A collaborative project between Mosaic Stanza Group and Colchester Artists
Peter Pears Gallery, Saturday 5 November, 2.30 pm.
This even is FREE but you need to book due to limited seating
This year, Colchester's Stanza Group 'Mosaic' has been working in partnership with local visual artists on an Ekphrasis project in which one art form responds to another. The project was launched in February 2016 and partners were chosen randomly. In total, there are 19 partnerships.
These pairs then exchanged previously completed poems and art. New poetry and art was then made in response to the work exchanged. The deadline for completion was September and the finished pieces will be exhibited and made into a book in 2017.
Six of the participating pairs will be coming to Aldeburgh to read and present their poetry and art. They will describe to the audience how they exchanged ideas and the unexpected rewards, challenges and insights gained from the process of this artistic exchange. Each partnership will present the original poem and piece of art and also the poem and art made in response to the first.
Biographies of poets and artists taking part
Pair 1 Patricia Bloom (poet) and Sara Impey (artist)
Patricia Bloom is widely published on both sides of The Pond. She is author of a poetry collection and three books for children and her poems have won national awards in competition. Patricia is co-founder of the Colchester Stanza poetry Group, Mosaic.
Sara Impey is a textile artist specialising in stitched lettering. Her work is in several public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, and her book Text in Textile Art was published in 2013. She is also a member of the Colchester Stanza Poetry Group Mosaic and the Suffolk Poetry Society.
Pair 2 Pam Job (poet) and Jane Fisher (artist)
Pam Job helps organise Poetry Wivenhoe, a live monthly poetry event. She has co-edited four poetry anthologies, the most recent are so too have the doves gone (2014) and Ornith-ology (2016). She has won awards in several poetry competitions and has had poems published in a variety of magazines. In 2014 she worked in Tate Modern Gallery on an Ekphrasis project tutored by Pascale Petit, writing on the works of Louise Bourgeois, Sigmar Polke and photographic images of conflict.
Jane Fisher completed a degree in Fine Art two years whilst also working part-time as a teacher. Jane is a visual artist who uses film to create spontaneous and ambiguous images. Her work derives from an interest in using materials that have had a previous life. She has a growing collection of items picked up, found or rescued from being discarded.
Pair 3 Antony Johae (poet) and Brenda Jones (artist)
Antony Johae has taught literature in Africa and the Middle East. He now divides his time between Lebanon and the United Kingdom, and is writing freelance. In 2015, his Poems of the East was published by Gipping Press, Needham Market.
Brenda Jones is an artist tenant at Cuckoo Farm Studios Colchester. She describes herself as an abstract expressionist; her vibrant, colourful paintings reflect nature and personal experience. Brenda works in series both large and small scale in oils, acrylics and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited widely in East Anglia and the UK.
www.brendajones.co.uk
Pair 4 Rosie Sandler (poet) and Nicky Sheales (artist)
Rosie Sandler’s poems have been published in a number of print and online anthologies and journals. She was a featured reader in the 2014 Essex Poetry Festival. Rosie runs the monthly Maldon Poetry Group. She also hosts a resource blog for poets, offering details of free-to-enter competitions, plus other opportunities: https://thepoetsresource.wordpress.com/
http://www.rosiesandler.co.uk/
Nicky Sheales is a ceramic artist trained at Colchester Institute of Education, Middlesex University and University of London Institute of Education . She works spontaneously in clay to express her many influences and inspirations drawn from observations of the human form, primitive and folk art, mythology and Middle Eastern art as well as the beautiful Essex coastline.
www.nickysheales.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/nickyshealesart
Pair 5 Dorothy O'Grady (poet) and Sheena Clover (artist)
Dorothy O'Grady has lived in North and South America for many years. She mostly writes children's fiction, short stories and songs, but has recently been enjoying exploring poetry as an expressive form. She is a member of Mosaic and the Black Sandal Poets in Harwich.
Sheena Clover is an artist working from Cuckoo Farm Studios in Colchester. She works primarily as a painter and also makes mono-prints and collage. Her work often explores landscapes of imagination and memory and uses a wide range of techniques. She has exhibited in several Essex galleries. Sheena is also the Stanza Representative for Mosaic. She initiated and coordinated the Ekphrasis Project.
Pair 6 Dawn Vincent (poet) and Ruth Philo (artist)
Dawn Vincent is a writer who is still young in her career. In 2015, she published her first collection of poems, Soft As Sin, written in her early teenage years to her mid-twenties. Her poems explore life in all its experiences. Dawn has had work published in DIVA magazine and has just completed her first novel. She writes a blog on a semi-regular basis at www.dawnvincentisawriter.wordpress.com.