good time. I wondered if I would faint while talking, but I didn’t. The feeling went away, but a few moments later, it came again. This time I heard a ringing in my ears like a warning aura. I excused myself and went into the powder room of Heaven and stood before a mirror, noticing how pale and tired I looked. In the bathroom, I was alone. The window was open, and it was a beautiful night outside, but I felt sick. I went to the sink and took two epilepsy pills and drank some water. No one knows that I am in the bathroom because I have epilepsy, I thought. This is my secret. Then I felt better. When I went back to the party, Fred and Angel wanted to know where I had been. I said I had gone to the bathroom to drink some water.
104 A woman was singing a sultry jazz song to a saxophone. It was then that Sir Rudolf suggested going to Plato’s Retreat. It had a nice, quiet intellectual sound to it like a library, and I had grown tired of Heaven, where Angel and Sir Rudolf had unsuccessfully searched for a Notary Public to marry them. So we headed back to Manhattan in our rented limousine to Plato’s Retreat, an infamous sex club on the upper West Side. The club was in the basement of an ornate 19th century building. Sir Rudolf had a membership, and we were admitted. At Plato’s Retreat we sat around on fake French Empire style furniture and snorted coke. Sir Rudolf pulled out a little card that said Please Refrain From Shaking Hands in Hot Weather. Everyone took off their clothes, and had group sex near a swimming pool with waterfalls, alongside fat men in toupees and their heavily made-up girl-friends. Then we were escorted into a large room with an air mattress and a period sex chair, where we were served vanilla ice-cream laced with LSD. I saw green people walking out of the wall. But by the end of the night, Fred, like Dr. Tamkin in the book, had disappeared, taking with him the rest of my mother’s money, some of my grandmother’s silver that I hadn’t sold, and even a bottle of my epilepsy pills, and I never saw him again. MARGARET GILBERT
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www.stevendaluz.com
Steven
DaLuz is a versatile artist
whose current interests are split
between abstraction and figurative art. He works in oils, mixed media and encaustics. While identified with abstract works that are landscape referential—employing metal leaf, oil, and mixed media, he is also known for figurative works that straddle impressionism and realism, infused with expressive color, ethereal light, and elements of mystery. Born in Hanford, California, Steve’s art studies were interrupted by the Vietnam War after just one semester at San Antonio College. While serving in the Air Force, Steve completed a BA degree in Social Psychology, and an MA degree in Management. Throughout, he remained devoted to making art in his spare time. After living 13 years in other countries, Steve retired from the Air Force, and engaged his lifelong passion for art by resuming his studies at San Antonio College, where he completed an AAS in Graphic Design. He completed the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (Summa cum Laude) in 2003 from the University of Texas at San Antonio. The City of San Antonio’s Fiesta Commission selected DaLuz’s painting, “Dance of Fiesta” for its official Fiesta Poster for 2007. He was recently selected for acceptance into the 2009 Biennale in Florence, Italy. Naming his “72” exhibition one of San Antonio’s Best exhibits for 2008, Dan Goddard, San Antonio Express-News Art Critic, called the artwork, “…perhaps the city’s most creative response
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yet to 9-11.�
His works have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in
Skopje, Macedonia, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio, the Weil Gallery of Texas A&M University, Artists Space, New York, NY, the Southwest School of Art and Craft, and many other commercial and university galleries. Steve’s drawings and paintings are represented in private and corporate collections in 18 States and several foreign countries. DaLuz is listed in the Art in America Annual, 2008-2009, American Artist Bluebook, and the 15th Edition of Living Artists. The AnArte Gallery, in San Antonio, and Laura Rathe Fine Art in Houston, Texas currently represent his work.
He has solo exhibitions
scheduled for January, 2010, at the AnArte Gallery, and May 2010, at Laura Rathe Fine Art.
STEVEN DALUZ
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Rhapsody oil on mylar 16.5” x 24”
“I embrace painting as an exquisite, relevant art form. For me, the smell and physicality of paint is all at once seductive, offering a passage to another reality—an illusion of space, and often a reflection of the world within. I am compelled to do work that conjures up a sense of mystery and ethereal light, whether figurative or abstract, and my interests are evenly split between the two.” 54
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STEVEN DALUZ
Q&A
Steven DaLuz
How has technology influenced your work? Technology allows me to use my time more efficiently, and assists me with planning my work. Initially I used PhotoShop to record images of my work and place them onto my website. Using that program and Illustrator I began to create business cards and invitations for both print and to e-mail to my client list. As time went on, I began to see much greater utility in PhotoShop as a kind of digital sketchbook. Rather than create 6 or 7 watercolor studies to plan out a painting, I sometimes use PhotoShop layers to work out preliminary issues, which then serves as a springboard for my ideas. If I hit a stumbling block with a painting, I can digitally photograph my work as it progresses and further work out problems in the computer before I bring it to conclusion. I think Rembrandt would have employed such a tool if he had it at his disposal in the 1600’s. Do you feel you have already found your “style” or are you still processing? While I think an artist makes marks, color choices and design decisions that often leave a kind of “signature”, I am always experimenting and exploring new materials and methods for creating my work. I was diagnosed with cancer in the winter of 2008. Now in remission, I think life is too fleeting to allow myself to be put in a box, so I create whatever I am passionate about. I hope my work will continually progress, and that I will have many years to wrestle and dance with it. How has the current economic situation affected your art? I had a great year in 2007, did about one third as well in 2008, and 2009 is shaping up to be almost as good as 2007. I made a few adjustments over last year,
STEVEN DALUZ
which have served me well so far. I added a gallery in another city to stretch my market a bit, and I created some smaller works to make the price points more affordable, and as a way to attract new collectors. Additionally, I took on more commissions through an art consultant, which has given me more work for corporate clients and increased my exposure. I’ve tried to expand my professional and social networks online as well. This has kept me more aware of opportunities that I might not have known about otherwise. Most importantly, I spent even more time in the studio working and refining my process. I believe this is going to produce a stronger series of works in 2010. Who said Painting was dead? LOL. People have been trying to kill painting for at least 150 years. Many have declared it dead, though I believe it was Paul Delaroche who said painting was dead in the late 1830’s after the invention of the Daguerreotype photograph. Painting no more died than photography died with the onset of motion pictures. In fact, it is very much alive. Rather than keel over, painting has reinvented itself, and artists continually find ways to stretch the bounds of this medium. If the galleries are any indication, painting claims the lion’s share of artwork on display for the public. I’m going to step out on a limb and say it—painting will NEVER die. What do you hope art historians will say about your painting 200 years from now? Well, it would be cool if they said, “This small DaLuz work sold at Sotheby’s for a record $396 million today, and as stipulated in his will, all the proceeds will go toward children’s cancer research.” BUT, I’d settle for, “That guy really painted his ass off!”
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Coalesce oil on copper/gold leaf on wood 36” x 36”
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STEVEN DALUZ
Origin oil on metal leaf on wood 48” x 48”
STEVEN DALUZ
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INTROSPECTIVE:
The painting process of Overture 3
One of the pieces which gave me a large challenge was Overture 3. I wanted to create a lifesize image of a woman floating nude in the air, with billowing drapery of her religious garb framing her form. Her body had to be foreshortened as if the viewer were seeing her slightly from above as she ascended. Though nude, the figure should not appear overtly sexual ... more spiritual was my goal. This was to be a central piece in my “72” exhibition, which presented her as one of the imagined 72 virgins purportedly awaiting a martyr in paradise. I wanted her flesh to nearly glow with light. Initially, I couldn’t figure out how to pose the model to achieve the foreshortened perspective I needed, much less the other traits I was after. Finally, it hit me. I posed her lying flat on the ground, eyes closed so as not to engage the viewer, and arms spread out across her garb. This flattened her breasts further, which created a somewhat androgenous appearance. I then positioned myself at her head as I photographed just above her level looking down the length of her body. I flipped the image 180 degrees, and voila--the perspective I was after. Then, I decided to create the figure and the drapery with gold leaf and paint successive layers of oil to model the form (in the manner I use to create my abstractions). When finished, I hoped the light would pass through the veils of color, strike the metal, and bounce back with a glow I could not achieve just with paint. It worked.
STEVEN DALUZ Overture 3 oil on composition gold leaf on wood 60” x 78”
Cristina J.
Baptista
is a New York City-dwelling
writer
whose work has appeared in various publications, including MARGIE, The American Journal of Poetry; California Quarterly; and The Baltimore Review. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Modern American Literature at Fordham University, where she also teaches undergraduate English courses.
INTROSPECTIVE:
CRISTINA J. BAPTISTA
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The writing process of Entering War
Arriving at my subject matter for “Entering War” was decidedly not difficult: a quick perusal of any newspaper headline is sufficient enough to give most writers the idea. Furthermore, though, I wanted to write a poem about war and family that told a story through the images of sundry, everyday thoughts—the need for food, the concern for one’s children, even the consistency of a woman’s menstrual cycle. So much is affected in times of destruction, especially the family unit. What I wanted to capture in a short span, using simple language reflected of actual thought, was the mental process of a parent attempting to balance feelings of concern for children of both sexes. At first, most of the concern is for the men, “in the field,”so to speak, who have to grapple with physical wounds. Meanwhile, women are at home getting by with the basic requirement of sustenance—“bread” in the poem—and hoping for the best. I knew that this was a stereotypical portrait of war and the role of men and women in it—a particularly old-fashioned idea— and yet, I wanted to use this cliché in order to stress the turning point of a single thought. The central, indented lines of the poem are inspired by images and photographs of foreign countries during and after World War II, which tend to be images that stick out particularly in my mind,
Entering War It is easier to give up sons than daughters. The sons you follow, on beaten tracks, pick out their eyes beneath the helmet-shadows and the camouflage. You leave your daughters bread and hope it is enough to last them through their cycles for the next few years. If they stop bleeding, the food is not enough. Eventually, your sons are each found weaving bullets from pierced hands. In our city towers, bricks circle our men’s very soft bodies. Come— let’s hiss like generals calling their women to the cramped, foreign beds wherever slaughter takes hold. It is easier to give up sons, then, daughters.
due to the starkness of the black and white photography and the blunt trauma of both buildings and human bodies in the pictures. The “foreign beds” reference, I’ll admit, was sparked by some fragment of a Hemingway novel that has long been rolling around in my mind, connected with fighting, and I knew that I needed to give my own “shrapnel”of thought a home in this poem. I knew early on that “Entering War” would have to appear as a physical “crumble” upon the page, the more it
CRISTINA J. BAPTISTA
progressed, hence the evolution to shorter, choppier lines by the conclusion. This “crumbling” is meant to reflect the subject’s realization that war does not affect men—“sons”—any more than it does women—“daughters”that it is only a time before any kind of destruction claims them both in some way. Finally, and of course, it is the parent’s mind that is “claimed,” too, by thoughts “entering war.”
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Sandra
Beasley Delusions of Grandeur Could have feathered his husk onto a hook and cast out, so that in his last descent he’d have looked like a king of Mardi Gras. Could have pressed him in the resin of my veins, honoring each spindled, twitchy leg, so that years from now, if they split the tree of my body, someone might chisel him free to be framed in sterling. Instead he keeps buzzing from the wastebasket, Placido Domingo in an amphitheater of tissues. For a week I have played god to these moths, and learned I am one lousy god. To weaken your grip as you crush a thing is not to be mistaken for mercy.
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Grace Notes: Grace Cavalieri interviews Sandra Beasley
Sandra Beasley’s star is on the ascendancy. Sandra won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize for I Was the Jukebox, selected by Joy Harjo and forthcoming from W.W. Norton. Her first collection, Theories of Falling, won the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize judged by Marie Howe. Recent awards for her work include the 2009 Friends of Literature Award from the Poetry Foundation, the 2008 Maureen Egen Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, and a 2008 Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Beasley lives in Washington, D.C., where in addition to being on the Board of the Writer’s Center, she serves as the Literary Chair of the Arts Club of Washington. She is working on Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales From an Allergic Life, forthcoming from Crown.
Grace Cavalieri: What is the ancestral ground on which you build your poetry? Sandra Beasley: The rich fields of Virginia; the swampy shores of Washington, D.C.; the marriage of a painter and an Army general; bigtalkers of Texas, faithfulhearts of Illinois. This strange and fabled ground is planted with sunflowers, white birches, and grain for a good single-malt scotch. A different cartography might focus on syllables, stress, rhyme, and form as both bone and marrow. As a writer, I was taught that you have to understand the rules and traditions of craft before choosing away from them. I’m grateful for that lesson.
GC: What do you describe as “a stylish poem”? SB: Is it a compliment to be called “stylish”? Depends on whether you’re assigning the term to a poem that reflects the latest trends, or whether you mean a fierce establishment of voice. In some circles “in the style of Dean Young” is a compliment, because it establishes your quick wit and ability to effectively free-associate. In some circles it has become a sophisticate’s insult, a suggestion you’re copying what’s in vogue. The latter is unfair to Dean Young, a damn fine poet who never asked to be turned into a brand. So if I say Young’s “Poem Without Forgiveness” is a stylish
poem, let me be clear: I mean it as praise. Sandra Cisneros’s “Night Madness Poem” is stylish. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote stylish poems, as did Sylvia Plath. Jericho Brown writes stylish poems. GC: In “Dancing with the Poets”, who would you invite to be your partner? Why? SB: Rita Dove. I could talk about the mentorship she has graced me with since my days at the University of Virginia, or the deft balance she strikes between being a great poet and a generous person, or my admiration for her poems’ roving, capacious attentions. All of which would be true. But she is also a
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professional-grade tango dancer, and I’d be in it to win it. GC: What do you consider to be “boring” poetry? SB: Nine times out of ten there is a big flat thud when a poem closes on a static image, observed from the established setting. Place me in a forest, but don’t placate me with a pinecone close-up as an ending! It feels to me like the poet, at a crucial moment in the balance beam routine, is saying I’m not sure I can stick my landing. It’s a surrender of authority. At the opposite extreme, I’m intrigued by formally adventurous poems— poems that fragment our visual expectations of “free verse,” or challenge the value of words as signifiers. But the poet has to seduce my heart as well as my head. If I’m a stanza in and I still haven’t invested in a character, setting, or rhetorical pattern, my eyes are going to start skimming the page. GC: What are the esthetic imperatives for what you’d call an “excellent” poem? SB: Musicality. Surprise. Humor. Nuns and nunchucks, if you can swing ‘em. GC: Tell us about your process. Are there a lot of drafts to your poems?
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SB: I feel like I should say “yes, many drafts,” but that would not be true. If I don’t get the dramatic oomph of a poem in place on the first or second go-round, it’s probably not going to happen, no matter how much I gild the lily of craft. (Sylvia Plath has a potent poem on this topic, “Stillborn.”) That said, I am a fierce line editor, and I copyedit as I go. In a given stretch of devotion to a draft— tending toward two to six hours in length—I’ll rewrite the syntax of each line at least a half-dozen times, whittling away any unnecessary verbiage. GC: How does the Internet affect the text of your writing? How does it affect your life? SB: In any given day, I spend three hours on ten substantive emails; I Google my name (yep, I admit it); I ponder updating my blog and website; I read Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, the Washington Post online, and Dcist.com. The Internet is the biggest community builder I have ever known, and also the biggest waste of minutes. Yet the Web doesn’t distract me once I’m really writing. If anything, I’m liberated by the ability to fact-check (or gather useful trivia) without having to get up. In the spirit of my take on gun control, let’s face it:
Facebook doesn’t kill people’s time. People kill time on Facebook. GC: Define “Success” for a poet. Define ”Responsibility.” SB: Some days, success is taming a sestina. Some days, success is letting go of a poem middraft because it’s more important to go to bed at the same time as the one you love. Take responsibility for the poems you choose to write, and take responsibility for the poems you choose not to write. Stamp your envelopes. The rest will follow. GC: What do you think the writer Horton Foote meant by saying ‘We are at the mercy of your talent?’ SB: Remember the movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman? The tagline for one of the posters read: “See a female colossus … her mountainous torso, skyscraper limbs, giant desires!” I’m not assuming I have the kind of talent that puts others at my mercy. But if I did, there would be some skyscraper limbs waving about. Elsewhere, I’ve heard the Horton Foote quote as “You’re at the mercy of the talent you have,” which is a different thing entirely, and not nearly as fun to picture.
GRACE CAVALIERI INTERVIEWS SANDRA BEASLEY
Jess Burnquist was recently reminded by some friends
about a time capsule she and her
fellow 6th graders buried thirty years ago on the grounds of their elementary school in Tempe, Arizona. Each student had to predict what he or she would be doing by the year 2013. Jess predicted that she would become a teacher and a writer. Currently, Jess teaches high school in Tempe, and is a teaching artist for Arizona State University’s Young Writer’s Program. She resides in a suburb of Phoenix with her husband, son, and daughter—and they assure her that if the writing gig doesn’t pan out, there might be a future in fortune telling.
I am Going to Send a Message by Semaphore Words are at low tide, My ribs behave as strings strapped To the bow of this ship that believes It is something more beautiful, Or less. The point being temporarily Curled under tin waves. Are we leaving something behind? It is worth whittling the maple Into a new boat, or cello. You will now think, driftwood I know you only mean well. Words like sediment… words Orchestrating in dead lava. I can’t convey this in fog, Listen. I am all-at-once For you. These lettered offerings— Please accept as a beacon. The flag waving you forward Is my body.
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You Should Stop, I Have Something Important to Communicate And when you do stop, I will forget what I meant to say Because your eyes are sea-green. Sometimes we miss the dance of the gulls The way this valley forgets where it is. This is why we have to look Toward the lavender horizon at dusk. We’re not the only ones to take in the sun Before earth’s dark spinning plants us In a similar place tomorrow. We are not the only ones. Don’t you find this comforting? Change the sky to grey, Now I can stare right back The light has dimmed Just enough for me to remember How to say, I do, I know, We are the only ones! And the gulls graze white crests Their incessant chattering Stilled in the lighthouse The moon makes. poetsandartists.com
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Mark
www.markneely.com
Neely
‘’s poems have appeared in
Boulevard, Indiana Review, Failbetter, Southeast Review and elsewhere. He teaches at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where he lives with his wife—writer Jill Christman—and their two children. Mark is the editor of The Broken Plate.
The Book of Paradise What a drag exiled to heaven while my lover
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cascades down the long duct skimming her fingers on its metal singing like a wine glass rim
One View
I have eaten fifty-thousand tulips waiting
while I put on whatever clothes are lying on the floor.
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I lurch from bed in the near dark. God, these winter mornings when day waits at the door like two bored officers,
Einstein’s Alphabet Afternoon breeds curtains; deviant evening forages grain here in January’s kaleidoscopic last move. Night opens, pulling quarry. Rise stars! Teach us void’s worn xerography. Your zealot.
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of Einstein’s Alphabet
In most abecedarian poems, the first line begins with a and each following line begins with the successive letter of the alphabet until we reach the end. (For an innovative example, see Mike Dockins’s poem “Dead Critics Society,” where the last letters of lines are in normal alphabetical order, and the first letters in reverse alphabetical order.) A more unusual form limits itself to twenty-six words, so that each word begins with the successive letter. I first came across this incredibly rigid structure in Robert Pinsky’s poem “ABC” (Any body can die, evidently. . .). After reading Pinsky’s poem, I thought, I have to try that. After some false starts, I ended up with “Einstein’s Alphabet.”
The poem begins on the last day of January and moves toward the first day of February. The alphabet, the idea of day and night, and the naming of the months are all attempts at ordering our world. Einstein of course, was interested in finding an orderly way of explaining that very strange “force” we know as gravity. Although xerography was invented (thank you Chester Carlson) during Einstein’s lifetime, the first Xerox machine was not introduced until five years after his death. I’m banking on the fact that Einstein, a curious scientist, inventor, and former patent office worker, would have at least heard of the process.
MARK NEELY
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Jee Leong Koh Poetry Review by Grady Harp
In the interval between sex and poetry lies death.
PP
OET Jee Leong Koh wanders the globe as well as the gamut of feelings associated with that most nebulous of nouns, ‘love’, in this collection of poems EQUAL TO THE EARTH. The mood for these sensitively sculpted poems is set by the book’s cover photograph (by Kent Mercurio) of corporeal stones advancing a horizon line where water meets the sky, introducing the reader to the poet’s experience of migrating, encountering, celebrating and responding to the five phases into which this book is extended – historical, geographical, sexual/romantic, communal, and searching for the counter forces/pressures of living. Born in Singapore to Chinese parents Koh was educated in that former British Colony, still divided into four sectors – British/European, Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian - absorbing the experience of transplantation from his familial background of China with the flavors of Singapore’s multicultural aroma. Early recognized as an exceptional student he traveled to England to read English at Oxford, teaching English in secondary schools before transferring residence to New York to study Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. He currently teaches English in an independent school in New York City while he pursues his life as an award-winning poet. But enough of the map of this poet’s migration and the changes and adjustments that that manner of maturing has had on his life. Koh writes poems that admix his ethnic matrix with his bilingual facility and adds the element of his sexuality to make some of the more intriguing, brave, at times acerbic, at times needy poems that express not only his own reaction to the cycle of life and love, but also guidelines and seductive comments about traversing the maze of contemporary relationships, especially those of same sex origin. In section One (historical) Koh conjures images of ancient Chinese courts where boys were the kept property of royalty, as well as more relevant memories of his own childhood. Childhood Punishments Once, when I struck a boy, my father raised a belt in the small, smelly bedroom my grandfather slept in. The studded leather trap snapped, and snapped, and the welts answered in a stinging song to the strong silent man. Not so when my angry mother rubbed my tongue with fresh cut chili for inventing fine new lies. The fruit stung me to blubber volubly my wrong and beg her to stop. That sissy I despise
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and wonder whether the red chili’s hot dry mouth or the dark gleaming length of the worn leather strap poisoned far more the part of man the child would be. I confess, father, I worship a man’s brute strength, and in the massive words I start, stutter, and stop have too little regard, Mother, for honesty. And Koh continues to draw his background in Little Men …Chinese names, unlike Mr. Lazy’s, aim too high. Yang Yang plays for glorious glory. Swallow Peace, my sister, flies her temper. And mine raises the stakes: Jee Leong shoots for (don’t laugh) universal goodness…..etc In section Two (geographical) Koh recalls impressions of place – Montreal, Florida, and Talk about New York ……… Then, at tunnel’s end, light reached in and pulled us out before straightening itself up to a skyline. Manhattan! I cried needlessly. It was a sign you recognized from Woody Allen’s magnum opus. All too quickly the image decomposed to blots, streaks, drips and splatters, then to spats of neonlight our taxi shot, from traffic light to traffic light verring from swabs, solicitors and World Cup sots confusing – triumph, trade and travel – street corners. Unfazed, our Algerian cabby navigated us to Hotel Peninsula, susurrated to his phone, took his tip, and pushed off from the shore. Peninsula! A name that conjured vast pictures of home – pasir, bukit, sungei, kuala, pulau – and travel – beach, hill, river, estuary, island – a name you chose from hundreds in online brochures as if to find, in this old island, an isthmus between friends, straight woman and homosexual man, between what are, in this new place, familiar and recognizable, sign and meaning, between us. Or in Actual Landing: …… Whole week I walked my new birthplace with you, my dear. Since citizenship doesn’t follow coming out, but childlessness does, we understand our whereabouts are recognizable but never familiar. JEE LEONG KOH
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In section Three (sexual/romantic) are some of Koh’s more visceral poems, as though once settled in time and place he is able to dare to use such titles to describe his sexuality, as in Blowjob, where in the last stanza he offers a lover’s desertion: .... You are not a lighthouse for passing ships. You loom, a derrick, stapled to the ground, drilling and drawing oil till it dries. Seen under the stars, you are exerting a force equal to the earth’s and burning its fuel for a little light and heat. And growing more secure with his acceptance of his sexuality he opens his poem Chapter Six: Anal Sex with the following: Fucking you was harder that I’d thought. First you objected to the word as crude expression of a will to dominate. When pressed, you offered “enter” as less rude. More like a guest you would accommodate; and then, I had to study books you’d bought. For some it’s a sign of their first true love. Others view anal sex as an assault on their masculinity. and ends the poem with A word for you Tops: your partner must be in control. The manual had no message for the top who is not hard enough to penetrate, as if no lust will soften at the door nor love will keep a place inviolate. We know better: in love, unlike war, lust stops where local will asks it to stop. In section Four (communal) Koh touches tender tones as in Brother, or faces taut recall as in Cold Pastoral: I hear a man jerking off at the Met and straightaway remember you, O, Jack. I’m flushed with sympathy, to tell the truth, to hear him groan in the next stall for beauty captured in voluptuous sculptured stone. Who is this restroom seer, lover, man? .... And in the last section Five (counter forces/pressures) Koh brings all of these experiences and tests and meditations together in the extended poem Fire Island – six poems intertwined by all of the preceding components and offering an example, beautifully crafted with more variations of form and style, of how he has arrived at his place in this period of time, a place he is able to describe so well, but a place the reader is left to wonder if it will continue to mutate. Jee Leong Koh may have seized upon some of the more challenging statements of being gay in a world unsure of its acceptance, but he also demonstrates in this collection of his poetry that there are few emotions his graceful use of words cannot explore. He is an important poet worthy of wide attention. 70
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JEE LEONG KOH
Michele
Ramirez www.micheleramirez.com
“My subject matter is focused around life in the Central Valley where I grew up. In this series, I have translated my emotional responses to the wasted spaces of this place, and the sadness I feels every time I drive through there. The rusting hulks of forgotten industries both fascinate and ground me to my small town roots.� poetsandartists.com
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Tracy oil on canvas 34” x 46”
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MICHELE RAMIREZ
Michele Ramirez
holds an MFA
from the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro. She has been living and working in Oakland, California for close to two decades, and has exhibited work in a few major bay area exhibitions such as “Chicano Encounters: Local Places and Global Communities” at San Francisco’s de Young Museum; Solo Mujeres at Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco; and her solo exhibition “Bypasses and Intersections: Scenes from the Other California” at the San Leandro Museum. In 2007 she was the recipient of the George Sugarman Foundation Grant , and in 2008 she was awarded a commission by the Alameda County arts commission to create new works for the public collection, and has numerous works in bay area collections, including Kaiser Permanente, Public Policy Institute of California, Keever Vinyards, and the Stonehouse Residency for Contemporary arts, where she was an artist in residence in 2008. Her most recent exhibition is at the Rowan Morrison Gallery in Oakland, CA.
Q&A
Michele Ramirez
How do you feel about formal training? For me, it was essential. I still hear my late instructor’s voice in my head 14 years after grad school! Having someone telling you the truth about your work’s weaknesses, was amazingly hard to accept, at first. Beyond knowing how to mix the colors, I needed to apply them effectively--formal training helped my objectivity in understanding when a painting is working, and unfortunately, when it is not. As a young artist, my identity was wrapped up in my work. Learning to step away from the ego was invaluable. it toughened my hide and sharpened my work ethic
Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? I select a few ideas from my sketches and photos find something interesting within the image--a particular color, structure or figurative gesture--and draw it out quickly on the canvas. Then I put on some good “painting music”--anything desperately sad will do. I have ritualized this start in my studio so often for so long, that I find it awkward to paint without it.
Have any of your mistakes become a success? I rarely manage to turn a poor painting into a good one. I find that the mistakes I make are often right at the beginning, either in the composition or color selection, and correcting those means a total overhaul of the entire painting. At that point, I’ll paint over the whole thing. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean a complete failure. I find that the underlying color of the original painting can enhance the newer painting though its texture, directional drips or placement on the canvas.
How do you know when a work is done? I will stand back at some distance from the painting and I look for completeness, a sense of wholeness. When I feel that internal harmony click on all levels, then the painting is done. I have learned to walk away, and that is a useful lesson.
What is your secret weapon? Ruthless objectivity. I do not allow myself to become sentimental or attached to any particular work in any way. I am able to better assess if a painting is a success or failure.
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Fresno Pool oil on canvas 44” x 46”
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MICHELE RAMIREZ
Le Grand Warehouses oil on canvas 34” x 36”
MICHELE RAMIREZ
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INTROSPECTIVE:
The painting process of Altamont Pass #2
I am an Oakland based painter, but I grew up in the Central Valley. As my family is still there, and being the good daughter that I am, I am frequently on the road for visits to my friends and family. With my husband at the wheel, I hang out the passenger side window snapping away at the passing landscape. I shoot everything from Castro Valley to Merced County: water tanks, pastures, overpasses, highways, and the dozens of tiny towns I pass on the way to my own. I have hundreds of photographs on my computer—I cull the best ones for future use. I never use the image as a strict guide for what I paint. The pictures are mere sketches, ideas and impressions of my vision of the Central Valley and people who live there. I am free to invent color, composition, everything. Altamont Pass #2 is from my archive of photographs. I approached it like I would a race—laying out the drawing as quickly as I could, then attacking it with the biggest brushes I own. The surface is streaked with drips and daubs; my emphasis in this painting was speed, gesture and color. I used color contrasts to strengthen my composition, and light and dark values to ground it. As a painting, it does exactly what I want it to do. It is visually interesting without being fussy and beautiful without being pretty or superficial. It is a testament to the journey I take between my home, and my “home”.
Altamont Pass #2 oil on canvas 44” x 46”
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MICHELE RAMIREZ
Karen
Head
is currently obsessed
with
writing
poetry about art. This leaves her friends and family time to finally read one of her three collections of poems: Sassing (WordTech Press, 2009), My Paris Year (All Nations Press, 2009), and Shadow Boxes (All Nations Press, 2003). She lives in Atlanta and teaches at Georgia Tech.
karenhead.blogspot.com
Cleaning Out the Pantry New Year’s Day, 2009 It begins when I decide to pull the vanilla-bean-pod from the sugar bowl as I am sweetening my morning cup of tea. Today I return to the earth what I have taken, but have not used. As sunlight edges the horizon, cuts into the mist, I sow grains of paradise near the rose bush, scatter thyme on oak tree roots, sweep allspice under the porch.
Parisian Bonnes Herbes, Chinese Five-Spice, Madras Curry, Hungarian Paprika: these I swirl around me (good luck for travel). The neighborhood cats, suspicious of my shabby robe, judge my unkempt hair. Mine is a cold but colorful ceremony, each glass jar tapped empty, then a quick puff of warm breath to shake loose the dregs. Finally, wanting to hold something of sunsets past— The saffron I keep. 78
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Mapplethorpe: Early Polaroids 1. Clarissa Dalrymple, 1973/75 If some native tribes are right to believe that a photograph steals your soul, this portrait is evidence you might have offered yours freely. You look perfect, and I say this without ever having met you, without having ever heard your name. How much did you relinquish when the camera captured you?
2: Untitled, 1973 It is just a still life— white table model, rotary dial, phone number almost legible, the folds of a damasked curtain, maybe gold or green, brushing against the countertop. The short corkscrew cable casts a near perfect reflection across glassy linoleum, and I expect it to ring any moment, but have no idea how to answer.
3. Untitled (Manfred), 1974 Okay, so he’s naked. You probably expected that before you walked into the gallery; that’s not the point. When the armpit is more conspicuous than the penis, you should question your expectations— there is so much more for us fixed in 5 inches square, something we attempt to remember from a moment that was never our own.
KAREN HEAD
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of Mapplethorpe: Early Polaroids
Photographs, many critics have argued, are inherently elegiac—black and white photographs are particularly so. Certainly I understand this observation, but through my work writing ekphrastic poetry, I want to use language to extend beyond the fixed/isolated moment because when I view a piece of art, especially a photograph, I am always constructing a story (fictional though it is) built around the represented moment, or wondering aloud about the process of the artist and/or the experience of the subject. Ultimately, I want my work to offer an interpretation beyond standard art history or criticism.
These poems represent three in a series inspired by the touring exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s early work I saw this summer in Oxford, England. When I visited the exhibition, I expected what many people do when they think about Mapplethorpe’s work: lots of naked people and bullwhips. I was instantly captivated by his early work, and while there were some photos of naked people, most of the selected pieces were surprisingly wonderful still-lifes and portraits. I was also struck by the small size of the photographs (most approximately 5 inches square), and wanted to echo that proportion by writing small “square” poems. Finally, I have felt very playful writing these poems (I think Mapplethorpe would have approved), and I use that sense of playfulness to make an argument about the danger of expectations, in hopes that readers/viewers will commit to “present-tense” experiences of art and let those responses be guided by the current moment.
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POPULATION
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RAY TURNER
Ray Turner Review by Grady Harp
R
“Finding new ways of saying things – that’s the trick.”
AY TURNER has been a successful artist for many years now. Living, painting and teaching in Pasadena, California, Turner has become one of the most highly respected representational artists across the country for his moody, psychological landscapes and cityscapes, images of ancient broken buildings and monuments as well the old trains moving across his impressive canvases at a speed that punctuates his concept of the passage of time and the importance of capturing the essence of history in the images that emerge from his canvases today.
For a painter whose large seascapes and landscapes have suggested the influence of the ‘other Turner’ (JMW Turner) as well as Monet, encountering his figurative work at first seems jarring and out of place with his romantically imbued subject matter. But Turner has been painting portraits since the 1980s – his first ‘model’ was a beloved elderly friend, Joe, whom he painted almost every day until Joe’s death at the age of 96. And from that artistic and emotional experience Turner learned not only how to observe and recreate what was before his eyes, but also how to burn images in his mind of friends and
Left to right – top row: BARCLAY / NORA / AGEE bottom row: BETSY / EDWIN / PORTERFIELD poetsandartists.com
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random people around him – images that at times were captured in photographs while at other times embed and provide fragments of pictorial fodder from which Turner could draw at random to create both imaginary portraits and portraits of specific individuals assembled solely from memory. Paul Gauguin wrote: ‘It is well for young men to have a model, but let them draw the curtain over it when they are painting. It is better to paint from memory, for thus the work will be your own; your sensation, your intelligence and your soul will triumph over the eye of the amateur. Do not finish your work too much.’ And so it appears in examining Turner’s now popular on-going project he calls Population, a series of heads painted on glass, each 12” X 12”, that he has stepped into another era of art history: his use of color and raw emotion is not unlike the work of the Fauvists. These brilliant, intense small paintings capture information not only about the person he is painting or recreating from memory, but also about the influence of the passage of time and the inner emotions that color each of our faces, our demeanor. While Ray Turner’s magisterial impressionistic creations of the land and cities and machines, the cacophonous sea tossing ships and dissonant clouds reward the viewer’s eye with the majesty of nature and the history of art, his practiced craft of drawing forth images of the face is no less emotional. When asked why he elects to paint his portraits on glass, he replies: ‘One of the main attributes of working on glass is the clean, perfect surface. I like the fact that you cannot be finicky about the application, or the slickness will work against you. So you have top apply generous 82
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amounts of paint or it won’t work. The transparency of glass is important for me as it sets up the color part of the exercise. The background is painted long before I start the head, so it influences my choices in carrying out the color study and, in no small measure, dictates the outcome of the final piece.’ Turner paints the portrait on the surface of the glass, placing the background color on the under surface of the block of wood to which the glass is secured: these tones can be variations of grey or intense hues of violet or blue or other colors that enhance the ultimate statement of the portrait’s impact. At times the portraits are precise and realistic as in Barclay and Nora, at times the characteristics are more loosely delineated as in Betsy, while other faces seem to emerge from near random brushstrokes as in Jesus and Edwin. Though viewing these images individually is satisfying, seeing these widely disparate people in rows and stacks on museum or gallery walls (the exhibition RAY TURNER: POPULATION is currently touring) is not only an overwhelming display of virtuosity of painting, it is also a tribute to the similarities as well as unique characteristics in the faces that surround us, as though Turner has taken a visual census for us to appreciate the diversity of mankind. ‘The new portrait paintings are the full circle in the continuum of my first and most profound experience of painting someone I love.’ Where Ray Turner’s diverse gifts of visual and spiritual communication will take him next is pregnant with anticipation. Top to Bottom: JESUS / MANNY / SELF-PORTRAIT / RICK / RICHARD RAY TURNER
Justin
Vicari was born in New York City
The Avocado Stone 1 My great-grandmother was born in a Sicilian mining town. One day, her father and five brothers died in a cave-in. Next morning she left for America on the back of a swimming gorilla.
and raised in the Pittsburgh area. His first book of poems, The Professional Weepers, is forthcoming from Pavement Saw Press. He is also the author
She welted loud kids with her umbrella, hated them yelling in English. I’d like to say her hatred of English made her a poet, clung to some primal growl of source. She opened a bar and grill; when her husband’s liver petrified, crooked taxmen, wholesalers fast-talked her into the ditch of foreclosure.
of Siamese Twins of the 21st Century
2
(West Town Press, 2008) and the translator of Woman Bathing Light to Dark: Prose Poems by Paul Eluard (Toad Press, 2006) and The
My grandfather came to Ellis, alone, sixteen with nothing but a brickbat of salami, a stale ciabatta. His breath stank from weeks in the hold, his armpits, his crotch -- but I see him as clean, the way boys are, even when they’re dirty. I see the harbor immaculate, Liberty impossibly swept of her lime scale and sea salt.
Baden-Baden Lesson Play on Acquiescence by Bertolt Brecht (Toad Press, 2009). His work appears recently in Hotel Amerika, Fugue, The Ledge, Rhino, and Third Wednesday.
He spoke bare litany only, my language grew from his hunger, his resentment; my language push-brooming refinement, my synchronous downward disdain an avocado stone in his stomach, mossing midnight-green. America is not a mission, it’s palaver, a lingo; none of our stories is just. Soon as he chewed what he had he moved on. poetsandartists.com
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Christine
www.novembersky.com
Klocek-Lim received the 2009
Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry and was a finalist in Nimrod’s 2006 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Her chapbook, The book of small treasures, will be published in December 2009 by Seven Kitchens Press. Her poems have appeared in Nimrod, OCHO, The Pedestal Magazine, Terrain.org, the anthology Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory and elsewhere. She is editor of Autumn Sky Poetry, and serves on the Board of Directors for The Externalist—A Journal of Perspectives.
Ghost Surprised, he glanced down, found a thread of her hair quivering like a small obstinate frown. It hovered gently, just barely wound around his shaky wrist. Shivering, surprised, he glanced down from the bleak rooftop, found city lights ten stories down, glimmering like a small obstinate frown. Against his will, his feet ground close to the edge, and pivoting, surprised, he glanced down, saw his daughter’s face wound into the streets, her hair shimmering like a small obstinate frown as the sidewalk rushed up, riveting his flesh. While his body froze, bound like a small obstinate frown, surprised, he glanced down. 84
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Sex feels like this Imagine a red café (lush as a carnival) where you must push through the smell: wine, ale, tequilas. The sultry air makes your breath pound as if the moon is rising over a dark river right now and you’re hooked on it, your hair is caught on that silver crescent edge just the way you like. You get yanked (up and down) until the sound of the café distracts and the color bleeds— what a mess you stuck your finger in, (but it tastes good), it feels good, it’s an orgasm that you want real bad so you push through again until you get to the damn bar where he sits (sweating) having waited all this past hour for you to finally come.
Black Lung Outside on the bench beneath the arc light, beneath the moths that flew along the quiet creek, beneath the rustle of his shirt as he took it off, his scars stretched along the stark white of his back as he bent over himself to show me proof that the breaker spit coal out horribly even as it crushed it to pieces that could be used in the power plants, in our stoves and furnaces. He worked there as a boy, younger than 12, younger than I was when he showed me those scars and told me it didn’t matter that the occasional sharp piece etched his skin. Blood on the coal. It meant nothing to him. He said he still had all his fingers and that was something because there were boys there that didn’t and there were men that had no air in the tunnels so he was grateful. But we didn’t know about the scars on his lungs, the microscopic ones, the ones that killed him though by then it was cancer, cancer of the bones, and the lungs, and the stomach and his whole body just failed one day when I was 13 and they called it black lung. CHRISTINE KLOCEK-LIM
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of Black Lung
When he took off his shirt I was shocked. My grandfather never did that, let alone at night when all the mosquitos were out for blood. Yet that surprising moment made what he said to me about being a coal miner stick. Years later, I tried to write about it. I tried and gave up a dozen times, finally letting the words sit unfinished for a decade, waiting for me to figure out the point of this poem. Last night I read it and recognized the child’s voice, the confused struggle to understand adult problems that sometimes happens when one is not yet grown. I wrote some more, then severed the lingering sentimentality, leaving only those words that propelled the core narrative. I let the child I had been speak clearly about the bugs and the way my grandfather bent over. I hoped the long sentences and short lines would convey my confusion regarding his indifference to injury. Scars were not part of my pre-teen vocabulary, but that night they became important. I remembered the following year when I wasn’t allowed to see him in the last month of his life. I remembered my surprise when I finally realized the words he’d offered so matter-of-factly that night were the most important ones he’d ever said to me. He was a coal miner. I was a coal miner’s granddaughter who never set foot in a mine. Children struggle to understand their grandparent’s lives because so many years separate them. The poem was easy to write after I figured that out. Words spoken in darkness can linger for years.
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John
www.johnwentz.net
Wentz (g)Host Of Death oil on aluminum 20” x 52”
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John Wentz
was
born and raised in the Bay Area and graduated with distinction from the Academy of Art University, where he won multiple awards. His work has been shown in international publications and resides in numerous private collections.
“My paintings are an exploration of the human condition through the lens of psychology and mythology. Inspired by the writings of psychologist Carl Jung, my work explores
John currently teaches at his alma mater focusing on painting, drawing, human anatomy, color theory, and composition.
how the archetype of the hero – and specifically the superhero – influences the human experience.”
Helio oil on aluminum 32” x 48”
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JOHN WENTZ
Apsis oil on aluminum 25” x 40”
JOHN WENTZ
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Q&A
John Wentz
How has technology influenced your work? Although I do work a lot from life, I worked strictly from photos for this new body of work. With digital photos and Photoshop, I can manipulate the photos to achieve exactly the image I imagined. I still start with a bunch of basic sketches, but the real work is done on the computer. It’s allowed me to juxtapose images from many different sources and to immediately see what the dialogue between these images will be. It’s kind of a two part sketching phase; first is analog, the second is digital. I also work with many layers such as the sacred geometry and perspective grids. I cannot imagine trying to envision this without the computer.
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Stella Martis oil on aluminum 40” x 40” How do you feel about formal training? Well, I am kind of biased because I have had formal training and I am also an instructor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I think formal training can open up a lot of doors for people with ideas. I don’t think that by any means it will hinder creativity. That’s an argument I hear a lot from many self taught artists and such. However, I don’t think formal training is absolutely necessary to create good art. For me personally it was the best decision I ever made and I would recommend anyone interested in art to give it a shot. Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Nothing crazy like sacrificing animals or JOHN WENTZ
The Gleaming oil on aluminum 36” x 36” dressing up as a wizard. Setting up my palette and mixing my colors is very much a ritual for me. I premix almost all of my colors so it is a very meditative process. I also have to pick the right music to get into the mood. Lately it has been Meshuggah and some Norwegian Death Metal. Do you find yourself visualizing everything as someday becoming a painting? I never really thought about it, but yes I do. I am always thinking about painting and when I am standing in line somewhere drifting off or just walking down the street I am always looking at things and wondering how I would painting this or that. Also, every time I get interested in something new I ask myself how I could incorporate that in to my painting. That’s what happened with JOHN WENTZ
my love for Carl Jung, my love for astronomy, etc. I want to weave everything into my paintings. How do you know when a work is done? When it’s out of my studio. What has been your biggest challenge? I’ve been trying to give myself the “one year challenge”. That is, to only paint from life for an entire year. Some of my favorite painters like Antonio Lopez Garcia and Euan Uglow only work or worked from life. I’d like to try that, but the logistics are against me. How long does one of your paintings usually take to finish in this style? If I calculated straight hours it’d be about two weeks for the bigger pieces and a week for the smaller. That’s constant painting though. poetsandartists.com
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David
Moolten
www.davidmoolten.com davidmoolten.wordpress.com
Pluto Last night a man loomed out of the insular hush Of fallen snow, his screams fog as he pounded My car’s already dented hood, so strange He could have been God or acting on instructions Received from Pluto through the mercury In his teeth. Aliens appear rather routinely In the persecutory haze of psychotic people, Betraying in his case quirks of my own imagination As his fists confessed no thought, only rage. Crossing Sixth he must have recognized the wrong Blue paint, the wrong face, and I think of a boy I knew in school who cut off his hair and rocked Slowly on the floor, praying, transformed Into a being incompatible with this world, How his mother signed for commitment still Explaining, he’s just a bit overwhelmed, as if She’d walked in at a bad time. He’s the same In my head across the years, which proves memory Amounts to delusion though somewhere perhaps By now he’s joined the invasion of those Who cling like leaves to the subway grates. Just last month police shot a naked man On the lower concourse brandishing A squeegee, and the jails stay full of life From space, squatting, mumbling soliloquies, Futile invocations. At least it doesn’t snow there As on Pluto where the poison they call air Freezes and falls, so far from the sun It appears as a slightly brighter speck In blackened sky. So he roams the possible In all its menacing vastness, parks And alleys, shadows of an underpass, Inclines to me out of the subzero dark Like someone seeing a glimmer of his past Or seeking warmth in the light from a star. 92
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INTROSPECTIVE:
My mother engendered this poem by making a phone call in which, with no basis, but 100% accuracy, she accused me of having suffered an injury. As I ceased limping about the room, the receiver cord springing between my fingers felt suddenly umbilical and for a moment I doubted my contempt for psychic powers. I remembered my med school days, how navel stubs slowly withered on neonates in the nursery, and also how I’d once seen a baby with an extra digit on each hand, heard attending physicians casually discuss the amputations that lay in his future. These were sensibly routine of course, from a cosmetic standpoint, though paternalistic, since the child
David Moolten is the author of three books of verse, Primitive Mood, winner of the 2009 T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry from Truman State University Press, and two previous volumes: Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, and Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005). Moolten is also a physician. He lives, writes, and practices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Sixth Sense The writing process of Sixth Sense
was too young to give “informed consent.” Then followed the memory of myself as a child watching my mother ambulanced away early in an unplanned pregnancy for obstetrical complications and emergency surgery. I remembered my sense of innocent misadventure, undeserved punishment, everything going on around me without my consent, especially my mother’s sorrow. She, like the other adults, felt a certain relief at an unexpected though not undesired turn of events, the superfluous and awkward now removed from our lives. But simultaneously she mourned what she never had, though imagined fully having lost. I remembered how afterwards she began to fuss more, extrapolate catastrophes from the smallest factual buds, absurd concerns about the smell of things maybe burning, odd physics of dangerous machines, and what the world might do if she failed to take precautions. I squirmed yet again beneath her imagined scrutiny, the irrational suspicions with which she so often confronted me, and which I could never disregard, considering my boyish and manly exploits…Thus provoked, I sat down to write.
DAVID MOOLTEN
His mother called again, sure of a bus crash, Or that he hadn’t remembered to breathe At the pond between strokes. They’d just cattailed His finger with tape, jammed in a pickup game At the camp for urban youth, when the counselor Smirked guess who. Maybe she had a sixth sense, And was that so strange when he began As part of her, attached like a foot, an arm? But even stuck doing first grade in third He knew better, that his brother caused it, The one she lost just before having, spoke of As if he were there, as if he weren’t superfluous, When all of them were, which maybe explained Why the doctors went light on sympathy And lidocaine claiming it couldn’t hurt Because they’d already numbed her up. If they’d had any sense they’d have guessed She needed to feel less alone, have someone Stroke her hair, say it’s o.k., that she warranted This small lie at least, like the one he told her By saying nothing, letting her deliver Her usual wisdom about lightning and toothpaste. Cradling the receiver, fetal on its cord, He forgot to mention the wracked appendage Which might have swum through Beethoven With more practice, a piano to practice on. She sulked when she spied the popsicle stick splint, sore That he kept it from her, this hand she gave him Which palmed store candy, flicked lit matches. Sometimes Children are born with an extra digit, A sixth finger doctors always remove. She never questioned what might have been. She knew. Why not extra perception when existence was An accident, awareness its own imponderable? Everybody Becomes a child when they hurt. She could be whole And still missing something, which for the short while It lingered, could move, could feel, was hers. poetsandartists.com
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Samantha
Thornhill samanthaspeaks.com
Signs Always stuck with me, the scene from that alien film: disturbing like finding a shoe in the woods— when the preacher gets the phone call about his wife. He drives out there, the area she jogs after work on evenings, indecisive road cutting through trees. When he finally arrives, the night is a conundrum of police officers: some young, some old, with cheeks dripping off their faces. As the preacher’s car door coughs shut, one of the rookies is already walking towards him holding a fistful of bad news. After informing him his wife won’t be alive much longer, the cop exhales I’m sorry— cheap information for the grieving. So the preacher follows the cop to his wife, pinned between a truck and a tree. Still sweaty from her jog, she smiles as he approaches. They talk the way lovers forget how to, as if the only two people alive in this whirlwind of lights. His forehead wrinkles like linen. He asks her if she feels any pain and she says no, her elbows kissing the edge of the truck’s hood like bad table manners. She must know she is going to die soon, because she now brings up the children, starting from youngest to oldest; a mother, she must close the door on her family rest-assured that her girl drinks her milk, that the boy knows his math. The preacher asks any, one, asks God if there’s anything they can do, knowing that the instant they move that truck, her body will fall to pieces, with his faith. The alien that shows up later in the movie is irrelevant. Now everywhere I go I see the people I love in the faces of strangers, clinging to this story of this preacher and his wife the way her body clung to that truck. At that moment I understood the paradox of the human struggle; sometimes, the same thing that slowly kills us is exactly the thing keeping us alive.
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Trinidadian born Samantha Thornhill teaches poetry & performance at the Juilliard School in New York City and creative writing seminars at the Bronx Academy of Letters. Little Odetta, her poem turned picture book is being published in 2010 by Scholastic Books.
photo by Peter Dressel
INTROSPECTIVE: One day I was walking through the woods of Charlottesville. There I found a lone shoe, a womanly shoe, and my skin caught goosebumps. I turned right around and hurried home half parts fright and inspiration. My body’s response to the shoe reminded me of when I first saw a scene in the movie Signs starring Mel Gibson, which too had given me goosebumps. The scene had haunted me since then and it was time to find out why. Besides, I had always wanted to write an ekphrastic poem about something besides a painting or sculpture. When I began the process for writing “Signs” I instinctively found myself patterning it after Kim Addonizio’s “Virgin Spring” selected by Rita Dove—my professor
SAMANTHA THORNHILL
The writing process of Signs
at the time—for Best American Poetry 2000. Not only was Addonizio’s poem about a disturbing movie, but her use of alternating short and long lines gave the poem a feeling a both dysfunction and balance. “Signs” latched on to its form immediately, and slipped out of me in a way no poem has before or since—so wondrously. It seemed “Signs” was fully written inside me and was just waiting for me to catch up—the shoe a hinge. It took 30 minutes to get it down and the revisionist in me went on vacation for once. For this and many other reasons, “Signs” is one of my absolute favorite poems, and I have performed it in almost every environment. I am honored to have it published in O&S.
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Jason
jasonwaskey.com jasonwaskey.blogspot.com
Waskey was raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and trained as an artist first at Parsons School of Design in New York City, and then received his B.F.A. from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Jason’s award winning works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in both group and solo gallery exhibitions. He resides in Seattle, where he paints every day. Jason is represented by Dezart Gallery in Palm Springs, California.
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“I paint scenes of ordinary people, ordinary places. My goal is for others to see the extraordinary in those scenes.”
JASON WASKEY
Waking oil on linen 16” x 20”
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Q&A
Zeitgeist oil on linen 16” x 20”
What I do know is that when I’m working on a piece, I feel a pull—basically it’s a How do you feel about formal training? compulsion—to be working. An area of the I think that formal training is the surest means to canvas becomes magnetic, and I can’t resist success for artists of any stripe. It provides a touching it, with drawing or color. A piece is shortcut to the novice from having to invent usually ‘done’ when I no longer feel the need everything from first principles, while building a to be chained to the easel. solid foundation of technical skills. Well-trained At times, I’ll revisit a piece and that drive artists have a far greater toolset at hand to create flares up again, and choices that had seemed a meaningful connection in their work than an settled now look like foolish decisions that untrained one. Even Abstract Expressionism’s need to be fixed. most famous rebels Pollock and de Kooning had What is your secret weapon? years of formal schooling. My secret weapon is that I have more than There are certainly successful artists who were one weapon in my arsenal. I have two. self taught—but they are a small minority. The first is a relentless passion to be a Formal training won’t make a bad artist a good working artist. That means I commit to putting one, but it should help a good artist become great. in both the time and the effort to make that How do you know when a work is done? dream come true. I think that all of the artists I wish I knew for certain. who are truly successful wield that weapon.
Jason Waskey
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JASON WASKEY
Sunday Style Section oil on canvas 30” x 24” But the second weapon is my favorite. It’s my sense of humor. Nothing’s worse than a selfcentered artist insufferably full of Sturm und Drang. How has technology influenced your work? I’m using a medium (oil) that has been around for hundreds of years, but current technology has definitely influenced my work. The ubiquity of photography has changed the way we see (or think we see), and that in turn has led to an entirely modern conception of imagery. The things I see and paint are different because of photography— regardless of whether I use photography as source in my work (which at times I do). The cheap cost of digital reproduction coupled with the power of today’s media publishing platforms (blogs and web pages) has created a two-way conduit to seeing and sharing art constructed almost as it is finished— JASON WASKEY
unmediated by traditional gatekeepers and opinion makers. There’s a lot of dross out there, but I think I’ve been exposed to far more interesting and inspirational work because of modern technology than artists in the past would have seen. That work has inspired and influenced tremendously. I got interested in still life painting as a result of seeing Duane Keiser and Julian Merrow-Smith’s blogs. Do you feel you have already found your “style” or are you still processing? Sometimes when I look at a painting of mine I see clearly that there is a style—the work certainly looks like it was created by my hands. That being said, it feels like I have years to go before I am able to transfer what is in my head to canvas. In that sense, I am definitely still processing. I see work done by others, or some new aspect of nature reveals itself, and it begins to find its way into paintings. poetsandartists.com
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Work in progress of Last of the Almond Roca
Explain your process.␣ I work both methodically and spontaneously. When I create a figurative piece, I work from photographs that I take. I usually have an idea of what the painting should look like when I take the photo, so I prepare my canvas with some precision: I create gridlines and measurements that form boundaries within which I am free to
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be more spontaneous. I usually create a line drawing with my brush that I will completely cover with paint before I’m through. I never paint the photograph, but instead the scene the photo has captured. I also work extensively from life, and there too I strive to set some initial boundary conditions within which I can explore color, value, form, and texture.
Last Of The Almond Roca oil on canvas 16” x 20”
JASON WASKEY
Smelt oil on linen 5” x 7”
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JASON WASKEY
Renata McCormish
is the author of Rimbaud’s Echo
(The Bulldog Publishing Co., 2006), published under her pseudonym Renata Emther. Her work has also appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Urban Paradoxes, Up the Staircase: A Literary Journal (Summer 2008 Featured Writer), Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, A Surreal Good Time, and on the Writers’ Alliance website raising awareness about the genocide in Darfur. She holds BA in Interpreting and Translation from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, and MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University, Pittsburgh. A freelance interpreter, translator, and mother of three, she writes and translates Czech poets into English. Her native language is Czech.
C-Section in Two Acts two surgeons lean over the protagonist a scalpel enters her body cuts through layers of cut-and-sown flesh the anesthesiologist tests a resident on adverse effects of spinal anesthesia difficulty in breathing, trauma right above her head morphine is better than a boyfriend the antagonist kind, at least she tries not to remember his words I love you, always be there for you as much as you allow me she feels the weight of nine months’ struggle for her baby too old, too unmarried is she? the oxygen mask on her face disagrees
blank
here he comes, one surgeon exclaims painless shoves and pulls cease, replaced by an angry infant cry she cries, too no longer alone smiling while the crater in her body is cleaned and shut it’s early Saturday morning a few miles away, the antagonist wakes up makes himself a cup of coffee starts writing another story
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of C-Section In Two Acts
Like most of my poems, “C-Section in Two Acts” started with little or no fixed notion. When I completed the first draft, I felt the physical violence, psychological exhaustion, and mental strength, interacting chaotically with one another within the lines. I focused on the inner structure, used caesura to variate the rhythm and understate the overall tone of such an emotional subject. I staged it as a dramatic piece in two acts. The protagonist is an older, unmarried woman, giving birth alone, while surrounded by professional, yet emotionally unavailable hospital staff. The antagonist - infant’s father - is absent by choice. There is struggle, fear, determination, and acceptance within the poem. The concrete diction gradually yields to a chilling, matter-of-fact conclusion.
RENATA McCORMISH
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Laura Sobbott
Ross
has been nominated twice
for a Pushcart Prize in the past two years, and her poetry has appeared in many journals, including The Columbia Review, Calyx, Natural Bridge, Tar River Poetry, Slow Trains, and The Caribbean Writer. Last year she was a finalist in the Creekwalker Poetry Prize.
Mummified Puppy found in Egyptian Tomb Spooled in your linen sarcophagus, you took your place at your master’s feet. He, already an old man at forty, dead beneath the wadjet eye. Nothing but an eternity of amulets and scarab beetles to keep you amused. Not like the cats you once gave chase to in the carefree courtyard of the villa. Yipping at their snake-eyed curses, their clawed limbs flung from behind the tamarisk trees. The terrace pond thick with the scent of blue lotus, palm wine fermenting in crockery, chaise legs of carved papyrus to chew. Your belly full of roasted pigeon, bread grainy with sand and embers, salad of tuber and olive, you sighed, dozed in the sun, arid breeze stirring your collar of pomegranate blossoms, while your master last wheezed from his cushions of feverish malaise. Beloved, you came lolling on your small legs that afternoon the servants called you home. 104
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On Wolf Branch Road A turtle inching toward the yellow line has been crushed beneath someone’s careless, lumbering journey. Its heart, a sticky pink bloom through bony armature, the body’s stone cup spilling what it once knew onto asphalt— August, a fever boiling reptilian blood, the sensate throb of a cool creek bed, thicket of blackberries beyond the roadway’s whirring contrivances. It was how the turtle died with its throat untucked that stayed with me— the rigid arc of agony, beak open, soft body extruded through its tread marked dome, the face once so well hidden in its own shell, a sudden question mark parallel with the sky.
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of On Wolf Beach Road
I passed this wreck of a turtle on the road one morning. I was both disturbed and distracted by its death mask of grotesque realization. That moment when tucked inside its armor of bone, after having just inched itself through traffic to the safe zone of the yellow line, the turtle was inextricably picked off by someone’s random cruelty or carelessness. The image has stayed with me.
LAURA SOBBOTT ROSS
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Duane
Keiser www.duanekeiser.com
Duane Keiser
is a painter from Richmond, VA. He studied under Ray Berry at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia and with Lennart Anderson at Brooklyn College in NYC. He decided to become an artist while making interior paintings of a beautiful old building named Pace Hall where he discovered the light of Vermeer and Hopper and Rembrandt. In 2004 he started his “A Painting a Day” blog project which garnered international attention and inspired painters worldwide to start similar projects. Using a makeshift easel made from a cigar box Keiser would stop to paint whatever caught his eye. He made a postcard-sized painting everyday, for well over a year, and posted them to his blog where collectors from all over the world could bid on them via eBay. His project is ongoing, though for the time being he posts paintings less frequently. He has exhibited at Fischbach Gallery and Allan Stone Gallery in NYC. His work resides in several corporate collections and hundreds of private collections including the Gregory Peterson Collection. In 2009 he received a grant from Richard Estes’ Acadia Foundation to spend a month painting the landscape in and around Acadia National Park.
Q&A
Duane Keiser
How do you feel about formal training? Formal training is good when the ultimate goal is to teach a painter how to find his own way rather than to simply impart a fashionable style or technique. Do you have a ritual you follow before each new work is started? Yes. I use the few minutes it takes to place the paints on my palette to quiet my mind and prepare myself for work. Have any of your mistakes become a success? While working on a 5’ x6’ foot landscape on a hill overlooking a road, the wind blew my painting off the easel. It proceeded to slide 50 feet down the hill (face down of course) onto the road. I had spent about 20 hours on it. The painting was smeared to the point where all the details were wiped off yet, strangely, the general feeling of light I was trying so hard to convey was retained and even enhanced. Less the grass, gravel and bugs stuck to the canvas, it had become a better, more interesting painting It is now a common practice for me to partially wipe a painting off to help me find the essential elements of a scene. How do you know when a work is done? The same way you know a conversation is done.
DUANE KEISER
What is your secret weapon? My fingers, which I’ll often use to push the paint around on the canvas. How has technology influenced your work? Technology has allowed me to make a living doing what I love. Thanks to the internet I can show and sell my work to collectors all over the world. What is your day typically like as an artist? My typical day consists of painting (6 hours or so) raising my daughter (24/7,) and fighting (I’m a longtime student of the martial arts and I train at an MMA gym.) Do you feel you have already found your “style” or are you still processing? I think I have a style that I’m still processing. How has the current economic situation affected your art? Much to my surprise the economy has not had a big effect on my work or on my sales. Who said painting was dead? As long as Antonio Lopez Garcia, Wayne Thiebaud, and Ray Berry are alive (along with several others,) painting is not dead.
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Egg (No. 23) oil on linen 5” x 6”
“I’m interested in all kinds of subjects but a common thread in my work is an interest in light and the manner it falls on, around and through objects and space. I find light to be as mysterious in painting as it is in physics. My subjects also tend to be the places and things we see everyday but rarely stop to notice: a sunbeam, a PBJ sandwich, an abandoned warehouse, a broken egg. To some extent my paintings are meditations on the extraordinary in the ordinary.” 108
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DUANE KEISER
Studio With Green Chair oil on linen 12” x 12”
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DUANE KEISER
Main Street Station oil on board 80� x 36�
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Pushpins And Sunbeams oil on linen 4” x 5”
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DUANE KEISER
Grape PB&J oil on linen 7” x 9”
INTROSPECTIVE:
The painting process of Grape PB&J
Sometimes my initial inspiration to paint a certain object starts out as little more than an excuse to move paint around in an interesting way-- a painterly delectation. From a purely visual standpoint, a PBJ is an unexpectedly beautiful, painterly subject. It spurred me to think about the mysterious process whereby paint can seem to become the material it represents. I thought about Rembrandt’s self-portraits and how he transformed paint into skin in what James Elkins describes as the alchemy of paint in his book What painting Is. In my case I was trying to turn yellow ochre into peanut butter, alizarin crimson into grape jelly and flake white into wonder bread. As I painted I also began to think about how a PB&J sandwich is unique to an American childhood and when the painting was completed I found I was not alone in this sentiment. Everyone, it seems, had some clear memory of their Mom preparing a PBJ sandwich, just so, for their school lunches. It was funny to be at the art opening listening to people argue about the best way to make a PBJ. I’ve painted the subject many times since.
You can watch me make a painting on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iulpr-Lpouk
DUANE KEISER
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Steven
Breyak
is an American poet
still living
in Osaka, Japan. More of his work can be found in Night Train, Thieves Jargon, 42opus, Sawbuck, Existere and other fine outlets of poetry in print and and on the Internet. He accepts criticism and welcomes all praise and/or awards. He also suggests reading “accepts” as a euphemism for “suffers” and “welcomes” as “wittily, though pathetically begs for” in that previous sentence.
Writing an American Poem First, keep everything in feet and pounds. Meter is only for shoptalk. Somewhere in the first stanza mention football vaguely. Then later use terminology that makes it clear you mean the face guard sport of America and not the one popular in the rest of the world. Start the second stanza by listing things American like apple pie, hot dogs, oil tycoons and SUVs. Make it clear, when necessary, that you don’t mean to include similar Canadian or Mexican phenomena in this list, or anything from South America for that matter. Try to squeeze in a brief description of the fall full of autumn colors and brisk breezes, and of course bring up Veterans Day with out mentioning Armistice Day since you’ve never heard of it. To close the poem, leave the reader with a sense of our shared isolation as Americans, alone in our 50 states and so many military bases overseas. Use a metaphor like a lone wolf or a womanizer to make the reader feel cool about being alone. Instill in the reader that there is no remedy (wanted nor available!) for this isolation and be certain to make it perfectly clear that this isolation is not self-imposed.
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Why This Love Poem Will Never Be Published for Naoko You’re an interruption. Like the commercials they show during the Super Bowl, you’re the only part I want to see. You’re the crowd overtaking the stage, dancing to the music that can no longer be played. You’re the fine print for me, the legalese I can’t quite fathom though my life somehow wound up in your balance. Do you ever wake up with the feeling that something incredibly important has happened or is even still happening somewhere completely out of your understanding? You’re ancient wars ending between tribes in the deepest Amazon; you’re political prisoners being freed on planets in the even further outskirts of the Milky Way: huge events in tiny places so removed from what should be happening, from what should matter, that no one will ever read about you.
INTROSPECTIVE:
The writing process of Why This Poem Will Never Be Published
photo by Justin Ratcliff
STEVEN BREYAK
Like fiction and film, poetry has its genres. One can hack out a love poem, hitting all the old chords, and please a reader who loves love poems while insulting a reader who loves poetry. I feel this poem succeeds in that it brings a slightly new approach to a subject that seems to have been approached from every angle. But readers seeking something new (myself too often included) tend to turn away as soon as they can label a work. With that in mind, I titled this piece with a bit of self-mocking and the idea that it could serve as a joke and challenge to the editors who might read it. I planned to edit the title out as the poem took shape or once it got picked up by a magazine. But as things did take shape I realized how well the title fit the events surrounding the poem. Earlier this year, I had big plans for my life: I was going to return to the U.S. in July to teach a summer workshop in Boston then throw myself into that beast of a city New York just to see what would happen next. This plan was already set into motion; this plan was what I was living for at the time. Then I met someone. And now I live with that someone in Osaka. It’s amazing how everything in a life can shift on a moment; how so much of what we do and feel can be traced to minuscule things deep in our bodies deciding to open or close. And that’s why I’m surprised your reading this now and the poem it’s trying to explain. And that’s also why the title holds true.
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