Public Art
A Walking Poets Library (2016)
Hosted by Poets House as part of Josiah McElheny’s Prismatic Park installation, A Walking Poets Library was a week-long residency in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. Inspired by my ongoing interest in walking poetics, I created a week of free programming that included poetry and bookmaking workshops with myself and writers Emily Skillings and Hossannah Asuncion, and three “Walking Salons” in which artists, scholars, and writers presented short talks and led activities on the topics of “The Public and the Private,” “Intimacy,” and “Bodies in Cities.” On the residency’s last day, I invited all participants in the week’s programming to share their work in intimate one-on-one readings around McElheny’s sculptural pavillion.
Mississippi Walking Poems (2016)
Mississippi Walking Poems was an interactive art piece and an artist book of poems that I made as part of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts gallery show, The River. My contribution to the gallery show was a postcard that invited guests to the gallery to take a walk with me along their favorite stretch of the Mississippi over a ten-day stretch in July. After our walks, I wrote a poem for each of my co-walkers and published the ten poems that I wrote in a small handmade book, from which I gave a reading in the MCBA gallery. The poems captured not just the spirit of the places that my co-walkers showed me, but also their personal stories of connection to the Mississippi, from a pastor who took me to the 35W bridge collapse memorial to an artist who makes work from non-biodegradable materials he finds on the riverbank.
Letterpress Shanty (2012)
Part of the 2012 Art Shanty Projects, the Letterpress Shanty produced a collaboratively-authored free daily broadside newspaper of news, ideas, and poetry. This paper,The Shantyquarian, was hand-typeset by Letterpress Shanty crew members from texts submitted by shanty visitors, artists, and friends via Twitter (#Shantyquarian). Each morning, the Letterpress Shanty team members identified the tweets and on-ice submissions they wished to incorporate into that day’s broadside and typeset these texts to be printed in the afternoon in the shanty’s sign press. Visitors were invited to pull their own prints, and “shanty criers” circulated copies throughout the shanties, publicly reading the contents and distributing copies around the shanty area. The Letterpress Shanty was a collaboration between myself, Jeff Peterson, and Jonathon Peterson, with key support from Sara Parr, Sarah Fox, and a team of volunteers from Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
A Walking Poets Library (2016)
Hosted by Poets House as part of Josiah McElheny’s Prismatic Park installation, A Walking Poets Library was a week-long residency in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. Inspired by my ongoing interest in walking poetics, I created a week of free programming that included poetry and bookmaking workshops with myself and writers Emily Skillings and Hossannah Asuncion, and three “Walking Salons” in which artists, scholars, and writers presented short talks and led activities on the topics of “The Public and the Private,” “Intimacy,” and “Bodies in Cities.” On the residency’s last day, I invited all participants in the week’s programming to share their work in intimate one-on-one readings around McElheny’s sculptural pavillion.
Mississippi Walking Poems (2016)
Part of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts gallery show, The River, Mississippi Walking Poems was an interactive art piece and an artist book of poems written over the course of ten days of walks along the river. My contribution to the gallery show was a postcard that invited guests to the gallery to take a walk with me along their favorite stretch of the Mississippi. After our walks, I wrote a poem for each of my co-walkers and published the ten poems that I wrote in a small handmade book, from which I gave a reading in the MCBA gallery.
Letterpress Shanty (2012)
Part of the 2012 Art Shanty Projects, the Letterpress Shanty produced a collaboratively-authored free daily broadside newspaper of news, ideas, and poetry. This paper,The Shantyquarian, was hand-typeset by Letterpress Shanty crew members from texts submitted by shanty visitors, artists, and friends via Twitter (#Shantyquarian). Each morning, the Letterpress Shanty team members identified the tweets and on-ice submissions they wished to incorporate into that day’s broadside and typeset these texts to be printed in the afternoon in the shanty’s sign press. Visitors were invited to pull their own prints, and “shanty criers” circulated copies throughout the shanties, publicly reading the contents and distributing copies around the shanty area. The Letterpress Shanty was a collaboration between myself, Jeff Peterson, and Jonathon Peterson, with key support from Sara Parr, Sarah Fox, and a team of volunteers from Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
