Studio Sunday for Masscribes Talk

I'll be speaking about my work at this coming Saturday's Masscribes Holiday Gathering in Norwood, MA. This quote from T. S. Eliot's poem Little Gidding will be the opening slide. I did the calligraphy with the folded pen I made in Carol DuBosch's wonderful Folded Pen Adventures workshop at Masscribes.

I'll be talking about how and why I fell in love with calligraphy almost forty years ago, how and why I fell out of love about ten years later, and how I have come back again with a new and joyful spirit. As with my work, I like to have my talks evolve organically. I never write anything down. I build the presentation by talking to myself and pairing the talking with images. I may also try to put these thoughts into an essay but that is a separate process. 

Studio Sunday-New Art Talk Video

I have spent the better part of the last two days at my computer creating and uploading a series of videos from my talk on June 17 at the Paula Estey Gallery. I set up a tripod with my iPhone at the gallery and recorded a video. After talking to my social media expert daughter, I decided to break the 30 plus minute video into smaller parts.

I brought the video into iMovie and divided it into separate clips. I then copied each of the separate clips into a new project and made a series of 13 videos. I didn't do any editing within the clips and added a title to each and my information at the back.

I then exported the files as .mp4 (no choice of file type, iMovie does that automatically) into a folder and uploaded them from youtube. There is an option in iMovie to upload them directly to youtube but I had difficulty with that. As the files were uploaded, I added titles, descriptions, and keywords for each of the videos. Everything takes time.

And now, they are up and ready to share. I'll be highlighting different ones periodically here on the blog but here is the link to view them all: http://bit.ly/2tuF9Yo.

I hope you enjoy them and feel free to share.

This Saturday is the last event of a couple of very busy months. I'll be giving a talk at the Paula Estey Gallery in Newburyport, MA at noon. Here's the info. Art Stop Saturday at Paula Estey Gallery
Art Matters: Talk by Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord
Saturday, June 17, 12-1 P.M.

Newburyport artist Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord will share her experiences as an artist: how she came to be a person to whom art deeply matters, how art is her therapy and her religion, how she creates her signature series, the Spirit Books, and the motivation and process of her latest calligraphic series, Words For Our Time. To conclude the talk, Susan will “letter live” and create a calligraphy piece.  

Susan is one of the featured artists in PEG’s current exhibition, Pretty As A Picture: Tusinski, Roy & Gaylord. MA. She is inspired by the spirit of nature, both wild and cultivated, and the beauty and power of words. The exhibition includes her Spirit Books, wordless volumes of textured papers with twigs, beads, golden stitched spirals, and pinpricked designs that rest in cradles of branches and roots and honor the spirit of nature, and Words For Our Time, calligraphic quilts based on eight words: strength, hope, truth, peace, justice, love, courage, and compassion. 

January Talks in Massachusetts

I will be giving a new version of my Art Lessons talk twice in my local area in January. I’ve changed the title to Art Lessons: Learning from our Creative Experiences, and thinking that it may change again. Where the talks I had been giving involved me sharing my work chronologically with reflections along the way, this one is designed around themes represented by quotes. Here’s the blurb:

Join Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord for a talk about art and creativity. Susan believes that everyone is creative and that exercising our creativity makes us happier and more fully human. In this illustrated talk she shares her 35 year history in the arts (calligraphy, book-making, digital compositions) and the hard-won truths she has learned: the importance of patience, the development of the critical eye, making peace with the desire for perfection, and the idea that an artist's best teacher is the work itself. Her goal is to put the audience in touch with their own creative experiences whether they be art, crafts, music, writing, cooking, gardening, fashion, or home decorating.

Tuesday, January 13, 6:30 PM
Amesbury Public Library, Amesbury, MA
Contact: Kim Butler 978-388-8148 kbutler@mvlc.org

Wednesday, January 28, 7 PM
Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, MA
For more information contact Beth Safford at 978-686-4080 x 12

Both libraries ask that people register in advance.

If you are in the area, please join me. If you’ve heard/seen my talk before, there will some familiar things and some new. Please feel free to pass this along to those who might be interested in attending the talks or booking a talk at their organization or group.

Art Lessons Talk Video Online

My Art Lessons Talk at the Newburyport Public Library in December was videotaped by Jesse Christensen. I will be giving the talk again at the Chelmsford Public Library in Chelmsford, MA on March 9 at 2 PM. If you are in the area, I would love to see you there. If you are not, here is the video from Newburyport.

As I viewed it, I thought I was perhaps talking too fast but it felt right in that time and space. My speaking does tend to be more fast than slow, not because I am nervous but because I have so much to say. I also felt that I gave my work over the last 8 years short shrift. It was easier to find connections and threads through the earlier work as I have more distance from it. For the upcoming talk, I have gone back over my more recent work and added significant projects like the lettering on the walls of Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace and the NH Humanities Council Bhutanese-Nepali book project. I'm also adding some current projects and thoughts for the future.

Pecha Kucha Portsmouth 18

I'll be taking part in Pecha Kucha Portsmouth 18 at the Portsmouth Gaslight Company in Portsmouth, NH this Sunday, February 16, at 7 PM. It will be my third time participating in a PK event. It's always a challenge and always fun. There are 10 presenters, each has 20 seconds to talk about 20 slides (that's 6 minutes 40 seconds). The theme for this one is Here Today, Gone Tomorrow and I'll be talking about exhibiting at Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay. If you are in the area, please come. It's free.

At Pecha Kucha 08/Thank You Kevin Harkins

One of the treats of Pecha Kucha Night in Portsmouth was meeting a friend from Lowell days, the photographer Kevin Harkins. We enjoyed catching up and he kindly took some photos.

If you live in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, you may have seen Kevin's work in Merrimack Valley Magazine. He's responsible for most of the photos in the beautifully designed publication.

You can visit Kevin's website at Harkins Photography and his blog at Harkins Photo Blog.

Illustrated Talk in Exeter, NH on Feb. 16

Susan subscribes to the belief that the only work you can do better than any one else is that which is truly your own. Her journey as an artist, thirty years and counting, has been an exercise in patience as she has strived to do work that is a true expression of herself and her place in the world. In her ten years of calligraphy, she progressed from traditional work to expressive gestures. When she began to use her own texts, she sought a more intimate format and discovered the artists’ book. Her early books with text evolved into wordless and imageless sculptural works using natural materials, textures, stitching, and beads. Since completing The Spirit Book Series in 2005, she has brought lettering and words back into her two-dimensional work along with imagery created in photoshop and created installations both indoors and out.
March 2, 6:30-8:30 pm
Exeter Center for Creative Arts, 30 Linden St, Exeter, NH

free program but registration requested, 603.778-8441 or email ecca@rcn.com

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