AT THE ARTS CENTER – The public is invited to a free Book Reading, Exhibit and Booksigning, “Unauthorized Audubon” at the Shiawassee Arts Center 2 to 3 p.m. today (Sunday, Nov. 22).
Anita Skeen, an accomplished poet and MSU Professor in the Residential College, along with Laura B. DeLind, printmaker and retired senior emeritus of the MSU Department of Anthropology, have collaborated on the book with a collection of 22 prints and 22 poems.
Today’s event will include a reading and general discussion of what it means, in their experience as artists, to collaborate on such a project. The book will be available for purchase as well as framed and unframed linocuts by DeLind who will also have on display and for sale original copies of prints that are published in the book.
Its creators never set out to produce a book when they began exchanging prints and poems, but something happened along the way. As they began to appreciate at a deeper level the skill involved in each other’s work, they began to find meaning in small things—a pattern, a memory, a carefully chosen word.
This book is all about response-ability as experienced by the two artists and the visitors to an exhibit of their work at the Michigan State University Museum. This concept and activity animates the twenty-two bird-like spirits found herein, reminding us that there are other such spirits hovering expectantly just beyond the pages, simply waiting for the imagining.
The two friends state, “We as artists have found that despite our differences, poetry and print-making share much in common and bringing these two creative forms together has expanded our ability to appreciate them both.”
The Shiawassee Arts Center, 206 Curwood Castle Drive in Owosso, is open noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, during the holidays.
The Arts Center is featuring the 27th annual Holiday at the Center, displaying and selling the multi-media artwork of over 100 Michigan artists now through Dec. 31. The public is welcome and there is no admission charge. SAC, which is celebrating its 43rd anniversary in 2015, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage participation and appreciation of the arts. For more information, persons may call the Arts Center, (989) 723-8354 or visit www.shiawasseearts.org. (Courtesy Graphic)
