Common Ground on the Hill - A Long Awaited Return

In this time of cancellations and closures, it is good to hear today that some things are still on! My course in ink and pencil book illustration, Ink, Silk, Pencil, Paper, is open for registration on the Common Ground on the Hill website. The course runs July 5 - 10, from 9 am - 10:15 am. I will be teaching the ink on silk imperial style Chinese painting method and how I have adapted that to pencil and paper for illustrating my poetry books. This is a really fun summer camp where artists, musicians, writers, poets, and dancers from all over the world converge once a year in this spectacular celebration of the arts. This will be my first time teaching here again after an hiatus of ten years. I'm looking forward to it. Follow the link here to register: https://www.commongroundonthehill.org/

Illustration for Woodland Harmonies, by Kristina Miller.  Unpublished manuscript.

Photography at the Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center

The Photography Exhibition, A Few of My Favorites: People, Places, Times and Spaces, is on view now at the Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center.  The opening reception will be this Thursday evening,  March 12, 2020, from 6pm - 7:30 pm. 

Photography at its best satisfies our wanderlust for other places and reveals to us as well the wonders found in the spaces within our everyday worlds. The art of photography is about place, timing, and the artist’s eye. It is an art of presence and patience - about knowing exactly when and where to snap that shutter. The photographer, alert to beauty and meaning, awaits for moments when both of these converge in the natural world. Their steady hands and aesthetic gaze preserves their presence in those moments. This exquisite sense of presence can be found in awe-inspiring vistas, such as the snow covered peaks of Norway in the art of Nathaniel Wallace, and in the sublime night view of the United States Capitol in the poignant photograph by Bill Carter. We are inescapably present in the artists’ intimate views as well. A pair of working hands with fingernails painted like gems of blue lapis are gently offset by a red handled pair of scissors in Bill Carter’s subtle, yet poignant work. Wallace finds a beautiful moment in a store window in the Netherlands, when a calico cat crouches to unknowingly echo the shapes and colors of the art print that it presides over.

The exhibition, A Few of My Favorities: People, Places, Times and Spaces, is an exploration of unmanipulated or minimally manipulated reflections of observed environments. Nat Wallace’s haunting scenes of weathered buildings and abandoned farmsteads around the Southeast record the effects of nature and time upon man-made objects. Bill Carter captures the spirit and mood of everyday people as well as the intellect of iconic individuals. Both artists depend upon serendipity, exploration, and intuition in their photography. Through their evocative art, their photographs invite an internal narrative between viewer and image. These are images that eschewed the world of snapshots and sound bites, encouraging quiet contemplation and taking the time to observe and reflect.

A Seat at the Table: The Chair as Aesthetic and Social Construct. The Ekphrastic Poetry Reading

The opening of our four-person exhibition at the Bassett Gallery at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County in Camden, South Carolina was graced by an ekphrastic poetry reading by Mind Gravy poetry.  This group of latter day troubadours collaborates with visual artists to compose poetry and music in homage to the exhibited work.  The following poem was composed by Tamara Miles and was influenced by both the sculptural chairs of Lee Malerich as well as my painting, Cold Morning.

Primitive
by Tamara Miles

Winter in Holland, accented
open space, cast off, tumbled chairs
that trace to our ancestral days.

Storied evolution of seats -
folk culture, anthropology -
throne or rocker, high wooden stool,
chair from which a chaperone stares,
each formed with a creative bent
to tender our hours quiet,
spent alone or near our dearest.

Out here, ghosts claim the catbird seat,
immutable, secure, they stay.

I do not dare to seal these chairs,
nor set them right or bear away
what seems to be abandoned now.
The ancients see it so and smile.

Pawed feet, the chairs may come alive,
in rhythms of their own arise,
and take as dancing partners trees.

I think I see their silhouettes -
The gods of furniture design
surprised to see their chairs grown wild.