James Lavadour

We managed to see this brilliant exhibit on its closing day. The grouping called "Straight Ahead" was on one large wall. It sold to a private collector for $120,000.

clipped from pdxcontemporaryart.com

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT

March 30, 2010 - May 1, 2010

Artists:

James Lavadour

Images:

Blue Basalt

Dry Grass

Far Fields

First Meadow Lark

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 1

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 2

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 3

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 4

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 5

Geographies of the Same Stone: for TT 6

Run Off

Sheep Camp

Signal

Spark

Spin

Straight Ahead

Weave

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A Birthday Poem

A Birthday Poem

by Ted Kooser

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.



















I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell

of my name.

Invisible Man

clipped from www.hoax-slayer.com

[The] attached photographs show a man who skillfully paints himself so that he so closely resembles his surroundings that he appears to be virtually invisible. At first glance, these amazing images may appear to be the result of digital manipulation and indeed a number of self-proclaimed experts have already dismissed them as being "photoshopped".

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However, the images are in fact genuine photographs depicting the work of clever Chinese artist Liu Bolin. The Beijing based artist has exhibited his work around the world with shows in China, Paris, the United States and elsewhere. News.com.au notes that Mr Bolin is a perfectionist who can take up to ten hours to ready himself for photographs of his performances. The UK's Telegraph also reports on Mr Bolin's art, noting:

In a series of mind-boggling pictures Liu melts into any background, almost entirely invisible in front of red phone boxes, Chinese flags and even earthquake rubble.

It means people walking by while he is carrying out his performance often have no idea he is nearby until he moves away. Liu said he wanted to show how city surroundings affected people living in them and how.

He said the inspiration behind his work was a sense of not fitting in to modern society and as a silent protest against the Government's persecution of artists.

Mr Bolin generally uses assistants who help to paint him in readiness for performances.

Oregon's New Poet Laureate

clipped from www.oregonlive.com

Paulann Petersen named Oregon's sixth poet laureate

By Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

April 26, 2010, 6:16PM

Words don't fail Paulann Petersen.

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Petersen, Oregon's sixth poet laureate, had no trouble expressing how she felt about being named to the two-year position Monday

"Thrilled. Excited. So honored to be walking where Bill Stafford and Lawson Inada walked," Petersen said.

Stafford was Oregon's poet laureate for 15 years (1974-89) and is a particular favorite of Petersen's. She's very involved in the Friends of William Stafford and helped organize the William Stafford birthday readings held around the world every January. Inada is Oregon's outgoing poet laureate and served two two-year terms after the position was restored in 2006.

Petersen, 67, is widely published and the author of four books of poetry, most recently "Kindle." A Portland native, she graduated from Franklin High School and lived in Klamath Falls for 31 years before returning to the Portland area in 1991. Petersen taught English at Mazama and West Linn high schools and has led dozens of writing workshops. She has won a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, two Carloyn Kizer Poetry Awards, and the Stewart Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon's Literary Life.

As part of the application process, Petersen was asked to submit a public project she might undertake as poet laureate. She proposed doing creative-writing workshops for teachers using "a particular strategy that revolutionized my teaching life." It involves using springboards, not writing prompts or assignments but words or phrases that can propel students into the flow of writing. "Straw for the fire," Petersen said, quoting Seattle poet Theodore Roethke.

"I've seen how this works with students," Petersen said, "and we have a fabulous pipeline through our teachers in the public schools."

There were 17 nominations for the poet laureate position, which pays $10,000 a year with a travel allowance of up to $10,000. A committee of writers and cultural leaders narrowed the field to two finalists, Petersen and Peter Sears of Corvallis.

-- Jeff Baker

Finish

BY PAULANN PETERSEN

I rub my shoulder
against a doorframe’s wood,
getting the feel of this creature
felled and transformed.
My fingers curve to knead blood
toward a muscle’s hurt, lotion
into an elbow roughened by neglect.
Snubbing shoes, I let bare soles
reacquaint themselves
with the wear of pavement’s grit.
Clothes serve the modest task
of long, soft friction.

Bit by bit, night by day,
I grow smoother-grained,
ready for light. Let me be
a mirror in which something else
might catch a glimpse of itself--
the burnished stone beneath
a lifetime of water, flowing.

A Sacrament

BY PAULANN PETERSEN

Become that high priest,
the bee. Drone your way
from one fragrant
temple to another, nosing
into each altar. Drink
what's divine--
and while you're there,
let some of the sacred
cling to your limbs.
Wherever you go
leave a small trail
of its golden crumbs.

In your wake
the world unfolds
its rapture, the fruit
of its blooming.
Rooms in your house
fill with that sweetness
your body both
makes and eats.

Primed

BY PAULANN PETERSEN

It was middle June
during the duration
of a month that was a wait

for each day to come,
during that summer
when I would turn teen,

when I was almost something--
way past twelve and counting.
It was the middle of day,

mid-day heat halfway
between cool and hot,
a double-handed noonday

stroke: the clock's
count of twelve
reminding me of what

I was not. Still a multiple
of two, three, four, six,
I was a mere factoring

of too many baby birthdays--
crazy to be divisible by
only myself and one.

Appetite

BY PAULANN PETERSEN

Pale gold and crumbling with crust
mottled dark, almost bronze,
pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate.
Flecked with the pale paper
of hive, their hexagonal cells
leak into the deepening pool
of amber. On your lips,
against palate, tooth and tongue,
the viscous sugar squeezes
from its chambers, sears sweetness
into your throat until you chew
pulp and wax from a blue city
of bees. Between your teeth
is the blown flower and the flower's
seed. Passport pages stamped
and turning. Death's officious hum.
Both the candle and its anther
of flame. Your own yellow hunger.
Never say you can't take
this world into your mouth.

Eyjafjallajokull

Some collected photos of Eyjafjallajokull (A'-ya fyat'-la yo'-kut) Click Here.

“Eyja means island, fyalla or fyjoll means mountain, and jökull means glacier, so the name actually means the island mountain glacier."

iPoem

clipped from writersalmanac.publicradio.org

iPoem

by George Bilgere

Someone's taken a bite
from my laptop's glowing apple,
the damaged fruit of our disobedience,

of which we must constantly be reminded.

There's the fatal crescent,
the dark smile
of Eve, who never dreamed of a laptop,
who, in fact, didn't even have clothes,

or anything else for that matter,

which was probably the nicest thing
about the Garden, I'm thinking,
as I sit here in the café
with my expensive computer,
afraid to get up even for a minute
in order to go to the bathroom

because someone might steal it

in this fallen world she invented
with a single bite
of an apple nobody, and I mean
nobody,
was going to tell her not to eat.

The Front Fell Off

This is a comedy sketch of a real event -- an oil spill off the coast of Australia in 1991.