?rogress is almost over

i recently curated ?rogress at the stollery gallery (in the nina haggerty centre for the arts). this exhibition was part of bridgesongs, a music and arts experience that features two nights of live music, an album release, two art galleries, as well as spoken word and artist workshops. it was also part of this year's the works: art & design festival.

bridgesongs is something i've been involved with for a few years now (this is its fifth year). i love how it's about community. i love that it's taking place amidst the blossoming arts community of alberta avenue, and that it seeks to be a part of the revitalization happening there.

so here's how bridge songs works. a theme is chosen, and announced to a group of collaborators consisting of songwriters and artists. these groups begin writing songs and creating art inspired by the theme. a collection of songs is chosen by the songwriters, and, as the bridge songs collective, they get to work refining and recording those songs. meanwhile, a call for submissions is released to bring in art from the community at large.

the goal is that a dialogue is created between the artists and the community through the creation and enjoyment of art. themes explored range from the serious to the playful, drawing in work and audiences from a broad range of genres and demographics. the end result is a truly collaborative, community driven, one of a kind arts experience.

anyway, the exhibition (and thank you dave for allowing me to do it!) features works by pam baergen, benjamin lemphers and tj mclachlan, is open from June 17th to July 5th. the works in the exhibition explore the idea of Progress through lenses of natural, urban, and personal cycles of destruction and (re)construction. or so i maintain. the closing reception is tuesday july 5th, from 7-9 pm. i hope you'll be able to join us.

reflections on NextGen: Canada

as some of you know, i was accepted as a participant in NextGen: Canada, a professional development workshop or "learning collaboration" opportunity offered in partnership by the alberta museums association, the getty leadership institute at claremont graduate university and the university of alberta museums (and which is based on GLI at CGU's internationally respected Museum Leaders: The Next Generation program. it was an honour to be accepted, and it was a pleasure to meet the other 18 participants, who came from all over the country, and to represent the next generation of canadian museum leaders.

over the next few days and weeks, i hope to be able to capture some of my thoughts and responses (and plans) about this experience and what particularly imapcted me personally and professionally. it was an interesting, enlightening and curious experience, and one that i shall not soon forget. it provided me with some great tools, but also helped to clarify and stir other hopes and dreams. it was timely in that it intersected and parallelled other activities and intentions in my life, and it will be interesting to see how these ideas about, and tools for, leadership play out in other areas of my life...

let me hear your voice

let me hear your voice

hmm. there it is again.

that push. pressure of thought,

dream, action meeting.

or not meeting. or meeting poorly.

like a half-heard conversation,

missing some important information,

like a kiss not quite planted squarely.

or surely, or fully.

and that’s what it is –

not full. can’t taste this

thing that should be full of life,

of passion, of desire.

fire of hunger, delight, fear

of falling that becomes flight.

hmm. the hum of dream & expectation

humming ‘neath the skin,

drum beat strain & the eternal song

of yes, here it is, this way, this way,

come closer, draw nearer,

let me feel your breath

as you whisper & murmur

& voice the words curled around your spine,

your fingers unfurled,

your heart the world.

dave margoshes: becoming a writer

What could be easier than learning to write?

Novels, poems, fables with and without morals

they’re all within you, in the heart, the head

the bowel, the tip of the pen a diviner’s rod.

Reach inside and there they are, the people

one knows, their scandalous comments,

the silly things they do, the unforgettable feeling

of a wet eyelash on your burning cheek.

This moment, that, an eruption of violence,

a glancing away, the grandest of entrances,

the telling gesture, the banal and the beautiful,

all conspire with feeling and passion to transport,

to deliver, to inspire. Story emerges

from this cocoon, a crystalline moment, epiphanies

flashing like lightbulbs above the heads

of cartoon characters. All this within you

where you least expect it, not so much in the head

as under the arms, glistening with sweat, stinking

with the knowledge of the body, the writer

neither practitioner nor artisan but miner, digging

within himself for riches unimagined, for salt.


Margoshes, Dave. "Becoming a Writer" The Best Canadian Poetry in English. Toronto: Tightrope Books, 2009.

marilyn bowering: about your name

5.


If you wish to think about what is invisible,
you start with a loved one,


with their essence, with the touch of lips
in actuality or in potential: as beginning with


electrons and moving to electricity,
and the hydro electric dams on the rivers,


and the changes of names they undergo
according to politics -- that is, you ignore history.


As to the way things are -- this is intelligible
only through a vision of you.


Marvellous colours that are invisible except
to the naked eye, unseen by electronic pulses,


or by mirrors, or by angels talking and drawing
each other's pictures,


unseen by all except me, who happened to find you
in the right place and time.


Because when I look at you I seem to see nothing:
I see the sweetness and light that is above


and beyond all mirrors or the hair combing of angels,
or the polishings of motor cars and mountain bicycles:


it is greatest because it is the simplest, and because it is full
like the air, of the intention to touch.


For that which is most actual is you when I see you
and when I am with you.


You ask how this came about:
it is a question of grace, not practice,


a step in the right direction by chance, 
a desire, not thought.


And I meditated on the mind's ascent to love
the whole world before me, and all the roads,


and I waited for you.


Bowering, Marilyn. "About Your Name" Introductions: Poets Present Poets. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 2001.