Today Is a Big Day: ArtiPeeps Update (Transformations)

Big Day’s Update via ArtiPeeps 🙂 #Transformations

ArtiPeeps

   “Working in collaboration leads to a rich dialogue yielding unexpected results.” ~Alexander Gorlizki

Today is a big day. It’s the day when the last poems of Transformations are due in, which marks the conclusion of our poetic 15 month online journey  together. The Book 15 poems, however, will continue to go out throughout May, and we will, of course,  all be collectively working towards our September poetry-art exhibition. Our exhibition will project our online collaboration into the real world  and enable us to showcase what we have created collectively.

The poets:  Nat, Becca, James, Bid, Lenka, Karin, John B, John M, Greg, Nell, Sadaf, Adam, Carol and Kate have contributed so much to this project and it moves me greatly. Thank you all so much for your creativity. Once the last poems are in I’ll release the selection for…

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‘Monsters and Rites’ Scratch 4/4: Transformations Poems (Book 14)

From ArtiPeep – Transformations, Book 14

ArtiPeeps

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 14

.Featuring:

Nat Hall

.

Glaucus and Syclla

Syclla

 

Au dire du
désir et l’oracle,
à l’encre
bleue,
algue, indigo,
je te dessine dans un
arcane, toi, svelte
Syclla,
nymphe à la chevelure océanne.
#transformations
Listen to
lust & oracle –
in blue,
sea weedy, indigo,
I sketch you in
an arcanum,
slender
Syclla,
you, the nymph with
warm ocean’s
hair.

.

You can find more about Nat here:

https://twitter.com/nordicblackbird

http://nordicblackbird.weebly.com/index.html

Nat’s poem Syclla is the last poem from Book 14 as we now head into the last book of Metamorphoses and to the deification of Caesar Augustus.  The last month of this season will be sprinkled with the Transformers poetry on Book 15.  

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Kickstarter project / ArtiPeeps’ Appeal

The video
Thank you for watching 🙂
Merci de regarder 🙂

Be There at the Start and Help us Make the Virtual Real

We are now live! C/o ArtiPeeps #geopoetics

ArtiPeeps

.

I’m thrilled to announce that ArtiPeeps’ Kickstarter Campaign to fund our first large-scale poetry art exhibition ‘Transformations’ has been launched!

Here’s the project shortcode:  http://kck.st/1i2e721 Do take a look!

.

• It features 29 Twitter poets and artists from all over the world and of all ages who have worked together for 15 months virtually on a Contemporary re-working of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
• It features 60 plus new poems created by 14 emerging Twitter poets

Click here to see some of the poems:

http://artipeeps.wordpress.com/category/our-transformations-poems/

• It exhibits 15 new multi-medium artworks from 15 emerging and established Twitter artists.
• The creatives have worked together entirely virtually via ArtiPeeps for the last 15 months and the exhibition will bring us together physically for the first time.

We have also commissioned The Code Crimson (an artist-duo in Florida, USA) to create a…

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blue holes in the sky

Our home planet is truly amazing.
In between spells of gales & rain, I celebrate holes in the sky.
It is magic every time
it happens.

What
better way to
celebrate the majesty of
my islands in spring but through
hilltops & other offshore deserts, just
like Mousa, my top favourite offshore
Island. There are places where
you just blow “wow” and
feel humble deep in
your world.

Making the Virtual Real: ArtiPeeps Update

Transformations Project c/o ArtiPeeps 🙂
Update

ArtiPeeps

 I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that our Kickstarter Campaign for Transformations has been approved, which will mean we can launch our Kickstarter project this coming Monday the 21st. It’s been a real journey creating the campaign, and we’ve pulled together some really fantastic rewards, all generated from within the project- ranging from self portraits to poems written especially for you from three words that you choose.

I will post out full details including the live link when we launch on Monday.

A  successful campaign will mean that the Ovid inspired collaboration that we’ve been running virtually here for the last 15 months can be made real, showcasing 31 Twitter creatives in total and launching a large-scale exhibition template that ArtiPeps can use year-on-year to provide further opportunities.  You can find more details about Transformations in the menu above (extra to the highlighted link).  Do watch out for us…

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lighthouse

The buildings, impressive – the view, so unforgettable.

Mariners’ life saviours,
towers of light.

Sumburgh Head, a grand father’s concept, architectural wonder – a grandson’s dream playground… The Stevensons, whose name breathes through headlands, skerries and battered rocks, have left a mark through times.

You must reach it out on foot to deserve Sumburgh Head.
You may feel a complete adventurer. At each level, North Sea & Atlantic offer different treasures.
I still remember my first time.
Each breath weighs its own gold.

It attracts a whole world. Sailors, nature lovers, historians or poets, on the trail to pleasure.
In the eyes of the wanderer, it is a magnet painted white surrounded by deep blue, jade or titanium grey… All depends on the sky.

Today, I walked through my own steps, always uphill to reach its top – marvelled one more time at the view, retraced steps of old light keepers in between boilers & fog horn… Pointed my spyglass to known wings, immaculate crests of ocean, and felt at one with the island.

It even holds new gems, with a brand new visitor centre, where folk of all ages will gaze at such technological wonder, as well as its environment. The jewel in the crown will take your breath away.
And if you are curious, just click at the link for sumburghhead.com for your own induction.
It is scheduled to open doors on 2 May 2014.

No doubt visitors will love it.

And if the Northern Lighthouse Board still own those towering beacons, Sumburgh Light, the first of our islands’ towers perched at the very southern end, built in 1821 by no other by RLS’s granddad, stands proud on this headland.

wild voar

How I love this Shetlan word, voar.
My favourite time of year, that lapse of time in between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice, when the Earth swings & sings along.
With April start the greatest shows on earth – brighter colours brought by a sun, a racing game with the sunrise, meadows & fields teeming with life – a morning sky filled with birdsong… The return of old avian friends – meadow pipit, northern wheatear or skylark that come to ennoble tussock grass. Better than toys, television…
Dawn & dusk belong to blackbirds, perched on roof tops or chimney stacks. Relentless maestros in gardens, together with wrens & sparrows. Or “exotic” visitors, like a brambling or a hawfinch…
In nearby fields, the stage belongs to crooning curlews & shalders (oystercatchers) with snipes drumming for spring and love.
Our first razorbills & common guillemots back on cliff ledges & stacks to rekindle life around heads.
Rooks are nesting in canopies (yes, we have a few trees in Shetland!) – rain geese (red-throated divers) & sea ducks wander at will around our wicks (square shaped bays), voes (long narrow water inlets) or lochans…
Yellow dominates at our feet – marigold, primrose, celandine…
Now you know the meaning of “voar”, that Shetlan word that defines spring.

treasure fae da north (1)

From the hand of RLS, Robert Louis Stevenson,
father of
Treasure Island…

writing the north

I love my local museum & archives.
It is a place of treasures, a temple of wonders & records – a time machine, a cabinet of life, past and present.
As my love grows deeper in time for da auld rock, such a temple feels a familiar place where I find inspiration, knowledge and understanding of my island world. It is a place where I collaborated with other poets for different literary projects, including The Hanseatic Project, with Bremen based poet Michael Augustine a few years ago.
But something very special was expecting me this afternoon – something of a different kind.
At first, all looked perfectly “normal” – Barbara’s smile behind the imposing desk inside the flagstone paved foyer.
A quick look around the gift shop & bookshelves led to a voyage of discovery. “Da Gadderie” looked a bit darker than usual at first sight.
>

Whereas my friend sat at the old typewriter, my heart pounded at the first manuscript, that of Robert Louis Stevenson… A magical extract from a journal, illustrated with a quick sketch of Sumburgh Head, dated June 1869, a hundred years before my birth (!) How exquisite to discover your literary hero’s own handwriting. I was suddenly in heaven.
And this magical literary journey continued with other great literary heroes – Sir Walter Scott, whose only visit to Shetland dates back to 1814, two hundred years exactly this year, had a best seller purpose, The Pirate (1822), where the story begins in Sumburgh… Jarlshof was born.
>

Here, before my very eyes, Scott’s original manuscript of The Pirate.
So ethereal.
The team behind the entire project worked over the past year to bring us all a formidable collection of priceless literary artefacts, including, books & manuscripts, to celebrate the literary saga from the Northern Isles.
Hugh MacDiarmid & George MacKay Brown stand side by side…
Naturally the exhibition celebrates the linguistic history of both Orcadian & Shetland dialects. I notably marvelled at the glass cabinets dedicated to them, and savoured a moment before Jakob Jakobsen’s linguistic wonder.
>

My heart also bowed at John & Lollie Graham, but also Stella Sutherland & Rhoda Bulter among the 20th Century greats from the Shetland pantheon of poets. Their faces beam at you.
What a feast for the reader and writer that I am!
I certainly need to return to sample and digest better this phenomenal literary showcase. Thank goodness, it is running till 11 May 2014.
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it is not to be missed.
All Museum staff involved in such exhibition, as Barbara smiled, deserve a pat on the back.
Please click on the link for full details on that formidable literary journey at:
Writing The North
The final day of events planned for Saturday 10 May includes a series of talks as well as an evening of poetry reading.
Free tickets available from Shetland Museum & Archives. I will certainly reserve my ticket :-)>