Dr. Ann Filemyr, creator of the poems included in the fine arts press book “Growing Paradise,” will read from the collection at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.
The poetry reading is being held in conjunction with Stephen F. Austin State University’s exhibition of the book’s 18 silkscreen and letterpress prints co-created by local artist Liz Akamatsu and SFA Professor of Art Piero Fenci in response to Filemyr’s poems. The exhibition is hung in the upstairs Hallway Gallery.
The book is one of the most recent publications created by SFA’s LaNana Creek Press, which is directed by Professor of Art Charles D. Jones. He and graduate assistant Terri Goggans made the prints from the artists’ work, designed the book’s format, hand set the type, printed and tri-folded the 12-inch by 38-inch pages, bound all onto a leather spine and housed each book in its own clam shell box.
The evening will also include a musical performance by Drs. Jeana Paul-Ureña, chair of the SFA Department of Modern Languages, and Juan Carlos Ureña, SFA assistant professor of Spanish.
Filemyr is the academic dean at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry, and her poetry has frequently appeared in the annual We’Moon calendar of women’s spirituality.
She has previously published two poetry chapter books, “Journey of Hags” (1982) and “Skin on Skin” (2000), and a one-poem artist book, “Thinking” (1987), with printmaker Pati Scobey.
“Each of Filemyr’s poems that is included in ‘Growing Paradise’ is named after a fruit and makes good use of metaphor to comment on the human condition,” said Jones.
The exhibition will run through Saturday, Oct. 29. It will then open at the Museum of the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe on Friday, Nov. 6. Filemyr will again read from the collection at that opening.
Admission to the Nacogdoches opening and to The Cole Art Center is free. Regular gallery hours are 12:30 to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call (936) 468-1131.
