The Creation of Art Through Poems

Ardillio Anderson– Marice Aiston – Marcelo Añón – Chris Austin – Russell Copenharve – Danny Frownfelter – Ted Gram-Boarini – Stefan Harjah – Nikki Heusman – Alysha Kostelny – Becky Kubica – Dave Krueger – Carol Pyes – Brian Reed – Dave Thompson – Chris Viau

There is a classical Greek rhetorical device known as ekphrasis in which one medium is used to describe another.  Most often used by poets describing a painting, sculpture or piece of music; it is through translating the formal, and symbolic elements into language that the poet can access a rapt imagination where these lucid descriptions give way to new meanings.  

Between September 2020 and September 2021 community members from both Arts of Life studios collaborated on the writing of poems.  As collaborations, these poems, and the book that resulted, in a sense extend traditions of collage by synthesizing multiple voices into a singular body.  These poems began with the simple act of looking at each other’s drawings and paintings and finding relationships through representation and language.  This exhibition coincides with the release of the new book The Creation of Art Through Poems, and provides an opportunity to be close to the imagery that precipitated the words.

A note from the Poetry Group:
“The Creation of Art Through Poems is the culminating form of this project.  This book is a collaborative effort of many of the artists from the North Shore and Chicago studios, with an assist by Cindy Shanker and Gail Weisman. We started writing this book from home during the pandemic over Zoom.  Each of us created a piece of artwork that inspired us to write a poem together.  We have our own ideas and ways to do poetry, but we compromised with each decision.”
-The Poetry Group

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