artsXchange with Jim Armstrong – Try Everything: A Multi-Media Approach to Creative Writing
Thursday | June 20 | 6:30-8 pm
Minnesota Marine Art Museum | 800 Riverview Dr.
Register Here
The next artsXchange event presented by River Arts Alliance (RAA) at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum (MMAM) will be led by RAA member Jim Armstrong and entitled Try Everything: A Multi-Media Approach to Creative Writing.
Armstrong says, “A writer is not just someone who sits at a keyboard: the full use of the imagination requires multiple aesthetic adventures. Poetry especially exists at the intersection of the visual, the musical and the linguistic; it benefits from the immediate tactile experience provided by the fine arts and also the practical arts. As a poet I have learned traditional penmanship, pursued drawing in various media, engaged in a daily photographic practice, experimented with putting poems to music, and learned to design and hand-sew chapbooks. All these pursuits have helped enliven my arts practice and kept me from being ‘stuck.’ This program will follow several projects as they move from daily writing through to finished work and will show how journaling, sketching, photography, musical composition, and book making contributed to the final product. The working assumption is that a writer should not be afraid to try new media and that the adventure of acquiring a new artistic skill can keep one nimble and generative.”
This event is free to attend for members of RAA or MMAM, and included with museum admission for others. (Museum admission is free for students on Thursdays.) Registration is required, and space is limited to 25 attendees per program.
About the host artist:
James Armstrong is the author of three poetry books, Monument in a Summer Hat (1999) and Blue Lash (2006) and Empire (2023). He is also the co-author with Kim Chapman of a book of essays, Nature, Culture and Two Friends Talking (2015). Armstrong has published poems in Triquarterly, Gulf Coast, Orion, The New York Times Book Review, Poetry East, Split Rock Review, Terrain.org, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the PEN-New England Discovery Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in poetry. Armstrong taught in the English department at Winona State University for 24 years. He was Winona’s first Poet Laureate and is one of the founders of the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. You can learn more about him at https://jamesarmstrongpoet.com/.
About artsXchange:
Since 2022, the Minnesota Marine Art Museum + River Arts Alliance have come together to bring you an informal artist exchange – a chance for artists and creatives from across a variety of mediums to gather for inspiration, exploration and exchange at the museum. At artsXchange events, a member from River Arts Alliance, a nonprofit that supports and celebrates regional arts and culture, hosts a 90-minute artist meet-up and conversation with an artist, maker, designer, writer, or another creative person.
See more about previous artsXchange events here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.