Why, Synchroni-City of course!
Yeah yeah, I know, even I’m groaning at that one. I’ll apologize later. For now, let me bring you up to date.
About a month and a half ago, I received a notice that Sho Gallery was planning to host another Scattered Ecstasies in September. This is a very popular event, bringing together artists, poets and actors. In the past, the artists set about creating a new painting, and as they do so, the poets will visit several times to observe and then write an original poem about the work. The paintings are displayed at the Gallery and the matching poems are recited by actors. It’s a unique and quite beautiful creative event.
But when I received the notice, I chucked it. Not interested. I spoke to a poet involved in a previous exhibit and the time involved was too great. I’m beginning to wrap up The Magdalene Poems, and I didn’t need any distractions.
Then another notice arrived in my Inbox. The owner of the Gallery thought the similarity of my last name and the last name of an artist he had in mind would make for a “poetic connection,” and would we (Danah and I) be interested. Beaudoin and Beaulieu. Uh huh.
Gotta say, my first reaction was “That’s the lamest excuse for a partnering I’ve ever heard! I didn’t know this woman, and more importantly, I didn’t have the time. But since he’d asked so nicely, I decided to let him down easy.
“Barry,” I said, “can you tell me what the time factor is here?” expecting him to say a few hours observing the work in progress, and then however long it takes to write a poem about it, as long as it’s before September 1st. But he surprised me.
“It doesn’t matter which comes first, painting or poem.”
Well. That had some possibilities.
I wrote Danah and asked if I sent her some of my Magdalene poems, would she consider creating a painting to match? She said “Sure!” So I fired off three poems for her to choose from and my part in this whole affair was done. Woo-hoo!
But, as if it wasn’t enough that I was going to have my poetry miraculously transformed into an entirely different medium, Danah added, “We’ve met before, and I have your book “holy cards.” Say what? Really?! “Yes. I think our collaboration will be a wonderful expression of the Divine Feminine.” Gasp! My language! She speaks my language! “And, oh yeah, I’m Vanessa Shields’ sister.”
Knock me over with a feather time. Vanessa is a dear friend. I call her “my sister by another mother and father.” We’ve promoted each others work, organized readings and workshops together, both been published by Black Moss Press, celebrated each others successes and offered each other a shoulder to cry on when needed. And here’s her sister wanting to transform my poetry into art. Is this a sign or WHAT!!
But the story’s not over.
Danah is something called an intuitive artist. Not only does she connect with the Divine through her art, she also gives energy readings. This is something I’ve been wanting to explore for some time, but as I had no idea how to go about it, I finally left it up to the Universe to find a way. And boy howdy, did it ever! My reading was yesterday. I’ll share some of the details with you next time.
