Iskra Fine Art

  • Prints
    • The Tarmac Residency: Airport Landscapes
    • Ink Painting Abstractions
    • Immersions | At The Shore
    • ColorBath: Images of the Harbor
    • The Floating World
    • Industrial Strength | Urban Industrial Landscape
    • The Scaffold
    • Industrial Pastorale: The Rural/Urban Landscape
    • Botanical Prints | The Natural World
    • Construction | Reconstruction : Urban Landscape
    • Infrastructure
  • Drawings
    • Pencil Drawings: Pandemic Pause
    • Drawings in Dust 1
    • Signs & Symbols (Archive)
    • Botanical Drawings (Archive)
  • Photography
    • Seattle Waterfront Park Photography
    • Architectural Photography | Construction Sites
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Mixed Media
    • Modern Botanical | Mixed Media on Plaster
    • From the Sea | Water Paintings
    • Sleep Studies
  • Journals
    • Wayfinding Journal (Archive)
  • Shop
  • About
    • Contact
  • Blog
You are here: Home / Archives for Heather McHugh

Sonnet/Sonata, An Evening with Robert Hass, Jonathan Biss, and Heather McHugh

November 23, 2012 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Piano And Butterfly WingsRecently I had the pleasure of attending an elegant soiree at the Seattle Asian Art Museum as a guest of Heather McHugh. McHugh, in case you are unfamiliar with her, is a poet and MacArthur fellow, as well as recipient of a Stranger Genius award. Part of McHugh’s genius manifests as generosity. This evening’s offering of intensely beautiful culture came in the service of Caregifted, her charitable organization devoted to offering relief and deep respite to the exhausted and over-extended caregivers among us.

Many of us know someone, (or we may ourselves be) in the position of giving care to a permanently disabled person. Often this job is a 24 hour commitment and unpaid, as the person is a loved one, relative, child or spouse of the caregiver. The job is life-long, and it can be unrelenting. Each year Caregifted gives some of these people a week of time and inspiration and rest in a beautiful location. The program is a pilot at this time and it is McHugh’s hope that the idea will spread and that other organizations will form to do the same thing.

Among all the thousands of charitable organizations in the world, this cause could seem small–until you consider just what the unpaid life-long volunteer contributes to the greater social fabric by doing this. Imagine, for a moment, all of the disabled, in whatever capacity, mental or physical, suddenly without a caretaker, how we would function as a society. Most of us do not have the skills, much less the compassion, to care for people we do not know with autism, or alzheimers, or wheelchair bound– and those who step in and step up provide a sometimes invisible, powerful and indispensable thread in the fabric of our society. Caregifted’s week of time says, “We see you. Thank you! And may you restore your spirit.”

Robert Hass Reading

Only a poet with an unusual mind would conceive this project, and then present an evening of such enchantment in its service. Robert Hass took the stage to read both his own work and poems about art and music. I have searched in vain online for his conversation with Modigliani–startling, eloquent, and please somebody tell me when it is published! Following him, Jonathan Biss played the Steinway and convinced me I may never have heard the piano played before. I sat ten feet from the stage, and my tendency towards cultural narcolepsy did not have a chance. I quite literally felt chills up and down my spine.

The PianistPhotographs © Iskra Johnson (i-phone)

A documentary film (“Undersung”) about Caregifted is in the works, portions of which we viewed at the end of the evening. If you would like to know more (and see film clips) please visit the Caregifted site or donate through Children’s Hospital Foundation.

 

Filed Under: Recent Posts Tagged With: Caregifted, Heather McHugh, Jonathan Biss, Robert Haas reading, Seattle Asian Art Museum

Join Iskra’s Mailing List

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to receive show announcements, first peek at new work and my semi-monthly blog by email. I primarily use the blog for news and updates but by signing up you will also receive the occasional newsletter and special offers for items in my shop.

Iskra Fine Art Blog

the creative process | conversations with artists | the contemplative impulse in art

Instagram

I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid
Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone and light.

Featured Posts

  • How to Purchase Artwork from Iskra Fine Art
  • About This Blog
  • New Directions in Contemplative Art: Conversations with Artists
  • What is a Transfer Print? (Artist Statement)

Categories

  • Abstract Calligraphy
  • Airport Landscapes
  • Architecture & Sense of Place
  • Art Reviews
  • Art Sales
  • Artist Studio Visits
    • The Mystic Muse: Artists Working in the Contemplative Traditions
  • botanical art
  • Botanical Art Cards
  • Collage
  • Construction/Reconstruction
  • Digital Collage
  • Drawing
  • Essays
  • Featured Post
  • Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past
  • Iskra Sketchbooks & Journals
  • Iskra Writing on Medium
  • Living With Art
  • Meditation & Buddhism
  • Mixed Media
  • Music
  • Object Lessons: Essays and images inspired by "A History of the World in 100 Objects."
  • Painting
  • Photocollage
  • Photography
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Poems
  • Print Sale
  • Prints
  • Recent Posts
  • Road Trips
  • Social Media for Artists
  • The 100 Day Projects
  • The Alaska Way Viaduct
  • The Garden
  • The Gardener's Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena
  • The Spiritual in Art
  • The Street
  • the Tarmac Residency
  • The Water Tower Project
  • Transfer Prints
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Watercolors

Archives

Search

Connect on Facebook

Iskra Fine Art Facebook Page

Creative Inspiration

  • Alternative Photography
  • An Artist's Retreat
  • Anonymous Chinese Textile Genius: Moo Won
  • Chocolate Is A Verb
  • Contemplative Art Process: Danila Rumold
  • Eva Isaksen
  • Old Industrial Japan
  • The Altered Page
  • The Heart Sutra Loop
  • The Patra Passage

Galleries for Contemplative Art

  • ArtXchange Gallery
  • Seattle Asian Art Museum

Links

  • CollageArt.org
  • Iskra at SAM Gallery
  • Iskra Fine Art on Houzz
  • Seattle Art Museum Blog
  • Seattle Artist League
  • Seattle Print Arts
  • Seeing Fresh: Contemplative Photography
  • The Painter's Keys

What I'm Reading: Online Magazines and Books I Love

  • 16 mi.
  • Essays by David Whyte
  • Evening Will Come: Poetry
  • Hyperallergic
  • Painter's Table
  • Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art
  • Streetsy
  • The Original Van Gogh's Ear Anthology
  • Tricycle Magazine
  • Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty
  • Vanguard

Let’s Connect

  • Contact Iskra
  • How to purchase artwork
  • Iskra Fine Art Blog : The creative process, conversations with artists, the contemplative impulse in art

Join Iskra’s Mailing List

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to receive show announcements, first peek at new work and my semi-monthly blog by email. I primarily use the blog for news and updates but by signing up you will also receive the occasional newsletter and special offers for items in my shop.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

All Images Copyright © 2023  Iskra Johnson · Site by LND · WordPress