LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI’s exhibition at GEORGE KREVSKY GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO

 MARTHA WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE, copyright Lawrence Ferlinghetti

LINK: http://www.georgekrevskygallery.com/

COURTESY OF Mr. ALAN SELSOR, GEORGE KREVSKY GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Lawrence Ferlinghetti    Evolution of a Painter November 5, 2009 – December 19, 2009

exhibition artwork

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is not only a master of words and metaphors, but also a master of color and visual symbolism. He has been painting and drawing for as long as he has been writing. This solo exhibition is the first to take a retrospective view, giving insight into Ferlinghetti’s development as a visual artist over six decades.Ferlinghetti’s art is lyrical, political, passionate, opinionated, sometimes personal, and often controversial. It occupies a distinct place in the international dialogue on culture and society. His mother’s family was French and his father Italian, and both France and Italy have played key roles in Ferlinghetti’s artistic career. Ferlinghetti began his art studies in 1948 in Paris, while working on his doctorate in literature at the Sorbonne. In 1950 he completed his first painting, a surrealist composition inspired by another great author/artist, Jean Cocteau. After arriving in San Francisco in 1953, Ferlinghetti rented the studio recently vacated by Hassel Smith. Ferlinghetti explored Abstract Expressionism for a time, but the human figure has come to dominate his mature art. The artist has affinities with the postmodern expressionism of the Italian Transavanguardia, a movement defined by the art critic, Achille Bonito Oliva. Bonito Oliva has referred to Ferlinghetti as an honorary member of a group that includes Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Mimmo Paladino. Ferlinghetti has also been embraced by contemporary European Fluxus, a neo-dadaist movement centered at the Archivio Conz in Verona. Fluxus is an art that is almost “anti-art,” making use of found objects and cultural references. A Ferlinghetti painting may incorporate a quote from another poet, an image from another painter, or a recognizable icon like the Winged Victory of Samothrace. These “borrowed” elements are often put to ironic or satirical uses. Ferlinghetti has been the subject of solo museum shows at the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH) and in Belgium, Czech Republic, and Italy. Paintings have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Evolution of a Painter will be the artist’s six solo exhibition at the George Krevsky Gallery, which has represented Ferlinghetti since 1995.

BELATED PALINODE FOR DYLAN THOMAS, poem by LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI (U.S.A.). Painting by OLIVER LAKE, UK

Portrait of DYLAN THOMAS, by OLIVER LAKE, UK (copyright of the artist)

LINK: http://artflock.com/artist/lakeillustration/art/

 

BELATED PALINODE FOR DYLAN THOMAS

In Wales at Laugharne at last I stand beside
..his cliff-perched writing shed
….above the coursing waters
……where the hawk hangs still
……..above the cockle-strewn shingle
Where he walked in a glory of all his days
….(before the weather turned around)
And aie! aie! a waterbird far away
….cries and cries again
……over St. Johns Hill
And in his tilted boathouse now
….a tape of himself is playing –
……his lush voice
……..his plush voice
……….his posh accent
…………(too BBC-fulsome, cried the Welsh)
…………..now echoes through his little
…………….upstairs room
And aie! aie!
…..echo the waterbirds once again
Beyond his sounding shed
….a fig tree hides the sea
……A fishboat heeled over
……..a grebe afloat far out
……….a coracle abandoned
…………a rusted coaler out of Cardiff still
…………..a bold green headland lost in sun
Beyond which lie (across an ocean and a continent)
….San Francisco’s white wood houses
……and a poet’s sun-bleached cottage
……..on Bolinas’ far lagoon
……….with its wind-torn Little Mesa
…………(so very like St. Johns Hill)
A single kestrel soars over
….riding the salt wind
……..‘high tide and the heron’s call’
…………………………………..still echoing
………..(Aie! aie! it calls and calls again)
As in his listing boathouse now
….his great recorded voice runs out
……(grave as a gravedigger in his grave)
……..leaving a sounding void of light
……….for poets and herons to fill
(Drowned down in New York’s White Horse Tavern
….he went not gentle into his good night)
And Far West poets calling still
….over St. Johns Hill
……to the loveliest poet of all our days
……..sweet singer of Swansea
……….lushed singer of Laugharne
…………Dylan of all our days

– Lawrence Ferlinghetti, These Are My Rivers

REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

 

O SOM DE UM BEIJO NA FLOR, by CRISTIANE CAMPOS, Brazil. CLOSE HER LIGHT OF DAY, poem by RACHEL HENDERSON, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK

O SOM DE UM BEIJO NA FLOR, by CRISTIANE CAMPOS, Brazil (copyright of the artist)

LINK:  http://www.artbreak.com/cristianecampos

 

 

CLOSE HER LIGHT OF DAY
She dances under waterfalls
this maiden oh so fair
she becomes one with nature
wears flowers in her hair
with the whisper of her garden
forest bird songs kiss the land
she is blessed with inner beauty
But does not yet understand
ugliness, buidings and machinery
over the hill not so faraway
they are closing in around her
will soon close her light of day

 

RACHEL HENDERSON, Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK

BAILE DE MASCARAS, painting by CRISTIANE CAMPOS, Maringà, Brazil. Poem by RACHEL HENDERSON, Isle os Skye, Scotland, UK

BAILE DE MASCARAS, by CRISTIANE CAMPOS, Brazil

(copyright of the artist)

LINK: www.cristianecampos.com.br

They dance through untold memories
Their faces are painted masks
It brings a lifetime adventure
To uncompromising tasks
They lay in peaceful meadows
In summer grass of green
They hide from the human eye
For fear of being seen
They think in a governed world
For if we like them could see
Its better of in their world
With beautiful memories so free

RACHEL HENDERSON, ISLE OF SKYE, Scotland, UK

TIME, poem by SALLY CRABTREE, UK. Painting by LENA BIRKSTEN, Sweden

BLUEWATER, painting by LENA BIRKSTEN, Sweden

(copyright of the artist)

LINK: http://www.artbreak.com/birksten1

Time

 

Time like a river

Forever moving on

Forever in one place

 

SALLY CRABTREE, UK

LINK: http://www.thepoetree.net/

 

CALENDER, poem by SALLY CRABTREE, UK. Painting by LENA BIRKSTEN, Sweden

SEAGULL, painting by LENA BIRKSTEN, Sweden

(copyright of the artist)

LINK: http://www.artbreak.com/birksten1

 

CALENDER

 

From every day that passed, he made a paper bird

Knowing that when he reached 1000

He could make a wish.

In the corner of the room they piled high

So fragile, strongly beautiful

They stopped me in my tracks

 

(To think

Such poetry was going on behind closed doors )

They didn’t say a word.

Though I knew each one was bursting just to tell

The thousandth of the wish it held upon its beak

The wish perhaps that he could pull down the night sky

And cut a suit from it

To find all secrets of the Universe

Scrumpled in the pocket ?

 

( And a thousandth of that wish would be a word of what he read

Which whispered in your soul would set your heart on fire )

Or maybe what he wished for was far more down to earth -

That he could walk along a beach and leave his footprints in the sand

Knowing somewhere, someone was following ?

 

( And a thousandth of that wish would be the sound of one wave crashing )

Or maybe what he wished for was simply that each day

He’d taste a certain happiness upon his lips

(And a thousandth of that wish would be one drop of what he tastes

Which landing on the tongue dissolves to song…)

 

2

I’m bursting too

To ask “What do you wish for ?”

But it’s not thing a person says

So let this poem ask those words instead

“What is it that you wish for ?

And could you fold one thousandth of it up into a bird and pile it high ?”

If you can,

This poem is for you: Take it, fold it up into a bird.

And when there are 1000 of them soaring in the sky

 

We’ll fly.

 

SALLY CRABTREE

LINK: http://www.thepoetree.net/pages/sally.html

 

STONES, poem by PETER THABIT JONES, UK. Fine art photo by ADEL GORGY, USA

STONES IN SILENT STREAM, fine art photo by ADEL GORGY, Long Island, USA

 (copyright of the artist)

LINK: http://www.adelgorgy.com/

STONES

 
Stones take to each other naturally,
Like a family of sleeping creatures,

The large ones accommodate little ones,
To create a colony of hardness;

They rest in centuries of stark stillness;
They are elephant-heavy to lush grass.

Their colours employ the afternoon sun;
They are as warm as loaves from an oven.

Each one embodies its personal death;
They are cobbled memories of the sea;

They are the solid language of labour:
Each one weathered to a perfect image.

They rest, innocent of their history,
Like a grey display of featureless skulls.

They have tasted our sweat and absorbed our blood.
They rise and fall, symbols of man’s conscience.

Their persistence has sculptured their silence;
They hint that their souls haunt other planets.

They are magnets for our primitive thoughts;
They are the armour of truths beyond us.

They shape our built fears of an afterlife,
They could tempt us into acts of worship.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2009

 LINK: http://www.peterthabitjones.com/

DARE TO BE, poem by SALLY CRABTREE, UK. Fine art photo by ADEL GORGY, USA

Between heaven and earth, fine art photo by ADEL GORGY, Long Island USA

 

(copyright of the artist)

LINK: http://www.adelgorgy.com/

 

‘ DARE TO BE ‘

 

Be a dream and wake to find out who you are

Be the night and let your thoughts be stars

 

Be a mountain stream and feel what it is to fall

Be the sea know what it’s like to have it all

 

Be the never ending sky , be free

If it takes 100 years just Dare to Be 

 

   All a poet wants is for her words to fall in love

   As they tumble from her lips onto the page

   That you have opened just by chance 

   And there they’ll dance, until the book is closed 

   And  in the darkness they’ll be still and quiet as a stone

   Like figures from a fairytale

   Waiting for the Princess to wake

   And maybe it will be 100 years before you  open up that page

   Before the kiss of your eyes brings those words to life

   But still they’ll dance exactly as they were

  With one added essence of  dream

  That’s all a poet wants

 

  Be a tree and touch the heavens every night

  Be the dawn and find yourself filled up with light

 

Be a river feel the stillness moving in you

Be a seed and be the one that grew

 

Be the never ending sky be free

If it takes 100 years just Dare to Be.

 

SALLY CRABTREE, UK

(copyright of the poet)

LINK: http://www.thepoetree.net/

A STARRY NIGHT: to celebrate the International Year of ASTRONOMY

INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY

 

 

 

IMMAGINE&POESIA

presents

 

A  STARRY NIGHT

 

poetical reading to celebrate the

INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY

(Homage to AERONWY THOMAS, poet and writer)

 

The evening also includes “STELLE INTERIORI”

a performance with “the sounds of the Universe”

created by Claudio Canal.

Paintings by Gianpiero Actis, Massimo Alfano, Davide Binello

Poems by A. Thomas, A.M. Bracale, L. Chiarelli, C. Codazza, F. Verde

 

Friday, October 2, at 9 pm

CIRCOLO DEI LETTORI

Palazzo Graneri della Roccia

 via Bogino 9, TORINO – Italy

 

Executive producers: Lidia Chiarelli and Anna Maria Bracale

AERONWY THOMAS’ STAR, by GIANPIERO ACTIS, Torino, Italy

AERONWY THOMAS' STAR, by Gianpiero Actis, Italy (copyright of the artist)

A response to LIDIA CHIARELLI’s poem: TO AERONWY THOMAS

So bright and pure

the light of your star

on this summer night

is a gentle twinkling

reflected

in the Taff estuary.

 

Open pages

which the wind turns over

 

your words are

still and always here

…