When local artists Lee Ann Goerss and Marienne Kreitlow met a couple of years ago they had no idea that they would both be part of a pilot program that brings rostered teaching artists into classrooms. Certainly they had no clue that they would be integrating the study of insects with visual, language, and performance arts in the same school.

“I had seen Lee Ann’s stunning art work at some stores in Buffalo,” said Kreitlow.  “I knew I had to connect with this creative woman.” They met over tea, and some months later were delighted to find that they were both accepted into the training of the Teaching Artist Roster Program, a collaboration between the Central Minnesota Arts Board, Perpich Center for Arts Education, and Paramount Visual Arts Center. Whereas Goerss had been volunteering at Discovery since her daughter was a student there some nine years ago, Kreitlow had little classroom experience.  As a seasoned composer, performer, poet, and playwright she  facilitated workshops mainly for adults designed to “activate and free up creativity through movement, sound, and writing.”

“Marienne has unique abilities to inspire others to use their bodies and voices,”  said Goerss, “so I knew that she would bring something I couldn’t into the classroom.  I encouraged her to apply for a grant applying those skills to the insect project, knowing that her presence would deepen the students’ experience.”

The program serves Benton, Sherburne, Stearns, and Wright counties, and is funded, in part, by a grant from the Central Minnesota Arts Board, through appropriations form the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the state’s general fund and its art and cultural heritage fund that was created by a vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.  Accepted artists complete their training over a six-month period in preparation for working in a residency program, learning to support educators by making the connections between their art form and the Minnesota State standards in the arts, and, just like what’s happening at Discovery Elementary, integrate art into other subject areas.

“Our training was tremendous,” Kreitlow said,  “though, at first,  frustrating.  What I do intuitively do from years of practice I had to break down into a step-by-step process to reach clearly stated and achievable goals.  I loved learning about ‘reflective protocol’, which gives students the opportunity to discover the meaning and impact of art for themselves.”

Goerss loves the way art fires creativity in children, and the amazing rippling effect of that fuels her passion. “There are moments of interacting with a student that take my breath away.  One day we were doing creative writing in the park and a child said to me ‘I don’t know how to write.’  I said, ‘Of course you do.  Just close your eyes and listen.  Then open your eyes, look around, and write down everything your senses tell you.’  His writing was really wonderful, but what I’ll never forget was the look on his face as he declared , “I can write!”

“I have been fortunate to partner with the Central Minnesota Arts Board and a tremendously supportive teaching staff that recognize the power and potential of quality curriculum infused with art.” Goerss continues,  “Each teaching artist brings a unique perspective to this residency and provides opportunity for collaboration.”  Kreitlow echoes that sentiment: “The teachers obviously care deeply about their students.  It’s a very joyful and respectful learning environment and I’m grateful to be a part of it.”

www.centralmnartsboard.org/ArtistRostered/index.html

www.centralmnartsboard.org/ArtistRostered/index.html

SPRINGS FIRST BUTTERFLY

I wrote the following poem the other day for some grade school students at The Discovery Center in Buffalo, MN, where I will be doing an artist-in-residency in May.  If you’ve guessed it’s about a certain insect, you are correct!  I’ve included some pics from our very early spring here in the north, taken a couple of weeks ago.  Hope this poem puts you in the mood for the upcoming season!!

Just when you are tucked in bed so ready for a good night’s sleep,

a long delicious good night’s sleep,

what’s that sound so near your ear…

Did you imagine or did you hear?

buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz

                   (silence)

Ah!  Perhaps she was not really there.

Or if she was she went away.

Perchance she’s gone for good. Forever.

Or preying on your father, mother, sister, brother, kitty’s ear.

But no! Oh no!  What’s that?

The sound that means she’s coming back.

Such a tinny, whiny song.

She sings it with her *minute wings.

500 times a minute beat.

500 times so fast and strong.

You can deduce the lyrics.

She need not enunciate.

In that buzz buzz buzzing she means to feed and procreate

on you, the victim. You, the spoils.

No invitation.  No refusals. 

Can you hear the meaning in her tedious, endless song?

“I smell your very yummy blood.  

Your heat draws me to suck your blood.

To me it’s deeply nourishing, satisfying, so refreshing.

Don’t be rude.  Let me in.

Make this easy.  Share some skin.”

You pull the covers way up tight so her proboscis will not bite,

or more precisely, pierce your skin and leave behind that itchy blight.

But you can’t breathe.

You’re smothering.

You’re warm.  You’re sweating.  Overheating,

harangued by her elusive singing: 

buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz

It seems to just go on and on.

This will drive you nuts. Bring psychological harm.

You know you have to do it, so find the will to do it.

Get up now. Turn on the light.  Find her fast before she bites.

Search every crook and every cranny.

Look for that little teeny tiny 

winging whiny thirsting thing.

You must find out where she’s hiding.

But of course, of course, there is no finding.

You’ve done this whole routine before.

You know and dread what lies in store.

So look once more.  Please, just once more,

and listen, listen carefully.

(silence)

 Not one buzz nor wing astir.

You sigh relief. To bed once more.

All is quiet.  All is right.

You relax and start to snore

                (snoring)

and then—-

a riot!

Like a bomber from the sky out of nowhere makes a dive.

Swat!  You got it?  Yes or no?

Is it quiet?  Is it so?

(sigh)

 So you settle back again. Suddenly it’s on your chin.

It jabs it’s mouth of scissor straws like little knives that cut and draw.

Smack! A swat of victory.

Hurrah for you!  Hurrah for thee!

Feel no remorse, no sadness, guilt.  

Just joyous gladness (and one small itch.)

Yes!  You will dream those deep sweet dreams 

reposed in sleep as moonbeams gleam. 

                (snoring)

buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz 

buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzzz 

Oh, no!

*my-nute, meaning very small

OBERON'S FIRST SWIM

note: As a rostered teaching artist through the Central MN Arts Board I want to share with you how funding is made available:

“This activity is funded, in part, by a grant from the Central MN Arts Boards, through appropriations from the MN State Legislature with money from the state’s general fund and its arts & cultural heritage fund that was created by a vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.”

Here’s a pile of wood cut by an 89 year old man.

True, he was two months younger at the time,

and also true, he used a gas powered chain saw,

not nearly as heavy as the one he yielded 40 years ago,

and certainly not a bow saw like his granddaddy knew.

I must include the fact that the 89 year old man

did not cut up these cords in a single day

and has been known to partake in napping

intermittently to frequently

to add a needed boost as dwindling stamina demands.

This is evidence of noble work he’s done

when he wasn’t throwing bales around

or carrying buckets of ground up corn

to feed voluble, ungrateful, insistent, insatiable

growing holstein heifers into cows,

or reading sundry novels (a man with no obvious use for category)

and devouring magazines front to back and inbetween

(How many subscriptions can one man read?

National Geographic, Scientific American, Utne Reader, Sojourners,

The Farmer, The Land, Funny TImes,

The Nation, Hightower’s Lowdown, Atlantic,

Mother Jones, Harpers,  Need I list on?)

But I digress…

This man of which I did forspeak not only tackled wide girthed trunks

and laid those heavy pieces down,

but gallantly fought off a hackle-raised cock

who foolishly, fearlessly, fiercely charged both man and roaring saw.

Testosterone-obsessed Mac Rooster was very nearly sliced to tinder

an inch away

from becoming Sunday dinner

with gravy blood atop a pile of timber.

This wood will make a lot of heat.

It’s going to burn a long, long time.

What a grand and massive pile of trees felled

and hauled and sawn

by someone who’s outlived them all.

I want to shout.  It makes me proud,

this one more thing my Daddy did.

hoarfrost building layer by layer

spiked hairs onto twine

lengthening spears from barb wire

needles stick into stacks on skeletal weeds

daisy head mummies wear hats of white shards

jauntily tipped at precipitous angles

sense the presence of faeries

we walk in their woods

we see as they see as we follow the lane

our big dog is sucking snow cones off cedars

his greedy mouth guzzles glistening frost

coating his throat a prelude to gin

then clouds crack wide open

pouring out sunlight

trees rain down music

chandeliers shatter and sing out like glass

they fall on our heads crash at our feet

we laugh and we laugh

what was real disappears

]]> http://www.marienne.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=652 0 http://www.marienne.com/blog/?p=640 http://www.marienne.com/blog/?p=640#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:00:56 +0000 marienne http://www.marienne.com/blog/?p=640

a brand new one slides in

a slippery mass

a dolphinous baby

with round asking eyes

wombs bursting with bounty

of raw tender cargo

hooked onto thorns

welcomed to breasts

wrapped in wool blankets

tickled and tended

or stuck in a corner

wished out of the world

lucky ones hatch in nests of perfection

all needing touch, needing food, needing warmth

a massive symphony clamors

that cannót be notated

it’s howling, it’s crying,

it’s harsh, raspy breathing

hearts pounding and drumming

or silent in sorrow

sometimes I’m among them

sometimes so alone

an upside down woman

suspends from the sky

out of oceans above

is a world made of water

she is carried by currents

untethered by tides

her eyes do not open

she dreams of each child

she is moist, gleaming, glistening

languid fingertips dripping

showers are falling

on all babes below

©2012 Mariénne Kreitlow, Living Song

 Thanks to the Soul Collage inspiration of Seena Frost and images I’ve incorporated.

What is it about plainsongs that are so haunting and timeless?  Originally based in Gregorian chant, perhaps the most famous one is O COME, O COME EMMANUEL.   Several years ago I recorded IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE (on my “Beautiful Illusion” cd) and later my friend Jeff Templin created a gorgeous slide show to go with it.  The effect is like an almost instantaneous purifying meditation.

On this second day of Christmas help yourself to another gift by going to:

 Gerald closed his eyes to rest, and found eternity.

Pilgrim, see him still. Preserved in youthful beauty.

The story?  The story as was told to me:

Like all young men he sought to fight.

To vanquish wrong.  To lift his sword.  To prove his worth.

He was a century too late.  Or more.

Searching plain to mountain, cave to sea,

his boots worn thin as skin, he traced the tracks.

His only hope, which led him to Pathetico;

a haggard dragon, wan, forlorn, with slackened scales of gray.

Only a coward would cut him down.

The man in throes of deep despair

cast his sword to God knows where.

This would-be knight was more than lost.

His soul had ceased to guide him.

Having not one thing to name or claim,

true north and south crisscrossed within.

He wandered off into a meadow

where small blue flowers sang, clamoring, clutching at his feet.

Which way earth?  Which way heaven?

But, what there, in the distance?

Pathetico had seen, and straight way loved the man.

Friendless but for swallows and flies that buzzed his head,

he followed on in loyalty with dragging tail behind.

Dizzied by infinite flowers of blue, (the genus which he could not place)

in rusted armor of massive weight, the weary man fell down,

crushing four hundred thousand petals.

The blossoms screamed and fought to rise.

Pushing up with all their might they caused him then to levitate,

and thus transformed him into saint, as witnessed by some angels.

But Gerald, sleeping, sleeping still, missed the marvel of his fate.

(His form, adorned, hung on my wall, looks strangely like my husband.)

 ©2011 Mariénne Kreitlow, Living Song

Low light.  Low light. This time of year we get low light.

Long, tall shadows stretch from the trees,

the churches’ steeples and propped up skiis. Oh——–

High light.  High light. The southern hemisphere’s in high light.

My friends in New Zealand, my friends in Brasil

take the warmth while we get the chill.

But the light inside, the light inside, the light inside…

The light inside, the light inside…

Our sight.  Our sight.  Just a bit of the spectrum.  A splice of the light.

But even through the bleakest, blackest night of the year

Light of Love won’t disappear.  Oh——–

Sun bright.  Sun bright.  Sequins glitter in fields of white.

Earth turns.  The sky is clear.

Far flung stars are dazzling mirrors.

But the light inside, the light inside, the light inside…

The light inside, the light inside…

But the light inside, the light inside, the light inside…

The light inside blazing brighter than we can bear.

Blazing brighter than we can bear.

©2011 Mariénne Kreitlow, Living Song, BMI

1

One perfect dozen, staggered along the ridge

across from Black Mountain,

high above the huge bowl below.

An empty ocean calling us to dive.

Giddy with altitude we cling to mountain slopes,

even with flat floors beneathe our feet.

The massive landscape an embrace from outer space.

Lit by sun and moon, swept in wind and snow.

We’re in Colorado.

Three days ago I could have lost you.

This side of the mountain just six inches deep.

Round the ridge two feet of white erased that s’posed to be so obvious pass.

3 hours, 4 hours, then 5, then 6.

You searched and searched, traced, retraced.

As sun retreated behind high peaks darkening trees erased your view.

By cell phone I heard you say,

“Think I can see where to go, but just can’t seem to get there.”

I waited at the bottom of Breakneck Pass to maintain that thin connection.

A man in a utility truck pulls up.

Asks if something’s wrong.

Writes your number down.

Says he’ll leave a message.

A message.  For ‘Search and Rescue’.

Slowly I trekked up the road, back to a warm and empty house.

Played a song on the baby grand.

Sang it.  Sent it out to you.

Tried to make supper for a cold and weary man.

Tried not to worry.  Then I tried again.

That redneck angel made the call afterall.

You said Sheriff Jim gave you a piece of advice before he left you here:

“She’s going to want to yell at you.  Best to just let her.”

But I didn’t.  I gave you spicy broth and spanish rice.

You put whiskey in your coffee.  I rubbed your feet.

Told you I sang you a song.

“’He Fishes’.  Right?”

“Yeah.  ‘He Fishes’.”

2

One perfect dozen, staggered along the ridge

across from Black Mountain,

high above the huge bowl below.

Back in Minnesota there’s an elk farm down the road.

Paddocks with dense, tall fences.

Cute babies with mamas and guys with crowns greater

than worn by earthly kings.

But these. These are wild ones.

Nibbling tufts of dried up grass, bites of bitter sage.

We creep onto the deck, longing to get close.

Slow step.  Slow step.

“Shh”, you warn, but I have to speak to the

She who stares at me.

“You are so beautiful”, I coo.

She holds my gaze.  “Of course I am. I know.  I know.”

They frame themselves against Buffalo Peaks, posing in the sunset,

then slowly ramble, receding into dark.

when did leaves fall?

was I sleeping?  dreaming?

was I bent over the basin, splashing my face?

were you there?

were you watching?

did they tear off all frenzied, violently zigging,

or sail down like feathers, silent, serene?

where was I?  can’t believe that I missed it.

was I in my chair, eyes closed, meditating,

fusing my roots with the earth’s fiery core?

or face down on the carpet,

moaning loudly, completely?

I do that sometimes, before I can rise.

was it me that undid them?

too into myself to witness their dance?

I wanted to be there.

I wanted to see.

I saw corn turning brown.

I heard their leaves rattle.

rows of maize shook and clattered,

proclaiming their time.

then loud, diesel combines charged in to pick them.

wagons full of gold bounty,

stalks shaped into loaves.

I wish you would tell me;

when did branches

reveal their skeletal beauty?

you can see

right through them.

the horizon lies naked,

neighbor’s houses so close,

and bare fields like ribbons

wound round the hills.