What is the City? Poems by Paul Marion

My good friend Paul Marion has a new books of poems out, What Is the City? I first met Paul in the late 70's at a somewhat bedraggled arts festival in Lowell, MA back before it had the lively art scene it does today. I had a display of my calligraphy and Paul gave a reading of his poems. Shortly after I asked for permission to do calligraphic interpretations of his poems and our friendship began.


What Is the City? is a collection of old and new, beautifully assembling poems written during a span of over 30 years. The nine parts are each introduced and enhanced by quotations from other poets, such as "Poems are emails from the unknown, beyond cyberspace," from Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I like to think that Paul brought the skills he honed as editor of Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings by Jack Kerouac to his own work.

Paul said that I could post one of his poems. It has been a tough decision. There are the old favorites about the mills in Lowell, Dylan Sings to Kerouac (The railroad earth/the hot autumn earth/the cemetery earth/the Lincoln earth/the November earth...), meetings with Ron the Developer and Arthur and his cheese tower, the reflections of a New Englander in Southern California where "Sun turns the whole place into dessert." I finally decided on Vision from 2003 which gives insight into Paul as a community worker as well as a poet.

Vision

Twenty years ago my boss asked, "What's your vision?"
What he meant was, "You don't have a vision."
He was my boss at the office, but he wasn't the boss of my writing.
He said it after I'd shown him some poems, at which he'd smiled.
So I replied, "What's your vision?"–
meaning "You're the one without imagination."
My vision was, is, and ever will be this:
We must work together; otherwise we're done for.
It's not tragic, not comic, not absurd, not futile, not hopeful.
Not a double dream of death or wrapped in a black turtleneck.
It insists that in concert we'll make sense and find love.
It's grounded in an old stair of a cliché.
My boss missed it while looking for the pronouncement.


What Is the City? can be ordered from Evening Album Media.

Contact Paper Accordion Book

http://www.makingbooks.com/accordion.shtml

I spent two days this spring at the Cambridge Ellis School in Cambridge, MA as part of the Ann Murphy Artisans Program. I worked with children from ages 2 to 4. After I enthusiastically agreed to go, I stopped. I wondered what making books with a class of two-year-olds would be like and then thought, what have I gotten myself into? It turned out to be great. There was lots of staff to help and Jodi Crawford, who is in charge of the arts at the school, was terrific. As I prepared, I enlisted the help of my friend Kathy Charpentier who has been doing day care for years and has a good understanding of the capabilities of children at different ages. The project we came up with was a simple four page accordion without a cover. The children created imagery for their pages by placing pieces of colored paper on a sheet of exposed clear contact paper and then placing the contact paper on the accordion page. I got the idea for this from something I did with my daughter years ago at the Children's Museum in Boston. In honor of the Children's Museum and its reopening after renovation, the links this month connect you to Children's Museums around the country and their offerings of activities to do at home.

Making the Book
You will need one long piece of sturdy paper or cover stock or the back panel of a brown grocery bag cut in half vertically, clear contact paper, a piece of scrap copy paper, tape, and an assortment of small pieces of paper cut or torn in to different shapes.

Cut four pieces of clear contact paper that are a little smaller than the size of the accordion pages. Remove the backing and tape them, sticky side up, to a piece of scrap paper.

Place an assortment of small pieces of paper in trays.

Fold a four page accordion. For the two year olds, I precreased the folds so they could still do the folding steps but didn't have to worry about making the folds even.

Have the children arrange small pieces of paper on the contact paper. If the paper has color or an image on one side only, it must be placed with the image side down. We told them to hide the picture. The surface of the contact paper should not be covered as there needs to be adhesive showing to make the contact paper stick to the accordion.

Place one piece of clear contact paper on each page of the accordion and smooth down to help it adhere.

Variations
Make a face on each page showing different emotions/moods.

Make an accordion shaped like a butterfly and cut the contact paper to fit the wings.

Links

Boston Children's Museum
The Educators link has pdfs to download of some interesting projects, including Chinese shadow puppets and The Nose Knows.
http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org

Children's Museum of Indianapolis
Lots of good activities for children in the classroom and at home. The Units of study are divided into K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. K-2 offerings include All Aboard: Trains in History, Folklore, and the Future and Dinosphere: Now You're in Their World.
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/teachers/online_resources_activities.htm

Chicago Children's Museum
A series of articles and activities in four categories: Playful Learning, Growing Up Healthy, Language and Literacy, and Exploring the Arts.
http://www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org/learning_connection.html#language

List of Children's Museum in the US from the Association of Children's Museum
http://www.childrensmuseums.org/visit/us_members.htm#maine
Workshops
I have two open workshops coming in the fall on making books with recycled materials. One will be at the Center for Global Studies at Framingham State College on October 20 and one will be at the Fiber Art Center in Amherst, MA, date to be determined. Details will follow in future posts.

Adapted from the July 2007 issue of Making Books Monthly
Free subscriptions available at makingbooks.com

Art Goes Wild

I recently visited Garden in the Woods, the home of the New England Wildflower Society in Framingham, MA to see ART GOES WILD: Innovation with Native Plants, an environmental art installation by W. Gary Smith. I went with my friend Meghan on a hot, humid summer afternoon and everything shimmered in the the slight haze of the heavy air. We were a short distance from the commercial bustle of Route 9 but the tranquility made it feel worlds apart.

I went to see the installation as a viewer going to enjoy and as an artist looking for direction and clues. I am in a transitional point in my work and feeling the pull of outdoor work getting stronger. It is something I have been circling around for almost twenty years ever since a week-long retreat/calligraphy workshop at Green Gulch Zen Center with Jenny Hunter Groat. After the first few days with ink and paper, I found myself drawn outside where I made small environments with gathered materials. On my return, I struggled to find a way to continue. For some reason, I did not continue outside but worked in my studio creating objects which finally became the Spirit Book Series.

I have long been an admirer of Andy Goldsworthy. The challenge as always is to take that inspiration and use it to lead me to work in my own voice. I now can count W. Gary Smith as an inspiration as well. I liked that he was much freer in his use of materials. While Goldsworthy adds nothing extra to attach or bind things, Smith's installation uses common materials like cord, steel rods, and metal mesh in addition to the natural materials.

I was impressed by the openness with which W. Gary Smith presented his work. I have been thinking a lot lately about whether it is important to me to be the sole creator of my work or whether I can bring others into the process and share the joy I feel as an artist in making things. I began the experiment when I worked with high school students on the second Translations installation. W. Gary Smith takes it one step further. Not only did he have a space for people to create their own small environments at the Garden in the Woods, he also placed signs near each installation with information about it and suggestions for how to create something similar at home. The generosity of spirit and lack of ego in his approach made me evaluate my feelings. I am interested in making art more accessible and am pursuing ways to make and exhibit my work outside the traditional art world. However, it has been a long journey to get to the point where I can comfortably call myself an artist. Finding the right balance between sharing the creative spirit and keeping some sense of my "artistness" seems to be the task ahead.

Why Women Make Books

When Muriel Prince was working on her dissertation for her Master's Degree in Fine Art at Dundee University in Scotland on the question of why women make books, she contacted me with some questions. The dissertation is now finished. As she wrote to me, "I enjoyed every minute I worked on my dissertation & learned a lot, not only about other women book artists, but also about myself. I came to no clear cut conclusion, as I had expected, as to why women choose to make books. The reasons are as complex, varied and multitudinous as the books, and ourselves, but the journey was exciting, enlightening and educational."

In addition to the conventional binding of her dissertation, she created a girdle book with a patchwork cover that contains extracts from the correspondences she received along with images of the work mostly gathered from websites.

Butterfly: Inspiration from Korea

Perhaps after years of working with natural materials and colors, it is not surprising that at some point I would find myself attracted to bright colors. The inspiration came from our recent trip to Korea which was a feast for the eyes as well as the other senses. Not to mention the hospitality we were shown by Narae Kim and her staff at the Seongnam International Book Art Fair and the warmth and friendliness of the people.

One of the gifts I received was a fan with a butterfly painted on it. The butterfly is an important symbol in Korea and represents happiness. I combined an ink drawing of a butterfy with a photograph of a magnolia I took near the entrance of the Whanki Museum in Seoul to create the image above. It's a bit rough but I think there are possibilities.

Butterfly Symmetry Accordion Book

http://www.makingbooks.com/accordion.shtml

One of the signs of summer is the appearance of butterflies in the garden. This month's project is an accordion book which uses yarn threaded through holes to create two butterfly shapes. The wings can be filled in with symmetrical patterns. I have particularly fallen in love with butterflies as images since our trip to Korea where butterflies are symbols of happiness.

Thread the other piece of yarn through the bottom hole.

Bring both pieces of yarn into the single hole on the same page.

Turn the accordion over (it will look like an M from the side) and thread both pieces of yarn through the center hole on the next page.

Turn the accordion over (a W again) and thread each piece of yarn through one of the two holes (top and bottom) on the same page.

Turn the accordion over and repeat the process to make the second butterfly.

Tie a bead to the end of each piece of yarn close to the accordion.

Links

Children's Butterfly Site
Well organized site with photographs of butterflies searchable by geographic area and family as well as information about the life cycle of a butterfly with translations into French, Spanish, German Italian, and Dutch
http://bsi.montana.edu/web/kidsbutterfly/

Symmetry in Nature
A discussion of line and rotational symmetry with examples of butterflies, leaves, and flowers
http://www.misterteacher.com/symmetry.html

How To Make A Butterfly Garden
Create a garden that attracts butterflies with guidance from these two websites.
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef006.asp
http://www.thebutterflysite.com/gardening.shtml

Monarch Watch
Information on March butterflies including how to create a Monarch Waystation to provide resources for monarchs during their migration
http://www.monarchwatch.org/

in good spirit Blog
A butterfly image created in Photoshop and inspired by my trip to Korea can be seen on my art blog, in good spirit.

Translations Farewell

Tomorrow we take down the exhibit at Sasaki Associates. While I did not see it often, I always find it sad to take down an installation, especially something that seemed to fit the space so well. The good news is that I now have some wonderful photos take by Tom Robinson-Cox.