The Painted Word: Foundry Gallery Artists Collaborate With Metropolitan Washington Poets

April 1-26, 2015

Reception: Friday, April 10,  6-8 p.m.

Several poets associated with The Writer's Center are participating in an exciting new project.The Painted Word is an exhibit of Foundry Gallery artists paired with local poets in whose work they heard an echo—or felt a sting—to produce images and texts that vibrate with each other. 

The painting and poem each act as a lens through which the other is intensified and gains depth of meaning to illuminate the structure of metaphor itself.

Recalling the tradition of the New York School, in which painters and poets like Joan Mitchell and James Schuyler, or Norman Bluhm and Frank O'Hara, collaborated to express a resonant sensibility, these new works will be shown together at the Foundry during April, National Poetry Month.

Poets participating in the exhibition include Anne Becker, Sally Bensusen, Ann Bracken, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Lisa Couturier, JoAnne Crowley, Anne Dykers, Nan Fry, Mary Beth Haten, Mackenzie Jacks, Merrill Leffler, Joel E. Minton, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Jean Nordhaus, Jennifer Pesek, Ann Slayton, Mary Tercheck, and Emily Willard.

Artists include Fran Abrams, Amy Barker-Wilson, Jill Bateman, Jorge Luis Bernal, Katherine Blakeslee, Patsy Fleming, Gordana Gerskovic, Allen Hirsh, Heather Jacks, Donna K. McGee, Sarna Marcus, Kenneth W. Minton, Michele D. Morgan, Charlene Nield, Gregory O'Hanlon, Natacha Thys, Alex Tolstoy, and Kathryn Wiley.

The gallery will host a poetry reading on Saturday, April 25, 2-4 p.m.

Below are examples of what is on view.

                               

                                              

                       

Alex Tolstoy - Breaking Over the Fields - 17x22 - watercolor

Parents of the Corn

A Midwest sky of uncertain reward scores a sharp line

   between two moods: One, the black eye of 

bruised clouds from the night before,

tired, finally, of ranting

The other, a giddy brightness beneath, a naive promise of hopeful weather.

I can't choose which I favor less

from two parents with doubtful intent.  One gives what's needed, but

with a backhand of wind.

The other just stands by to watch, passive drought of withholding.

We always keep a sharp eye

on the door of day around here,

never knowing who will come through the opening and closing

   of twilight, always hoping this time

it will be better,

watching the crops grow.

                                               —Sally Bensusen

Patsy Fleming - Letter Home - 36x36 - acrylic on canvas

Painter's Complaint and Resolution

I was working alongside a train

trestle in the roughest part of town.

First there were the pigeons dropping down

from the scaffold, then the seagulls and rain.

But the kids, the kids were wild.  Some were mean.

They would tear around and wrestle for show,

then over the paints would go!

From the platform over my head they would lean

out and drop 

Pepsi cans down on me, or Coke.

It was awful, no joke.

One day a great wind gusted up

and blew my painting into the dirt.  You can laugh!

Then, just like a cartoon, a dog

trotted by and peed on it.  God!

After that, I started working from photographs.

                                                         —Ann Slayton 

The Foundry Gallery is located at 1314 18th Street, NW 1st Floor, Washington, D.C., near Dupont Circle. For more information, visit www.foundrygallery.org.