IwMoArGdE
Fusion of Poetry and Art

Opening June 13th, 7:30pm runs through Aug. 14th
Takoma Park Community Center’s Atrium Gallery

IwMoArGdE: Fusion of Poetry and Art builds upon the foundation of last year’s successful Inspired Results exhibit, which paired poets and visual artists. In that show, poets and artists were paired by the luck of the draw.  Within each pair, the poet was asked to create a new poem based on a work by the artist, and the artist, a new piece inspired by their partner’s poetry.  For this new exhibit, co-curators David Fogel and Anne Becker invited seven poet and artist pairs to participate.   Each pair was challenged to collaborate on a single work around the theme “Creation”. The results liberate the poets’ words to leap the bounds of the white page; and color, line, texture, and form gain speech. Some are three dimensional—incorporating fabric, and two thousand plastic eggs--others include an audio component.

Artist/poet pairs include: Sally Brucker & Ann Slayton; Bonnie Lee Holland & Anne Becker; James Landry & Greta Ehrig; Margot Neuhaus & Anne Dykers; Stephanie Ney & Carol Beane; Howard Spector & Merrill Leffler; Eric Wolinksky & Sydney March.

Today, many aspects of life isolate and force us deeper into our particular professional niches or personal spaces, and consequently remove us from people and things outside our knowledge sphere. Yet, so much of life’s value is discovered through new experiences, crossing boundaries. One of the intentions of this exhibit and project is to address and refute that trend by bringing together artists of different mediums and worlds and ask them to explore a theme that is the core and foundation of the artistic experience.

MP3 players will be available to exhibit attendees to allow them to hear the poetry that was created as a part of each piece. The exhibit will also feature corresponding events including: Talks on creativity and the creative process – July 18th from 6 - 8 pm; MovingWordSong a night of collaboration between poets, dancers and musicians – July 12th.

Participating Artists

Carol Beane + Stephanie Sove Ney
Title: Done/Undone
Size: 4’ high x 8’ long diptych
Medium: Mixed on stretched canvas
Price: $200 per 16” square

In “Done/Undone” the poet’s narrative tells of an ancient romance revisited as a life nears its end.  The artist’s complement of images recalls the seasons of nature and of the heart.  Together the words and pictures are a seamless homage to things eternal.

Anne Becker + Bonnie Lee Holland
Title: Body River Snake Coil Song
Dimensions: 100" h  X 23" w
Medium: Mixed Media
Price:  $1,500

Our piece is infused with a foundation of parallel tracks. We both had serious illnesses as children and so understood at a young age that bodies can be challenged. We both have a strong grounding in dance, an art of journeys in time, movement, and physicality, that informs our work in other art forms. Although the body presented here seems fixed, it also shows the coiling energy within that travels through the body, and the body’s permeability in its mirroring of and connection to the physical, spiritual, and imagined environments.

Sally Brucker + Anne Slayton
Title: Chambers
Medium: Paper sculpture diptych mounted on stretched canvas
Dimensions: 21" high x72" long
Price: $ 475- per piece  $850- both

In collaboration with Ann Slayton's Haiku- each segment of the sculpture represents one of 17 syllables.
The rhythm of the poem echoes the beating of the heart. Each segment is like a chamber of the heart, containing
remnants of thoughts, ideas, dream,  and loves.

Ann Dykers + Margot Neuhaus
Title: With Silence
Medium:  Digital photographs on watercolor paper
Size:  37" x 25' 2".
Price:  Each segment (8 total) is $700.  Entire piece $5,000

Listening with silence, images emerge.

Greta Ehrig + Jim Landry
Title:  In The Garden
Medium: Plastic egg halves, silicon glue; audio recording
Dimensions: 4 foot square; 1 foot tall at its apex
Price: $200.00

"In The Garden" reflects the primordial attractions and repulsions between "masculine" / "feminine," "male" / "female," and "yin" / "yang" principles.  Ehrig's haiku explore these tensions while telling an everyday creation story from the point(s) of view of a single woman / artist.  Landry's sculpture grew organically from surplus Chinese Easter Eggs, which suggested themes of renewal / rebirth / Spring -- including the male half of the creation story.

Merrill Leffler + Howard Spector
Title: Devolution #1
Medium: Digital pigment print
Size: 31” x 31”
Price: $1,000 (framed)

“Devolution #1” grew out of mutual interests that visual artist Howard Spector and poet Merrill Leffler have in abstraction. This collaboration began with Leffler looking at a number of Spector’s digital prints — he then wrote a poem that developed not from one particular print but his sense of the artistic process. Spector took the poem and produced an abstract print that incorporated Leffler’s poem, as well as a letter that Leffler wrote him about the “rules” he employed in writing his poem.

Sydney March + Eric Wolinsky
Title: Monk's Misterioso
Medium: Wood panel, paper, acrylic paint
Dimensions: 4’ x 2’
Price: on inquiry