Workshops: Tanka Poetry and BookMaking workshops

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition, ReVIEWing the 35mm Slide
Sunday, January 14
Starting at noon is a tanka writing workshop by Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton. Tanka (“short song” in Japanese) is a five-line poetic form.
Tanka is a five-line poetic form with a 1,300 year history. In this workshop Marilyn will provide examples showing how reading and writing tanka can increase awareness, encourage simplicity, acknowledge difficult emotions, and enhance gratitude within our day-to-day lives and in our life journeys.

Hazelton edits red lights, an international tanka journal. As President of the Tanka Society of America (2015-17) she was invited to address the 8th International Tanka Festival organized in 2016 by the Japan Tanka Poets’ Society. Rostered as a teaching artist with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, she received the Allentown Arts Commission Ovation Award for the Literary Arts in 2006, and is Poet-in-Residence at The Swain School in Allentown.

At 2 p.m., Maryann Riker will lead a coptic-bound journal-making workshop, using slides for front and back covers. Participants will be encouraged to incorporate their tanka poems into the book. Registration is appreciated, but not required.

Guest curator Maryann Riker is a mixed-media artist whose artist books and collage works convey a visual narrative to remind one of the past and journeys through which we all travel throughout our lives. Her works incorporate digital images, Victorian iconography, and other symbols to convey a sense of memory and time as one opens and unfolds the work. Riker is active as a guest’ curator. In addition to “ReVIEWing the 35mm Slide,” recent projects include “Light, Paper, Process” (2016), Connexions Gallery, Easton; “Abstraction in Photography” (2017), Connexions Gallery; and CoCurator for “NASTY WOMEN” (2018), Bradley-Sullivan Center, Allentown PA; The Banana Factory, Bethlehem, PA. When not creating, Maryann is writing grants, reading mystery or historical fiction novels, practicing to be a wild wannabe or working on becoming a legend in her own living room.

At 4 p.m., Paige Sarlin’s documentary, The Last Slide Projector (2006), (16mm and digital video transferred to DVD, color, sound, 59:00) will be screened.