Digital Art with a North/South Consciousness
The Digital Latin America Symposium, produced by 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, New Mexico June 7-8, 2014 at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, drew creative minds from local communities and diverse places in Latin America. The audience was composed of academics, artists, journalists, community organizers and enthusiasts. 516 ARTS brought together world-renowned artists like Pablo Helguera and Alex Rivera, as well as showcasing talented young artists who bring new concepts and processes to artmaking. This event showed an understanding of the transnational connection that exists between peoples of the Southwest region of the US to peoples, culture and art in Latin America...
Five Questions with New Mexico Authors – Tanya Ward Goodman
This week we ask author Tanya Ward Goodman some questions about the creative genius of her father, Ross Ward, about the cascading impact on her family of his early on-set Alzheimer’s disease, and about her superbly crafted and deeply moving memoir Leaving Tinkertown from UNM Press, 2014.
NNM: Your storytelling power has made Leaving Tinkertown one of those books readers return to, savor, and use to help understand their own lives. We wondered what access the book has given you to other families and healthcare communities who’ve experienced both the torments of early onset Alzheimer’s disease and are working to find a treatment that works?
TWG: Since the book came out there have been so many opportunities to meet people in the Alzheimer’s community...
Weekly Poem: Hot Tub Time Machine
There’s a place
just beyond the present,
where the past goes to die
in the name of progress.
Where prayers
become quaint folks songs,
instead of blueprints,
instead of sheet music to the revolution,
instead of the past words
to our next donut round the sun...
Emerging Voices: Elijah Bekaye
Curator's note by Stevie Olson: This week, Elijah Bekaye shares two poems. The first piece, “How It Feels,” explores feelings of isolation and loneliness. Elijah’s carefully crafts this piece to bring the reader on an emotional journey. “To: The Reader,” the second poem, offers gentle encouragement with touches of wisdom. With the poem’s clever punctuation, it deserves the reader’s full attention and a second read--it is, after all, addressed to you. Elijah, thank you for your piece. We wish you well this summer and beyond...
Weekly Poem: GRAMMAR LESSON EIGHT—Chapter Four: Nouns (Gerunds)
Verbs always push around
the nouns of this life
always doing stuff
we think of usually
as verbs
as actions—the word actions
a noun when verbs be-
come nouns when I sojourn forth
becomes sojourning
the fact that the sojourn journeys
forth into this darkness...
Emerging Voices: Michelle Gullett
Editor’s note: “Emerging Voices” is a new, ongoing segment featuring young writers from New Mexico. Pieces will be presented by various mentors and teachers working with students across the state. If you work with young writers and would like to highlight a standout talent, please contact us. Essays, poetry, creative writings, personal experiences, or other projects are welcome. Thanks to Stevie Olson for presenting this week’s Emerging Voice...
Searching for today’s “Salt of the Earth”
We all know that Hollywood has made a number of films in New Mexico. But one film that gained the kind of notoriety that chambers of commerce don’t appreciate, was Salt of the Earth, an independent film produced by Paul Jarrico and directed by Herbert Biberman, released sixty years ago on March 14, 1954.
The film was shot in Bayard and Silver City and the script depicts an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in Grant County in 1950. Many miners were recruited to play themselves in the film...
“Digital Latin America” artists in their own words
516 ARTS is bringing together artists from across Latin America, as well as some locally based talents, for their Digital Latin America exhibition. The exhibition opens today with a block party from 5pm-9pm. We got a chance to capture a few of the artists speaking about their works in the exhibition and some of the themes involved in their work...
Review: “Common Ground on Hostile Turf: Stories from an Environmental Mediator,” by Lucy Moore
In this short book Lucy Moore tells several compelling stories. Their power for me comes in part from their honesty, including Moore’s willingness to examine her mistakes as well as her insights about the dynamics of her mediation work. The book is about attempts, through mediated negotiation, to resolve conflicts within and among heterogeneous groups of people. It’s about successes, failures, and outcomes that contain elements of both. It’s about helping to build relationships of trust in order to undertake collective action to further a common purpose, but also – not incidentally – for the sake of the relationships themselves...
Weekly Poem: my mother
my mother once told me
through the smoky air of our living room
after a long drag and a long drink
“the women in our family have been
known to bring out the worst in men”...