'Out in the Open' at the Chatham-Kent Museum

OUT IN THE OPEN

(On the occasion of the Chatham-Kent Museum’s storage exhibition, March 31, 2016)

My African home is far from these walls of chrome, but I wait

and watch.

Nurse comes with her white gloves,

gently removing four jewelled hair clips

from their box of cedar velveteen,

laying them smoothly on a bed of porous foam.

I am out in the open now

witnessing Charon’s reckoning.

Each is given their number,

identified, classified, categorized,

but on my tome ledge

they pass by. Odd mastodon teeth

chatter in their glass;

my only companion is nested in her

casket of carefully woven linen,

far from river reeds of old;

I’m out of the closet

Guitars, lap harps, megaphones that once

sang in a cacophony of light

now stored,

but in a safe space

breathing and live.

I’m out of the dark

time pieces, milk bottles, my Bon Ami and a cyclops

eye

authenticized and imparting pointed purpose

to the particulars in our lives.

Vein-thin flags, garments and

balled gowns from a fading familiar past

yet wait still and silent

for

your eyes to give us voice.

Thames Art Gallery's 'Holly King Project'

This May-June, 2016, the Thames Art Gallery, Chatham-Kent, will host the Holly King Project, an exhibition evolving out of the one-day creation event where artists, photographers, writers and musicians come together to create a single installation. Here are two of those creations:

Where Rhinos Fly

(Artist Leonard Jubenville and Photographer Reagan Smolders)

He chooses trees first

orange for green; white for blue.

Play

where the earth is sky,

and ground an Elysian azure .

She selects screens,

purposefully disturbing

his inert, careful control.

Play

where birds walk the earth

and rhinos take flight.

He threads a small string

through the scene, rewinding each

branch, rekindling the absurd.

Play

where chimpanzees chatter

in schooners of Pi.

She adds avocado filters,

aligns the scene through her

two-dimensions and

his cellular sight,

Play

where dark is illuminated,

light pushes forth a

cast to worlds yet lived.

[photo: Co-curator Sonya Blazek]

Juanita’s Babies

(Artist Laurie Langford and Photographer Mike Blazek)

Crushed, ice-

opaque cellophane,

sections of triangle light

chipped away,

brushed to reveal

soft pink limbs and

black nails pouring

forth from the Rive

Glacé.

Whether Juanita’s babies,

death camp, Van Winkle sleep

or Cenozoic drift,

they sleep,

they sleep.