Posted on January 28, 2016
Walt Pascoe, “Raven Gets In” 48”x60” Oil on canvas
On December 21 of last year, a dear friend and amazing human being said goodbye to planet earth. His name is Walt Pascoe. Intense and luminous artist. Witty, wry, and intelligent crafter of words. Wise spiritual seeker. And a mentor of sorts to so many of us–artists, writers, and anyone who found themselves on a life journey they hadn’t necessarily planned. In this Creative Thresholds, we’re doing a reprise of an essay he wrote in 2012 (which, incidentally and uncannily, was published December 21) in which he writes brutally honestly and with humor about his struggle with colon cancer. He also includes his art in the essay. Please check it out. His words are wisdom for all of us who are human: “A Tribute to Walt Pascoe: Savage Uncertainties On The Road Home Reprise.”
Category: Uncategorized Tagged: art, cancer, colon cancer, creative thresholds, melissa, melissa d. johnston, melissa johnston, tribute, walt pascoe, writing
Posted on August 16, 2015
Robert Rhodes, ‘Night map (1) so we can always find the way to one another.’ Acrylic, gouache and pencil on Arches paper.
The second Creative Thresholds issue in July was a very special one and perhaps one of the most important ones we’ve done. It was a series of poems dealing with attacks by Boko Haram in the city of Jos and other areas in northern Nigeria. The cycle of poems began when poet Laura M Kaminski (who grew up in northern Nigeria) posted “Call Me Down the Rain” on her Facebook page. Poet j. lewis responded with one of his own, beginning a conversation. amu nnadi contacted Laura and his poem was added to the collection. They continued the dialogue in poetry form from there. Creative Thresholds has the entire series, in two parts: “Call Me Down the Rain” and “Call Me Down the Rain, Part 2.” Artist Robert Rhodes’s paintings accompany the two posts. Please visit and experience the power of art as witness. Here’s the poem that began it all:
Call Me Down the Rain
work-song honoring those attempting to return home to territory reclaimed from Boko Haram
I must dance a circle
bring the monsoon
call me down the rain
pray like someone greedy
give me give me give
more than my share
of this year’s water
bring it bring it bring
the water, carry me the river
call me down the rain
and flood the plateau, bring
rags and buckets to me
you will find me on
my knees and scrubbing
more than red dust
more than harmattan,
I must scrub the northland
clean down to the bedrock
how can we return
to farm and village, how
can we plant new crops
in this earth from which
we’ve lifted the broken
bodies of kin and country
washed them, taken them,
them all, to mourn and bury?
how can we till land
charred from bomb-blasts,
how can we plant when
we keep finding bullet-
casings in the soil?
our lips will not permit
yam and cassava grown
in blood-soaked dirt
to cross them, our bodies
will refuse such tainted
nourishment. no. you
must carry the Benue
here, bring bring me
water, call me down
the rain so I can first
scrub the stains
of blood and bitterness,
scrub until there’s
nothing left but dancing
here, until the stain is
gone from memory,
from sole and soul —
call me down the rain
–Laura M Kaminski (Halima Ayuba)
(first published in Synchronized Chaos, forthcoming in Dance Here, 2015)
Category: Writing Tagged: amu nnadi, art as witness, boko haram, creative thresholds, grief, healing, hope, j. lewis, jos, laura m kaminski, nigeria, northern nigeria, poem, poems, poetry, robert rhodes, violence, witness, writing
Posted on February 6, 2015
I’m a little late getting this up due to illness, but I still wanted to share the enchanting and provocative latest issue of Creative Thresholds.
Moni Smith specializes in pinhole photography, and her photographs are pure delights. There’s always more to see with her work, each extra moment of looking rewarded. Check out “Time In-depth.”
Christopher Hutchinson, our writer for the “Postcolonial Thoughts” column, is back with another essay sure to make you think of an artist’s work differently, if not turn everything you thought on its head in “Post Colonial Thoughts: Lyle Ashton Harris Lecture at the HIGH: Indecisive Moments.” Read Christopher’s trenchant comments about Lyle Ashton Harris’s Blow Up IV (Sevilla) and other works.
Category: Uncategorized Tagged: art, creative thresholds, writing
Posted on January 8, 2015
In November 2012 I started an arts-literary blog called Creative Thresholds in order to promote and (hopefully) inspire artists, writers, and other creatives. It comes out the second and fourth Thursday of every month. Today the first issue came out and it’s fantastic! Michael S. Church shares his masterful, provocative collages. aima peintar (Marcella Casu) invites us to explore the inside of the line in her tantalizing drawings. It’s a full, rich issue. Check it out!
Michael S. Church, Morning Coffee
http://creativethresholds.com/2015/01/08/pure-dirt-art/
aima peintar (Marcella Casu), .
http://creativethresholds.com/2015/01/08/pure-dirt-art/
Category: Art and Photography, Current Projects Tagged: aima peintar, collage, creative thresholds, drawing, michael s church, pure dirt art
Posted on December 31, 2013
The last issue of CT for the year–and the last issue before going to a twice-monthly format–ROCKED!
Michael Dickins explores the blunting of awareness and empathy by our mass media in Michael Dickins: PreOccupied.
J. Adam McGalliard works the layers of reality in “Projections“:
“The projected image works as a double-edged sword. It can starkly reveal something that is hidden, like the writhing tattoos of the Illustrated Man, or it can mask an individual as a concealing veil or garment that creates a protected outer hull.”
A fantastic end-of-the-year meditation and killer playlist in Rebekah Goode-Peoples’s “Pay Attention (and then do something).”
In the “Postcolonial Thoughts” column Christopher Hutchinson reviews leading art theorist/curator Nicholas Bourriaud’s The Radicant.
Stellar reflection by Daniel Boscaljon upon the nature of relationship in “all that I had in you was only myself” (image by me).
Posted on December 10, 2013
A big “Happy Birthday!” to arts and literary blog Creative Thresholds, which celebrated its first year at the end of last month. The anniversary issue was fantastic–poetry, collage, painting, drawing, and photography from an international cast of contributors.
Swiss artist Verena Baumann enchants with painting, photography, and drawing. Check out Works by Verena Baumann.
Prolific poet Bruce Covey shares a secret in Evidence that Ke$ha is a Key Factor in America’s Growth Economy.
Anne-Martine Parent explores the possibilities of photography, specifically iPhoneography, in The Others and I.
Daniel Boscaljon’s series Letters to You continues with who are you without what you are without.
Claudio Parentela: Contemporary Art with a Freakish Taste tickles the fancy of lovers of collage.
Artist and art critic Christopher Hutchinson looks at the work of encaustic artist Michael David in CT’s column Postcolonial Thoughts: Critique of Michael David’s “The One-Eyed Turtle and the Floating Sandalwood Log.”
Category: Art and Photography Tagged: art, creative thresholds, poetry
Posted on November 14, 2013
Every week on the Facebook Creative Thresholds page we feature one post from the archives. This week’s is my interview with Nicola Ayoub, one of the most inspiring creatives I know who has found a way to live her dream, albeit through much faith and perseverance. Be inspired by her story at Creative Thresholds.
Category: Inspiration Tagged: atlanta, choreographer, choreography, creative thresholds, dancer, dancing, france, interview, lebanon, melissa d. johnston, nicola ayoub, paris, spotlight
Posted on November 4, 2013
I’m excited about the latest Creative Thresholds. Screenwriter and graphic novelist G.A. Gallas shares pages from her graphic novel The Poet and the Flea, an ode to William Blake. My nerd self totally swoons over this.
Michi Meko. Flux 2013. Atlanta. One heck of a performance. Christopher Hutchinson discusses why it’s so good in “Postcolonial thoughts: Michi Meko’s The job of the resurrectors is to wake up the dead.”
“A sound theater of Negro prison work songs will be played to wake up the souls of Negro men that were forced to lay the tracks in and around Atlanta as the re-enslavement of Black Americans increased during the Civil War up to World War II. Most of these free men were imprisoned on bogus charges enforced by Penal Labor/Servitude laws allowing the cycle of supremacy to continue….”
The first chapter from Jillian Schedneck’s book Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights recounts her two years teaching English in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “I longed to be pulled and pushed, to journey to places that seemed unknown and less travelled, whose names held some kind of mystery and magic to my ears.” Definitely worth the journey.
It’s no secret I love mobile photography. If I ever wondered what some of the creative possibilities were for its apps, Maarten Oortwijn gives more than enough of an idea…and plenty of inspiration in “the digital painter.”
Letters to You by Daniel Boscaljon (with images by me) continues with my “best for your worst.” “some words have power….”
Category: Art and Photography Tagged: art, creative thresholds, Digital Art, writing
Posted on October 6, 2013
Photography, flash fiction, experimental writing, critique, and iPad drawings: the latest Creative Thresholds.
Go behind the scenes of photographer J. Christopher Matyjasik’s latest project: dixie’s s-bahn.
See the continuation of Daniel Boscaljon’s and my collaboration in confession: the nature of my crime.
Read our new columnist Christopher Hutchinson’s look at Rashid Johnson’s work in Postcolonial Thoughts: Afrofuturist Rashid Johnson’s Message To Our Folks.
Hang with Rachel Troutman as she sketches her iPad drawings in Sofa Drawings.
Check out Maria Protopapadaki-Smith’s mysterious flash piece Dreamhealer.
Creative Thresholds looks forward to your visit!
Category: Art and Photography, Writing Tagged: art, creative thresholds, photography, writing