WHEN LOCAL POET JANE VINCENT TAYLOR DECIDED TO HOST HER BOOK LAUNCH PARTY AT [ARTSPACE], FOUNDER LAURA WARRINER THOUGHT IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO ASK ARTISTS TO CREATE PENCIL DRAWINGS IN RESPONSE TO TEN OF THE POEMS IN THE BOOK, PENCIL LIGHT. THIS EXHIBIT BECAME THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN ARTISTS AND POETS, THE SECOND OF WHICH IS A HIDING PLACE (2016).
"I'm so pleased to be part of this creative project using poems to generate pencil drawings or sketches. My new book of poems, Pencil Light, alludes to my first assignment many years ago when our writing teacher turned off the light and asked us to write in the dark "until the pencil finds the light." It is always a mystery how this happens; how movement of the hand can open a path toward something new.
I love a pencil, its sleek utility, its ubiquity, its lightness and workability. So, these poems praise the simple and unsung people in my neighborhood, my artist community, family, my daily concerns. I wanted to shine a light on the beautiful and ordinary, the quirky and lyrical hidden in the mundane.
I hope you will read the poem you are offered below, read it aloud ( and maybe in the dark) and see if your pencil has a response. A poem begs to be taken off the page and made to live beyond its lines. It wants to be generative like any piece of art. It wants to create a spark."
- Jane Taylor, Poet
Artists:
Catherine Jean Barrett | Betty Bowen | Torrey Butzer | Suzan Ceterra | Jennifer Chaney| Jane Jolly Chappell | Ellen Etzler | Linda Finley | Amanda Gathright | Lacy Brown Gustafson | Holly Hodge | Madihah Janjua | Jini Kim | Brian Landreth | Darci Lenker | Cameron Lewis | Katherine Liontas-Warren | Richard McKown | Mandy Messina | Armando Peña | Christina Pickard | Diana J. Smith | Robin Orbach Starke | Laura Sullivan | Barbara Thomas | Suzanne Thomas | Barbara Waterman-Peters | Peter Wood & Claudia Wylie
