Reception & Reading for 18th Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration

Friday | April 26 | 6:30pm
Crossings at Carnegie | Zumbrota MN
crossingsatcarnegie.com/html/exhibits.html

Crossings’ XVIII Annual Poet-Artist Collaboration exhibit, celebrating a pairing of two art forms, is on display now through May 4. Read the poems (displayed alongside the art pieces) and determine for yourself how the artists were inspired. Fifty poets and visual artists took part in this years’ exhibit which can be seen free of charge during regular business hours. Join them for a reception and poetry reading on Friday, April 26, at 6:30 p.m. both at the gallery and next door at the vintage State Theatre. Poets will read their poems, while an image of the art is projected on the big screen, followed by a statement from the artist.

Participants with Winona connections include Winona Poet Laureate Ken McCullough, as well as poets Marcia Ratliff, Scott Lowery, Nancy Kay Peterson, Delta Eddy and artist Julia Crozier.

Over 100 poets and artists participated in this year’s event by entering up to three poems each, or submitting artistic work samples. Jurors winnowed more than 200 poems down to just 26. Other jurors selected 26 artists from those who entered. For this exhibit, each artist chooses one poem from which to create an artwork. Poems and the work they inspired are displayed together.

The poems share many familiar life experiences, from living in Minnesota or the countryside or in warmer climates. Partings are painfully, lovingly shared, as are happy moments of the poets’ lives. The artists turned their vision of the poem given to them into works using a variety of mediums, including oil and watercolor, mixed media, weavings, encaustic and more.

Scott Lowery, Ken McCullough, and Julia Crozier are members of the River Arts Alliance. To learn more about the benefits of membership, please visit: riverartsalliance.org/JOIN.