ARTISTS' CO-OP OF MENDOCINO
  • Welcome !
  • Artists
    • Monthly Sampler
    • Photography >
      • Shanti Balsé
      • Sharon Garner
      • Pat Toth-Smith
    • Painting, Printmaking, Drawing, Multimedia >
      • Mary T. Anderson
      • Shanti Benoit
      • Karen Bowers
      • Laura Corben
      • David L. Cross
      • Joseph DuVivier
      • Stephen Garner
      • Debra Lennox
      • Karen Embree Reynolds
      • Robert Spies
      • Lynne Whiting
      • Robert Yelland (paintings)
      • Lynne Zickerman Olson
    • Jewelry, Sculpture, Ceramics, other 3D Art >
      • Jim Cowles
      • Maralee Greene (ceramics)
      • Robert Spies Sculpture
      • Robert Yelland (jewelry)
    • Guest Artists >
      • Lynne Butler (Ceramics)
      • Sev Ickes (Joyous Scenes)
      • Wendell Rickon (Upcycle Woodwork)
      • Robert Spies Sculpture
  • About Us
    • Find and Contact Us
    • Information, Calendar, Kudo
  • Exhibitions
    • Current Featured Artist
    • Online Exhibitions >
      • Selected Conundrums
      • Ekphrasis IX 2020 Exhibition
      • Ekphrasis XII 2023 Exhibition
      • Ekphrasis X 2021 Exhibition
      • Heart and Flowers
      • Ekphrasis XI 2022 Exhibition >
        • Marine Mendocino
        • Transitions
        • Collaborative Collages
      • Ekphrasis XIII 2024 Exhibition
  • ArtNotes
Ekphrasis XI 2023 Online Exhibition

​SET 2. Writer Initiators and Their Visual Artist Responders
​

D.  NORMA WATKINS, "Her Barracuda Summer." Response by artist MARY-ELLEN CAMPBELL: ​The Big Barracuda.
E. KAREN K. LEWIS, "Choose Your Own Adventure," Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Passage.
F. 
NATY OSA, "The Namesake." Response by artist SEV ICKES: The Flocker Family
 
Intro   Set 1   Set 3   Set 4   Set 5   Set 6   Afterword

 ​
​​D.  Her Barracuda Summer ​by NORMA WATKINS

 Sphyraena barracuda, large, predatory fish known for their fearsome appearance and ferocious behavior. Found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.
 
Her barracuda were babies, teenagers at most. They swam quietly alongside her, lower jaws protruding comically, tiny, sharp teeth winking through the warm waters of Florida Bay. She should have been afraid—people had warned her about the big ones—but she wasn’t.
           She spent that summer in Key Largo trying to focus: mornings on her dissertation, afternoons with the barracuda, evenings with Pleasant Pete. She kept the misery walled away.
          The betraying husband drove down one day. To check on her, he claimed, but actually to say he planned on bringing the other woman to their house, into their loft bed, between their sheets. 
Here was the big barracuda. Why hadn’t she noticed the teeth in that wide smile? Why hadn’t she suspected before he gobbled her heart and spit out the rest? 
          She was beyond running or fighting. She said, “Why not?” The husband drove north toward Miami, and she went for a swim.   
  The baby barracuda appeared. A dozen or more, slim, green, and almost as transparent as the water, they kept company with her head. The single eyes watched her in a not unfriendly way. She felt glad for the companionship, swimming back and forth in front of the dock, adding salty tears to the sea. 


​​D. Artist's Response by MARY-ELLEN CAMPBELL: The Big Barracuda
Picture
Watercolor, 8 x 10 x 2 in.

​
E. "​Choose Your Own Adventure"
 
KAREN K. LEWIS
​E. Passage
by responding artist LYNNE WHITING

​Will you journey alone, or together?
If together, who picks the route?
If alone, will you explore ocean or forest or sky or heart?
If you explore ocean, will you sink or will you swim?
How far?
If you enter forest, will you rest in ferns or climb sequoias?
Will your trail lead into a Jurassic past or towards an intergalactic future?
If you search sky, will you soar with birds or float between clouds and moon?
On a path of heart, will you travel alone, or together?
What borders will you cross? How will you find home?

Picture
​​F. "Namesake"
For Nicasia
 
We are the keepers,
a charm bracelet 
of family names,
a generational link
in the chain 
of treasured memories
not yet our own,
a bond of love
a fetter of responsibility.
¿De quién eres?
Whose are you?
A great-great grandmother 
memorialized
in one fading photograph
walks hand in hand with you, 
her namesake:
Nicasia
 
Naty Osa
December 2, 2020
​F. The Flocker Family, in response by SEV ICKES
Picture

This is Set 2.  Click to go to  Intro   Set 1   Set 3   Set 4   Set 5   Set 6   Afterword
​
Picture
Sign  up for our monthly ArtNotes newsletter.
​@2014 Artists' Cooperative of Mendocino, Inc.
​                           All rights reserved.

Artists’ Co-op of Mendocino Gallery 
​Located NW corner of Kasten and Albion Sts.

(707) 937-2217    
USmail:  Box 1943, Mendocino CA 95460
(mail is not delivered to the street address)
Go to the website:  www.artcoopmendocino.com 
To contact the Co-op email  [email protected]
​To contact the webmaster, 
enter "attn webmaster" on the subject line
  • Welcome !
  • Artists
    • Monthly Sampler
    • Photography >
      • Shanti Balsé
      • Sharon Garner
      • Pat Toth-Smith
    • Painting, Printmaking, Drawing, Multimedia >
      • Mary T. Anderson
      • Shanti Benoit
      • Karen Bowers
      • Laura Corben
      • David L. Cross
      • Joseph DuVivier
      • Stephen Garner
      • Debra Lennox
      • Karen Embree Reynolds
      • Robert Spies
      • Lynne Whiting
      • Robert Yelland (paintings)
      • Lynne Zickerman Olson
    • Jewelry, Sculpture, Ceramics, other 3D Art >
      • Jim Cowles
      • Maralee Greene (ceramics)
      • Robert Spies Sculpture
      • Robert Yelland (jewelry)
    • Guest Artists >
      • Lynne Butler (Ceramics)
      • Sev Ickes (Joyous Scenes)
      • Wendell Rickon (Upcycle Woodwork)
      • Robert Spies Sculpture
  • About Us
    • Find and Contact Us
    • Information, Calendar, Kudo
  • Exhibitions
    • Current Featured Artist
    • Online Exhibitions >
      • Selected Conundrums
      • Ekphrasis IX 2020 Exhibition
      • Ekphrasis XII 2023 Exhibition
      • Ekphrasis X 2021 Exhibition
      • Heart and Flowers
      • Ekphrasis XI 2022 Exhibition >
        • Marine Mendocino
        • Transitions
        • Collaborative Collages
      • Ekphrasis XIII 2024 Exhibition
  • ArtNotes