ArtSake

This is one in a series of thumbnail interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey (left) reads on Wednesday, February 25, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton.

Liz is an Alabama native, a maker of vital, luminous poems, and, if this blog post is any indication, a very witty answerer of questions, nano- or otherwise.

MCC: What are you working on these days?

Liz: I am working on two chapbooks, “Oaxaca” and “Etiquettes.” “Oaxaca” grew out of some confusion with how to find a place I had no idea how to spell. The poems in “Etiquettes” sort of reside and float around in the landscapes of the different editions of Emily Post’s “Etiquette.”

MCC: What’s the most embarrassing sentence/line of poetry you’ve ever written?

Liz: “Utter the word sandwich a couple of times: sandwich, sandwich becomes which sand, which sand.”

MCC: Please revise the following sentence:
Though every muscle in his body urged him not to, Sanderson crept toward the tinted windows of the gray-green Caprice.

Liz:
Through Sanderson
crept the muscle
(tinted, gray-green)
of Caprice. Windows
urged his body
toward the every
“not to” in him.

MCC: Whats the best/worst day job youve ever had?

Liz: Best: Traveling to International Book Fairs (Frankfurt, London) to sell the rights to translate books into different languages. Worst: Administrative assistant to a team of four young, male investment bankers during the dot com boom in San Francisco. I just wasn’t very good at it. I flew one guy to the wrong city in Texas for a meeting.

MCC: The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:

Liz: Pure Sugar.

Liz joins DM Gordon, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig for an event on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey is the author of Sunday Houses the Sunday House, which won the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize. Her new work is published or forthcoming in Zoland Poetry, Lungfull, Left Facing Bird and Caffeine Destiny. Born and raised in Alabama, she now lives in Montague, Massachusetts with her husband, Chip Brantley, and their son, Angus.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

Mira Cantor’s solo exhibition UNIFORM, 22 life-size portraits of the Boston police, is currently on exhibit at the Moakley Courthouse in Boston. We asked Mira if she would share how the project - and the exhibition - came about.

UNIFORM: New Work by Mira Cantor at the Moakley Courthouse

I grew up in the sixties when the police were mostly white. The uniforms haven’t changed but the people in them have. They are an integrated force in many cities where there is still a high degree of segregation. I was interested in reaching out to the community to commemorate the people who serve. I was not only interested in the police as a collaborative but also as individuals; people who have hopes and dreams and families to go home to.

I am professor at Northeastern University in the Department of Art and Design where I teach drawing and painting. I started drawing the Northeastern Police about a year and a half ago. One day soon after, I was standing on a check out line in a grocery store behind a policewoman. We started up a conversation and I invited her to come to my studio to see my work. Soon after we had arranged for some of her fellow officers to become participants in my project. I met officers Bill Jones and Fred Allen who came to the studio together. They are one of the longest partnerships on the force. Officer Belinda Barrett has a long family history on the police force. Then there is Angel, a motorcycle cop and Christa, a policewoman who drives alone. Joe travels with his dog, Tiburion, a large German Shepherd. Each one has a story to tell and different reasons for becoming a cop.

Officers Bill Jones and Fred Allen, one of the longest partnerships in the Boston Police Force.

Christa Milton in front of her portrait, with Belinda Barrett (right) and Antionette Rafael (left) all from E-13 in Jamaica Plain.

My drawings are 93″ high by 43″ wide and are drawn in charcoal on Arches paper. I have looked at the costumed portraits of Manet who presented these singular works in triptychs during the mid 1800s and the large scale singular portraits of Eakins and Sargent. It is the scale that creates the dynamic relationship between the viewer and the image on the wall as both are the same size. One begins to feel a familiarity with the image (individual). You begin to know these people as if you have already met them. The character of each individual comes through the uniform.

Northeastern Police Officer Mike Blue standing in front of his portrait.

I met the events planner at the Moakley Courthouse during an art auction and I immediately thought my work would fit the architecture and context of the building. I made a proposal to her and she like the idea. I received a grant from Northeastern to mount the work and produce and invitation.

Artist Mira Cantor talking to one of the Boston police officers about the work.

Antionette Rafeal in front of her portrait.

The reception was attended by some of the policemen and women in the drawings. It was quite clear by their expressions that they were indeed honored to be represented in this exhibition. Many brought their children, extended family and friends.

The drawings are on the first and second levels of the Moakley Courthouse. The show will be up until March 27th 2009.

- Mira Cantor

Powered by Bookmarkify™