Ekphrasis X 2021 Virtual Exhibition
SET 4. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders
K. NONA SMITH, Claudia. Response by artist LYNNE ZICKERMAN OLSON: Claudia's Last, mixed media.
L. NATY OSA, Is the Ineffable the Graveyard of Poetry? Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Eloquence of Sunlight, watercolor.
M. LYNN KIESWETTER, The Hermit in the Backyard. Response by JAMES SIBBETT: Two Bambis and a Doe.
N. NANCY MCCLELLAND, color/dolor. Response by LARRY WAGNER: Loved and Lost, photograph on metal.
SET 4. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders
K. NONA SMITH, Claudia. Response by artist LYNNE ZICKERMAN OLSON: Claudia's Last, mixed media.
L. NATY OSA, Is the Ineffable the Graveyard of Poetry? Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Eloquence of Sunlight, watercolor.
M. LYNN KIESWETTER, The Hermit in the Backyard. Response by JAMES SIBBETT: Two Bambis and a Doe.
N. NANCY MCCLELLAND, color/dolor. Response by LARRY WAGNER: Loved and Lost, photograph on metal.
Initiating author, NONA SMITH: Claudia
We held our wine glasses up and tapped their rims together. Clink.
“Do you know why that’s done?” Claudia asked. “I have no idea,” I said. “The French began the custom centuries ago. It’s to make us appreciative of all five of our senses.” Claudia had a treasure trove of that kind of information. “Ahhh, les Francais; ils savent tout,” she added. She spoke three languages fluently and had enough vocabulary in others to find bathrooms in foreign countries and order wine in restaurants. Born in Germany and well-travelled, Claudia had European sensibilities and a sophisticated sense of style. Her hair was cut by a Sassoon-trained stylist, she wore only Italian-made shoes, and the walls of her dining room were painted Chinese red, seasons before that trend appeared in Architectural Digest. She owned a few expensive, elegant gold pieces, but most of her jewelry was purchased during her travels from local artisans or at art fairs at home. It was this we bonded over. On her first day working as a travel agent at Trips Out Travel, I admired her earrings: thumb-nail size, straight-back chairs, crafted from black metal. Definitely not gold, but certainly expensive. Something she might have found in a museum gift shop. My compliment caused her to tuck a strand of red hair behind her ear and caress her earlobe. “I found them in Taormina. I had to sort through all that cameo crap they sell there before I found anything interesting.” Claudia had opinions. Very firm opinions. About food and clothing and what was worth spending money on. Her generous smile drew people to her; her sharp tongue sent them away. She possessed a quirky, wicked sense of humor and had a flare for the dramatic. She’d once been married and had a son Adam she adored, but when I met her, Claudia was living alone in a one-bedroom gem of a house secreted into the Berkeley hills. She took her cockapoo Milo, a yappy attention-grabbing dog, with her almost everywhere. And Claudia was devoted to the game of What If… What if you weren’t a travel agent; what else would you be? What if you didn’t live in this country; where else would you like to live? What if you knew how to play a musical instrument; which one would it be? Milo was not with us the afternoon we dined at our favorite dim sum restaurant in the City. We’d already polished off a bamboo steaming-basket of shrimp dumplings and a platter of al dente Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce when Claudia nodded to the waitress rolling another dim sum-laden trolley towards us. “We’ll have the shu mai and the pork buns,” she said with authority. |
We held our wine glasses up and tapped their rims together. Clink. “What if,” Claudia began, “you were on Death Row and going to order your last meal; what would it be?” I don’t recall what I answered, but Claudia’s answer came quickly and definitively. She waved her chopsticks over the bountiful table. “This is what I would order.” Late the next morning, Adam called. “It’s bad news. It’s Mom. She died yesterday.” “Oh, Adam,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes. He continued to speak, “…alone in the house…Milo was with her…brain aneurism...” I heard his words, vaguely, but the picture in my mind was of Claudia, her chopsticks held aloft, pronouncing the dim sum her last meal of choice. Response by artist LYNNE ZICKERMAN OLSON:
Claudia's Last, mixed media: Artist's Comment: The writing to which I responded, featured Trips Out Travel agent, Claudia! I -lived across from Trips Out at 3014 College, for 37 years & they were my travel agency, 2900 block, for all those years. My agent Nancy Smart, didn’t know Claudia & the 2nd owner was named Ellen. So Claudia is a creation of fiction, sent to me 150 miles above Berkeley by delightful surprise and synchronicity! |
Initiating writer NATY OSA:
Is the Ineffable the Graveyard of Poetry?
A Poet's Lament
Is the Ineffable the Graveyard of Poetry?
A Poet's Lament
What silver-tongued wordsmith
Can burnish his verses to rival The sheen of a silver-backed sea? What versificator ensconced On Parnassus can pen incantations, Enact transmutations that harness The rays flaring from the sun, And turn opalescent the waves’ Silken tresses cresting in the sea? What faltering bard gives chase to And captures the word thief Who’s fled with his muse, And left mute the poet to ponder The wonder of a breaching whale? |
What declaiming lover can
Out-whisper the besotted redwoods That stretch furtive fingers up high Out of sight, to part gauze-clad Clouds, and caress the sky? What verse-scribbling troubadour Of the domestic delights Respectful of metric measure Of vowel and consonant rhyme, Can pen a couplet, try as he will, To surpass the sunny courtesy Of the neighborly nodding daffodil? Don’t try to tether the moment With knots of slippery words, Fold hands in reverent awe, Stand there quietly humbled, and Give thanks that you passed by. |
Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Eloquence of Sunlight, watercolor.
Initiating poet LYNN KIESWETTER: The Hermit in the Backyard.
Can you believe it?
The hermit in the backyard is my ex-husband. If you had told me that after all the drama back in the old days, if you told me then that one day we would be friends, I’d have told you: No. |
Basho, Thoreau, Basht,
Zarathustra, Zhang Daoling and ~ my ex-husband. Who can explain it; how does such a thing happen? Please explain to me! “Two bambis and doe,” he phones from across the yard. That’s it: he hangs up. |
Response in acrylic paints by artist JAMES SIBBETT: Two Bambis and a Doe,
Artist's Note: How I framed my piece.
The wood I for the frame had been used and knotty, close to being used for kindling,
but now interesting and perhaps beautiful in its current state.
So the ex-husband, once abandoned is now a friend, if not an enlightened friend.
The wood I for the frame had been used and knotty, close to being used for kindling,
but now interesting and perhaps beautiful in its current state.
So the ex-husband, once abandoned is now a friend, if not an enlightened friend.
NANCY MCCLELLAND, initiating poet:
color/dolor |
Response by artist LARRY WAGNER: Loved and Lost, photograph on metal.
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