This Friday, Representative Becky Edward’s bill HB 134 to name Spiral Jetty the “State Work of Art” will be heard in the Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee.At 8:00 am on Friday, March 4, HB 134, State Work of Art, will be heard in the Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee. The bill began as a school project and Edwards will be arguing why the bill “makes sense and is important for Utah and for the arts, tourism, and scientific community.”
On Friday evening, the joint exhibition by Jody Plant and Frank McEntire that opens at Finch Lane Gallery (6-8 pm) may provide material support for the bill. In Double Vision the two artists use assemblage to combine an exploration of the four classical elements of earth, wind, fire and water with an evocation of a fifth, a transcendent, fleeting element conjured up in the studio. One work on display is Plant’s “The Conversation,” inspired by Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and accompanied by the following poem.
The conversation continues
a soul retrieval mission
ten miles on a dirt road
completely off the grind
out there only vast solitude
gulls fly in DNA formations
other murmurations occur too.
The Spiral Jetty is otherworldly
a walking meditation,
stonehenge, woodhenge
shape shifters appear and disappear
ghosts of time and salt.
On the playa underfoot
mostly concealed
veins of lightning struck crystals
glimmer a mirage of wonders,
fractal spiral spellbound.
We call in the elements
from the four directions
bidding our ancestors
a stones throw away abyss
souls take flight.
A time travelers incantation uttered
we are lost and found in silence
divided between worlds
we know the jetty will keep us
we know where to disappear.
Double Vision, featuring assemblages by Jody Plant and Frank McEntire opens at Finch Lane Gallery Friday, March 4th, 6-8 pm, and continues through April 15. Plant will be the subject of our Artist Profile in the March edition of 15 Bytes.
UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Categories: Literary Arts | Visual Arts
Spectacular congruence.
Poetry
and art.