Tuesday, October 13, 2009

All Sorts of NoMi Arts!


Guest post by the Hawthorne Hawkman. Hawkman photo of sculpture by Ken Farkash

With Harvest Days, a library re-dedication, the Peace Ball, and making you-know-who a big project (we're not done with him on JNS, by the way. Oh no.) I haven't had a chance to blog about all the great arts events that went on in NoMi throughout the weekend.

On top of all this amazing progress we're making, NoMi arts are giving residents a busy social life in and around our community. First up on Friday evening was...

An opening reception for artwork by Dirk Nelson at Homewood Studios. I haven't found a link to Dirk Nelson's artwork as the name is a common one. If JNS readers can find a link, I'll post it here. Mild-mannered Hawkman alter ego Jeff Skrenes (SKREE-ness, it's geek), NoMi Realtor extraordinaire Connie Nompelis (No-buh-liss, it's Greek), and our newest resident-artist Ken Farkash (FAR-cash, okay that was easy to pronounce. It's...Hungarian? Welsh?) met to enjoy Dirk Nelson's art, Homewood Studios, and plenty of wine and cheese. Most of that was at Connie's afterward, and purchased for pennies at So-Low.

I have an aversion to taking pictures at art studios; not because I worry about stealing a piece of someone's soul, or vast conspiracy theories, but there's something deeply personal about art that sometimes feels like it ought to be seen in person. So go to Homewood Studios and check it out. Whatever they have there, I'm sure will be worth the trip.

George Roberts and I talked about the artists' core in Homewood and I would LOVE to duplicate that in Hawthorne. (do I smell another Hawkman post coming soon? I think so.)

But that wasn't all. On Saturday, Hawthorne's very own Bryan Thao Worra, an acclaimed poet, had a book reading in south Minneapolis for his new collection of poetry, Barrow. A side note: Avid JNS readers will remember how Bryan perfected a "pizza-fied" bloody Mary. Well he also has another bloody Mary twist at Donnie Dirk's Zombie Den under their "weird science" create-a-drink special, and it's called a bloody mahi. Ask for it by name.

Getting a photo of Bryan doing a poetry reading is problematic at best. He jumps around like a frog on a hot trampoline. If someone were to successfully combine poetry reading and calisthenics into an Olympic sport, we'd have a gold medalist on our hands. Here's one of the few non-blurry shots from the Barrow reading.



"Barrow" is a word with six definitions described in Bryan's book. The definitions range from the common "wheelbarrow," to "a pig castrated before its sexual maturity." (I don't think I want to play Trivial Pursuit with Bryan.) Bryan and I have discussed how prose often uses as much language as needed to get as detailed a description as possible, while poetry tends to use as few words as possible to give the widest definition that the reader can interpret. To which I respond with this song.

Check out Homewood Studios, Bryan Thao Worra's books, and stay tuned for a welcoming art party for Ken Farkash on 10/25!

4 comments:

MikeT said...

I was wondering about that sculpture. I drive by it daily. As I always say; you can't have enough dinosaur sculptures in your neighborhood.

Ranty said...

Whoops, the art party is actually the 24th, (a week from Saturday) and not the 25th!

Mike T., you should come! It'll be right there where the dino is. :-)

MeganG. said...

@Ranty - oh no! big party for Don's campaign on the 24th :-(

Bryan Thao Worra said...

We'll have to do a reading or some sort of act of spontaneous art near Ken's sculpture at some point! :) Awesome stuff!