Crocker Art Museum
Letras Latinas, the
literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), is pleased to announce its third “PINTURA : PALABRA” workshop, slated to take place on Saturday, October 11 and Sunday October 12 in
Sacramento, CA. The two-day, ten-hour workshop is being
held in tandem with the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s traveling exhibit, "Our America: the Latino Presence in American Art," which opened on September
21 and will be on view through January 11, 2015. There will also be a reading, free
and open to the public, on Sunday, October 12 at 5 PM at the Sacramento Poetry Center after the workshop concludes, featuring the workshop participants and
their facilitator, the noted poet Francisco X. Alarcón.
“The visual arts and the
written word are really two faces of the same coin. For me, it is a true honor
and privilege to be the facilitator of the third ‘PINTURA : PALABRA’ workshop.
Art and poetry express the heart and soul of our community and I’m looking
forward to working with the talented writers who will be gathering at the
Crocker,” said Alarcón, who teaches at UC Davis and is co-founder of Los
Escritores del Nuevo Sol (Writers of the New Sun), a collective of poets
and writers based in Sacramento. Holding the workshop on the grounds of the museum will allow participants easy access to the works on display.
“The Crocker Art Museum
is proud to host this unique workshop where poets will contemplate the human
experience through visual arts in a collaborative setting,” said Emma Moore,
Studio Experiences Manager at the Crocker Art Museum. “Inspired and energized,
they will produce literary artworks under the guidance of master poet,
Francisco X. Alarcón and come away with a view of museums as a source of
inspiration for future works,” added Moore.
“PINTURA : PALABRA, a
project in ekphrasis” is a multi-year national initiative that seeks to foment
the creation of new writing inspired by Latino art. The inaugural workshop was
held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum last February, where the “Our
America” exhibit began its tour. It was led by Valerie Martínez and Brenda
Cárdenas, former Poet Laureates of Santa Fe, NM and Milwaukee, WI,
respectively. DC-based poets made up most of the curated roster of
participants. After the workshop in Washington D.C., a group of Florida poets
were convened at Florida International University’s Frost Museum of Art, the
second stop of the “Our America” tour. Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize-winning poet
Emma Trelles led the Miami workshop.
For the Sacramento
workshop, Letras Latinas is partnering with two literary journals to publish
PINTURA : PALABRA portfolios of ekphrastic poetry generated at the Crocker. The
Los Angeles Review and The Packinghouse Review will be showcasing a
sampling of the art-inspired poems generated at this third gathering.
“The poets will have a
few months to polish the work they start at the Crocker. Collaboration with
these journals is one of the most gratifying aspects of this initiative. We
have agreements with Poet Lore and Notre Dame Review for the DC
and Miami workshops, respectively” said Francisco Aragón, faculty member at the
Institute for Latino Studies. “At some point, we’ll all be able to hold in our
hands portfolios of writing inspired by this traveling exhibit,” Aragón added.
The Sacramento Poetry
Center (SPC) will host an event on Sunday, October 12 at 5 PM. “It’s an honor
for SPC to be hosting the PINTURA:PALABRA poets. With eighteen talented voices
led by Francisco X. Alarcón, it promises to be an energetic night of word
‘painting.’ This should be one of the best readings of the year,” said Bob
Stanley, former Poet Laureate of Sacramento (2009-2012) and current board
member of the SPC.
The seventeen poets
taking part in the third PINTURA: PALABRA workshop all have ties to Northern California.
They are: JoAnn Anglin, Paul Aponte,
Oscar Bermeo, Maya Chinchilla, Lucha Corpi,
Nancy Aidé González, Xico González, Javier O. Huerta, Paco
Márquez, Gerardo Pacheco Matus, Maceo Montoya, Adela Najarro,
Graciela B. Ramírez, Joseph Rios, Sandra García Rivera, Odilia
Galván Rodríguez, and Harold Terezón.
After Sacramento, the
“Our America” exhibit travels to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, where Letras
Latinas proposes to hold a fourth workshop. “Letras Latinas has managed to
forge partnerships with the exhibit’s hosting venues. We are immensely grateful
to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Frost Museum of Art, and the
Crocker Art Museum for allowing us use of their space. If all goes as hoped
for, writer Fred Arroyo will be leading a workshop in Salt Lake City in March,”
said Aragón.
“Our America: the Latino
Presence in American Art” is slated to visit five more American cities, well
into 2017. For more information, visit: http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/our_america/online_exhibition.cfm
The Sacramento Poetry
Center promotes and advances the practice and application of poetry and the
literary arts to enliven and extend the cultural boundaries of Sacramento’s
literary arena by creating and maintaining forums for local writers; to support
and empower emerging and established poets, and to bring the best practitioners
of the craft into the community.
Letras Latinas, the
literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies, strives to enhance the
visibility, appreciation and study of Latino literature both on and off the
campus of the University of Notre Dame.
Since its creation in
1999, the Institute for Latino Studies has played a vital role in fostering
understanding of the U.S. Latino experience. Building upon the history of
Latinos at Notre Dame and the outstanding legacy of Julian Samora, a pioneering
Latino scholar and professor of sociology, the Institute supports scholarly
initiatives in Latino studies as a key component of Notre Dame’s academic
mission.
The PINTURA : PALABRA workshops
are made possible thanks, in part,
to the generosity of the Weissberg Foundation
and individual donors.
