Last month I participated in a fun and inspiring two hour creative event co-produced by my friend Kathleen Lane. The intent was to invite several people with a variety of creative backgrounds and get them in one space creating works of art on a theme for two hours, then sharing what they created. The theme for this first event was “chicken.” The event was attended by several writers, a designer and myself. At the end, we were all pretty amazed at the talent that came out of this focused amount of time. Below are photos from the event. I will be attending the event again this month in a participatory capacity, but not a sharer as there will be new blood (including my husband, Noah Nakell)!
Writers working hard.
The reading of a short screenplay.
This presentation included a reading incorporating vintage recipe cards.
Sarah Nordbye created a design for a greeting card using a chicken image and recipe.
This is my chicken painting in progress.
This is the finished painting. I wrote a prose, typed it on Japanese rice paper and collaged it onto the watercolor painting I created.
A couple weeks after the event was over all the participants received silkscreened cards from Sarah with the image she had created.
Below is an excerpt from Kathleen Lane’s prose on the topic of chicken.
Memories of a Chicken
The so called chicken sat on the table with potatoes around it to hide the fact that it wasn’t.
That’s a bunny, Joan said. Isn’t it?
It’s dinner, my mother said.
Yeah but it’s a bunny right? I’m not eating it if it’s a bunny.
In our backyard there was a fence that divided our property from Mr. Whitey’s. Mr. Whitey was a sweaty man who wore undershirts so thin and tight we knew all about his belly button. It was an inny, wide around as a door knob. And all around it was stomach hair, smashed into swirls the shape of smoke.
There was a knot in one of the pickets of the fence and we could look through it into the bunny cages lined up on Mr. Whitey’s side.
If Mr. Whitey was out cleaning the cages and saw us there looking through, he’d say Want to hold one? and hand us a young one over the fence.
In spring the babies came and the mothers jumped around when they heard us near the fence. We couldn’t ever see the babies because they were tucked inside the fur nest the mothers made for them.
But we found one in the grass once. The little neighbor girl found it and came screaming into our yard with the news. I found a baby eyore! I found a baby eyore!
© 2009, Kathleen Lane
Thanks to Kathleen Lane and Margarette Malone for organizing this fun event and to all the participants for being so supportive. I really had a great time.
This is a painting I completed during a two hour art project called Share produced by my friend Kathleen Lane. Below is the prose that was written for it as well as collaged onto it: