Poets, Writers Collaborate on Broadsides
By La Monica Everett-Haynes in Arts and Humanities, Teaching and Students

UA student poetry contest winners have worked for the first time with graphic designers in the UA School of Art to produce broadsides, which will be on display at the UA Poetry Center.

The broadsides, which are designed to be presented as posters and historically were used for announcements in public spaces and in newspaper publications, will be presented during events slated to begin in May. 

The UA Poetry Center and Book Art Collective initiated the collaborative project, which began with the The Hattie Lockett Awards, a poetry contest held in the fall of 2012 and the spring 2013, both involving undergraduate and graduate students.

All told, eight poets and eight graphic designers worked in pairs to create broadsides depicting each others' work.

Graphic artist Kejun Li, a first-year Master of  Fine Arts student in the School of Art, worked with Cory Aaland to illustrate his poem, "Country Music is Cool Poem," which Li said urges people to find something more deeply compelling in the genre of country music.

"People think country music is just about love and cowboys; that it is pretty monotonous," said Li, a graphic artist is from Beijing, China, who is now pursuing his second Master of Fine Arts degree at the UA. "But country music is part of a culture, and we want to remind people that it really is a beautiful art.

For the broadside, Li produced deconstructed sketchings of the acoustic guitar, the iconic instrument in the genre of country music, and the large, pinkish dot is meant to mimic a musical note head. Given his background producing commercial graphic design while in China, Li said the collaboration has enabled him to introduce more artistic elements in his work.

Li's parting advice: "Don't look at country music so superficially. Look deeper and find a different perspective."

Jared Pinon (broadsheet image to the right), one of graphic designers, worked with poet Meg Wade and became involved in the collaboration through the Letterpress and Book Art Lab.

"I believe that both the Book Art Collective and the Poetry Center gain an awareness of each other," said Pinon, a UA sophomore in the visual communications program with an emphasis in graphic design. "This also gives both parties a chance to advertise for each other."

Wade, who graduates from the UA next month with  her Master in Fine Arts degree in poetry, also enjoyed the process, saying that she and Pinon arrived with comparable ideas.

"It was pretty great to know the artist picked my poem because he wanted to work with it, so going in, we had similar images in mind," said Wade, whose poem is titled "I Blame the Woods and Keep the Body" and written in Southern Gothic Literary Tradition.

"As a poet, my main concern is whether or not someone reading my poem will have a clear image of the nouns I weave together syntactically," Wade said.

"I want to make sure I'm drawing a picture with words.  In working on this collaboration with the artist, Jared, it was really amazing to see how he picked up on the theme of touch and how his scene he pictured from the poem was so similar to the scene I pictured writing it," she said. "It's comforting to know when a poem has done it's job."

Travis Boswell (broadsheet image to the left), who worked with Melissa Goodrich, an award-winning poet and fiction writer, said the collaboration was mutually beneficial.

"I had a great interaction with my poet, which allowed me to get a greater understanding of the poetry," said Boswell, a UA Honors College sophomore studying visual communications. 

For Goodrich's free form poem, which is full of imagery and intentional misspellings, Boswell chose a simple black and white design with the poem. He also employed a linoleum cut print, which he carved.

Embedded in the metaphor of the poem and the design is the understanding that we each prescribe our own understanding and meaning to different elements in life and that interpretations can change over time. 

"It's the feeling of going back and looking through old trunks and boxes in the attic. The things are the same, but they are different," Boswell said. "I am very happy with how it turned out."

The other students and their collaborators are: poet Hannah Ensor and Amanda Beekhuizen; poet Jessica Jenkins and Nyla Hurley; poet Mika Jankowski and Alice Vinson; poet Ryan Mills and Rob Wilson; and poet Morgan Shnier worked with Nicholas Weidner.

To showcase the work of the University students, the UA Poetry Center is hosting the Hattie Lockett and UA Student Contest Broadside Exhibition, which will be open May 1 through June 1 at the center. The broadsides will be on display in the Jeremy Ingalls Gallery of the Poetry Center. Also, students will read their work May 1 and 2, each day at 7 p.m., at the UA Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St., which maintains a collection of more than 300 broadsides. The events are free and open to the public.

Jared Pinon broadsheet photo credit: Robert Wilso, UA student graphic designer

Contact: Allie Leach, the education programs assistant for the UA Poetry Center at 520-626-0709 or leach@email.arizona.edu.

Tags:
The Arts, Students, Student Life, Outreach, Education

Poetry Center Executive Earns Arizona Humanities Council Award
By Annie Guthrie, UA Poetry Center in Arts and Humanities

For her tireless dedication to poetry and the humanities, Gail Browne, the UA Poetry Center's executive director, has been honored with an award from the Arizona Humanities Council – the Juliana Yoder Friend of the Humanities Award.

The award recognizes individuals, organizations or businesses that have made a lasting contribution to the cultural life of their communities through their active support of and involvement in promoting the humanities.

Browne has done just that throughout her career at the Poetry Center.

The award will be presented April 28 at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tempe as part of the Arizona Humanities Council’s “Sharing Words, Changing Worlds Lecture & Humanities Awards."

The award serves as a tribute to Browne, who will be leaving her UA position in June 2013 and relocating to Phoenix. Browne said she carries great appreciation in being honored with the Yoder Award, which commemorates her life’s work of making poetry and the humanities accessible in all corners of Arizona and beyond.

"This award is a great honor for me and for the Poetry Center, which has partnered with the Arizona Humanities Council for many years on programs that promote a deeper understanding of poetry throughout our state," said Browne, who also serves on the Board of Directors for the Tucson-Pima Arts Council and the Humanities Seminars Program within the UA College of Humanities.

In 2002, Browne came to the Poetry Center when it was housed in three small bungalows with most of the library books in storage. The bungalows were razed and the Poetry Center needed a new home.

Browne tenaciously led the capital campaign, design and construction of the Helen S. Schaefer Building – the permanent home of the renowned Poetry Center.  This landmark facility received a 2009 Arizona American Institute of Architects Award for Design. Along with the Poetry Center in Chicago and the Poets’ House in New York, the UA center is one of only three such high-profile centers in the nation dedicated to the promotion, dissemination and preservation of poetry.

Peter W. Likins, who was the UA president during the construction and dedication of the center's building said: “Under Gail Browne’s persistent and determined leadership, the world-renowned Poetry Center at the University of Arizona was finally able, after decades of frustration, to create an ideal home worthy of its intellectual distinction.”

During her tenure, Browne has multiplied the scope and reach of Poetry Center programming, which has presented well over 1,000 poets of national and international acclaim as well as poets rooted in Southern Arizona. She has strongly advocated keeping programs free or low-cost by working in both the private and business sector to raise funds for their support.

Also, Browne's fundraising efforts led to the creation of the Walt Whitman Circle, a group of community members and patrons of the arts who commit to an annual contribution of $250 or more. Within the Circle’s first year, coupled with the Friends of the Poetry Center group, Browne oversaw a fundraising campaign that brought in more than $65,000 in program support.

Contact: Annie Guthrie of the UA Poetry Center at 520-626-4310 or guthrie@email.arizona.edu.

The Poetry Center is housed in one of three landmark buildings in the nation for the study and celebration of poetry. In addition to its prestigious collection of contemporary poetry, the Poetry Center is known for its long running readings and lecture series, international symposia, classes and workshops, writers’ residencies, exhibitions, and a wide range of programs for children and youth. For more information, please visit the center online or call (520) 626-3765.

Tags:
Staff, The Arts

Final Lecture Covering 50 Years of Civil Rights to be Held
By Bob Diaz, the UA Libraries in Arts and Humanities

The UA exhibit, “50 Years: Civil Rights in Arizona from 1963 to Today," will remain on display in Special Collections at the University Library through August 2013, but the final accompanying lecture will be held this month.

The event, “50 Years: Tucson’s Mexican American Community," will be held April 29 at 7 p.m. in the UA Special Collections. The evening’s featured speakers are Guadalupe Castillo, a native Tucsonan and longtime educator, and Margo Cowan, an immigrant rights lawyer.

It is the the final program to be held in tandem with the UA exhibit, which includes documents, books and artifacts from the national Civil Rights Movement, as well as materials documenting efforts by various local communities, including the African American, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ), American Indian and Mexican American communities of Tucson.

The Mexican community in Tucson has a long, rich and proud history. However, as with most communities in the Southwest with Mexican American populations, it has experienced its share of challenges.

During the pre-civil rights era, for example, discrimination and segregation in housing, employment and in education were typical. Mexican American children were punished for speaking Spanish in schools and most were held back and tracked into vocational education. Also, white collar jobs were far out of reach for those who managed to graduate from high school and access to housing was also limited, as certain parts of town were simply off limits to non-whites.

Once World War II ended, however, things began to change.

War veterans from Mexican American and African American communities, along with some allies from the Anglo and Jewish communities, began to organize and fight for equal rights.

At the state level, the Arizona Council on Civic Unity was formed in the early 1950s to battle segregation in public schools. In Tucson, pressure from the local branch of the Council for Civic Unity called for an end to segregated education, and the African American Dunbar School, which is currently being renovated and revitalized, was eventually closed. By 1954, the Supreme Court had ruled that “separate but equal” education was inherently discriminatory, and ruled illegal at the national level.

Victory at the national level inspired groups like the Tucson Council on Civic Unity, an offshoot of the state organization, to continue chipping away at discriminatory practices in arenas such as housing and public accommodations. Such groups were successful by lobbying elected officials to pass non-discrimination laws and ordinances.  

In the early 1960s, several bills were brought forward to the Arizona's legislature, for example, calling for an end to such discrimination. Locally, the Tucson City Council also considered passing a non-discrimination ordinance.

It wasn’t until the passage of the national Civil Rights Act of 1964, that these practices were finally deemed illegal across the country.

Having laws on the books outlawing discrimination is one thing; getting people to comply with the law is quite another.

As the 1960s came to a close, many communities of color, including the Mexican American community, found they had to continue to fight for equal rights, especially in education.

By the end of the decade, the Chicano Movement had spread throughout the Southwest. At the local level, student activists in fought to get the City of Tucson to create more parks in the barrios. Students also picketed the Tucson School District's office, demanding culturally relevant courses, better teachers and better schools.

Changes were underway, but slowly, and its been hard fought.

Today, access to education is still an issue for the Mexican American community, as battles with the community’s largest school district continue in the courts and on the streets. Racial profiling has also become a big issue for the Mexican American community, as recent passage of laws at the state level have given law enforcement liberty to question people about their citizenship status.  

The forthcoming event will explore these events and topics.

On a related note, the Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Collection, has made its debut at the UA. The collection makes accessible more than 150 years of news coverage documenting the voice of the Mexican and Mexican American community. Curated, researched and digitized by librarians and archivists, in consultation with UA professors, the collection features 20 significant Mexican and Mexican American publications, many in Spanish. 

Photos courtesy of the UA Special Collections

The event, “50 Years: Tucson’s Mexican American Community," is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and refreshments will be served. Contact: Joseph (Bob) Diaz, a UA associate librarian, at 520-621-7010 or diazj@u.library.arizona.edu.

 

Tags:
The Arts, Education, Outreach, Staff, Guest Post

School of Art, UAMA: History Made Us, Our Legacy Guides Us
By Dennis Jones, UA School of Art in Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, Teaching and Students

This story is about a legacy that is still unfolding, and it begins with a building intended as a center for the study of agriculture and mining.

 

That building, now known as Old Main, opened its doors as the University of Arizona in 1891. Even then, students were required to take a course in freehand drawing, and by the turn of the last century, painting and art history classes had been added to the curriculum.

Katherine Kitt, a bold leader and dedicated educator, founded the UA department of art and organized the first art exhibitions on the University campus nearly 90 years ago. The department found its home in the University Library, and space was dedicated there for an art gallery. Once started, the art exhibits increased in popularity, both on campus and within the larger community.

The start of a permanent collection for an art museum, which would eventually become the University of Arizona Museum of Art, or UAMA, came in 1942 when UA alumnus Leonard C. Pfeiffer promised to donate his personal collection to the University.

One year later, the U.S. government made a permanent loan of the then-called Works Progress Administration artworks, which now number more than 280 pieces.

The Kress Foundation gave a major gift to the museum that included 26 paintings from a cathedral in Salamanca. "The Altarpiece of Ciudad Rodrigo" is considered among the most important artworks produced in 15th century Spain. It was this gift and the necessity to exhibit it that brought about the construction of the current Museum of Art and a new School of Art in 1955. 

Then, in 2007, the Archive for Visual Arts opened with gifts of artwork by illustrator Robert McCall.

In fact, over time, the UAMA's permanent collection has been built entirely by gifts of art and generous financial support from donors. The UAMA's 6,000 collection of artworks is truly world-class.

While the required free-hand drawing classes from the 19th century are gone, the UA School of Art has engaged students in the artistic, creative, educational, historical, scholarly and cultural aspects of the visual arts. In 2009, it opened its Visual Arts Graduate Research Laboratory and celebrated the creative achievements of the past, present and future of the school.

Today, the School of Art is among the top-rated university art programs in the country with a 36-member faculty teaching an array of courses in studio art, art history and also art and visual culture education.

The legacy continues to unfold: The UA is a research-one institution; the UAMA and the School of Art value their close ties. Museum staffers and art faculty share in collaborations on exhibitions, programming and education. Together they not only serve members of the on campus community, but also reach out into the community in important and impactful ways.

This is the final feature in a six-part series exploring the history of the UA School of Art and UA Museum of Art.

Tags:
Guest Blog, The Arts, Education, Students, Faculty, Staff, Outreach

Why We Must Love Louder
By Jen DiLallo in Social Sciences and Education, Teaching and Students

Walking into the Kingian Nonviolence Training through the Nonviolence Legacy Project, I was rather unsure of what to expect. I had heard about the training through Advocates Coming Together (A.C.T.), a UA Residence Life group focused on social justice in its variety of forms. 

I decided to sign-up.

One of the key selling points for Kingian Nonviolence is that a person can learn Martin Luther King, Jr.’s six principles and six steps of nonviolence, and also how to apply them to daily life. At the time, this was especially relevant because it was the weekend before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and many of us from A.C.T. were interested in learning about the figurehead that King represented throughout the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. 

I chose the training in the hopes of it guiding me in my own peaceful protesting endeavors. Specifically, since I had transferred to the UA last fall, one feature of campus life that has repeatedly grabbed my attention was and still remain the preachings that take place on the hill outside of the Student Union Memorial Center.

Given that religion is an interest of mine, I would stop occasionally to listen to what exactly each speaker would scream out to the audience, often be surprised by the brashness of their words. I noticed how people of specific identities were targeted, whether for their supposed religious affiliation, sexual activity, sexual orientation, gender, or any other variety of reasons.

Based on my own interest in creating a communally beneficial response and what I gathered from the Kingian Nonviolence training, I have since been working on forming on a collaborative group called Love Louder.

Based on the concept of agape love, as detailed in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “On Agape Love,” the group aims to support diversity within the campus as a whole by withstanding intolerance on behalf of others.

Specifically, we want to create signs and shirts that have affirming messages, so as to visually represent a positive influence in a typically negatively charged area.

All the same, I recognize that such a group cannot operate based on one person’s vision and without support from others; in that sense, I have had the honor of working with the Angel.

Project, Harry Potter Alliance, Secular Student Alliance, and A.C.T. – just for starters – in order to collaborate on an inclusive group for next semester.

The Kingian Nonviolence training has been critical to my way of thinking, because instead of antagonizing anyone or wanting to control their actions, it teaches people how to live peaceably – actively and considerately.

The notion that you can only control your behavior and hope for it to inspire others is what makes peaceful protest both a supremely brave a daringly respectful form to respond to conflict. I hope to continue in this instruction as I pursue making Love Louder an official group. If you have any interest in participating or sharing your thoughts in the process, please visit the Facebook page “Love Louder” or e-mail me directly.

Thank you, and be sure to love louder.

An open meeting will be held at the UA April 28 at 2 p.m. in Room B315 of the Main Library. Students are invited to attend. Love Louder is a group that is dedicated toward presenting visual, positive messages in response to social injustice occurring on campus. It is not religiously or politically affiliated in any way nor does it aim to antagonize those performing unjust acts. Feel free to represent your own identit(ies) in support of diversity on campus.

Jen DiLallo is a double major studying speech, language and hearing sciences and also linguistics. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, DiLallo transferred to the UA from Washington University to pursue a career in bilingual speech-language pathology. Her organization, Love Louder, is scheduled to launch during the fall semester of 2013. For more information, visit Love Louder on Facebook or e-mail DiLallo at jdilallo@email.arizona.edu.

Tags:
Students, Student Life, Education, Outreach

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