Arp
The streams buck like rams in a tent.
Whips crack and from the hills
Come the crookedly combed
Shadows of the shepherds.
Black eggs and fools’ bells
Fall from the trees.
Thunder drums and kettledrums
Beat upon the ears of the donkeys.
Wings brush against flowers.
Fountains spring up
In the eyes of the wild boar.
From the words of Hans/Jean Arp
Linda Frye Burnham 2016
“Leaves After Arp,” banner artwork by Steven Durland
(Horn flourish) Hey, everybody. We’ve just launched a great project. Steven Durland and I are combining his art and my poetry to create the Woodland Banners Poetry Walk on our land in Saxapahaw. Check. It. Out. Here.
You can improve your memory and see better at any age by reading Book 3 of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle.” The book is an immersion in Knausgaard’s childhood on an island in southern Norway. As with the other books in this series, he brings deep memories to the surface by re-experiencing their landscapes, weather, flora and fauna. This is a window into boyhood that I will never want to close, and for the first time in decades, I went back with eyes wide open to my own girlhood in Del Mar, California. I saw and smelled the sandstone and eucalyptus, the sand and the surf, the foggy June mornings and the baked summer evenings after a full day at the beach. The stings of puberty and the wondering whether it would ever all make sense. I’m so thankful for this sweet revelation. Throughout the weeklong reading of this book, I heard deep in my heart the memory-probings of James Taylor’s “Copperline.” He grew up in Chapel Hill, NC, near where I live now and he can still cherish it, even though those childhood places, like many of mine, are “all spec house and plywood, tore up and tore up good.” In savoring all the tastes and sounds of his boyhood, the present doesn’t touch his memory and he’s “lifting up and rising free down on over Copperline.”
Photo by Heather LaGarde, who grew up in Chapel Hill
Here’s a link to an article I wrote in 2010 for Animating Democracy, a project of Americans for the Arts. It offers snapshots of selected projects that help capture the range of community arts projects and programs happening today. They are led by veteran and up-and-coming artists and cultural organizations; new forms of interdisciplinary collectives; and arts and community agencies working in collaboration. Examples demonstrate how single projects, repeated community events, and ongoing programmatic and organizational efforts can effect community, civic, or social change.
Profiles include:
The Iron Triangle Legacy Project, East Bay Center for Performing Arts, Oakland
The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Seattle
The International Sonoran Desert Alliance
UTOPIA/Dystopia, LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department)
Thousand Kites, Appalshop, Kentucky
The Medea Project, San Francisco
Portland Police Poetry Project, Art At Work, Maine
The Rural Studio, Auburn University, Alabama
Voices for Tolerance Program, Los Angeles Opera
Ferocious Beauty: Genome, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Maryland
Great Halloween Lantern Parade, Nana Projects, Baltimore
Village Building Convergence, City Repair, Oregon
Market Makeovers, Public Matters, Los Angeles
Victory Gardens 2008+, Future Farmers, San Francisco
Day Laborer Theater Without Borders,Cornerstone Theater Co., Los Angeles
Common Ground: TOC Project, Littleglobe, Santa Fe
I’m get ready to return to L.A. for the 25th anniversary celebration of the 18th Street Arts Center, October 25, 2014. I was one of the founders of that multi-faceted organization and I am thrilled that it has survived and is running a magnificent arts residency program in the heart of Santa Monica. I was asked to write a short historical note for the packet that will be presented to participants, and in preparation I looked back to the editorial I wrote for High Performance magazine in 1993, when Steven Durland and I resigned our positions as 18th Street’s executive director and artistic programs director, respectively. I’m reproducing it here for those who are interested in 18th Street’s early history and our involvement in it: “Running Commentary (A Farewell to Los Angeles).”
