creative Consulting + collaborations

banner art installation project

Creative ⋅ Collaborative project with University of Louisville Women’s Center & Hite Art Institute ⋅ 2018

  • Create text for multi-disciplinary and purpose-driven collaborative project
  • Promote action items, access to resources, and program initiates at the University of Louisville

 #KnowMoore cultural dialoguers

Creative Consultant ⋅ #KnowMoore Youth Cultural Dialoguers ⋅ 2018 

  • Collaborate with artists, teachers, and social justice activists for JCPS Storytelling Project
  • Engage with and serve as a resource for students of Moore HS on their creative projects (poetry music videos, etc.)

Community Literacy initiatives

 the poetry derby 

Instructor. Student Workshop ⋅ 2020, 2022

  • Invited by Dr. Kristi Maxwell and the Creative Writing Department at the University of Louisville
  • Facilitated two one-hour generative writing sessions with students of poet and educator Aletha Fields at Iroquois High School; and at Shively LFPL. 

LLa webinar “Embracing multitudes” on imagination and imagery in poetry

LLA “in other words” poetry workshop, reading + Exhibit 

Facilitator. “In Other Words” Louisville Literary Arts Free Community Workshop ⋅ 2019

 night of poetry + art

Producer & Curator. Kleinhelter Gallery Invitational ⋅ 2019, w/ Kleinhelter artist family

  • Partner with New Albany art gallery to host a public reading for local writers and artists
  • Bring attention to the poetic form of ekphrasis as collaborative art as well as attention to the Kleinhelter art gallery after its grand re-opening

river city revue

Founder, Producer, & Curator. Monthly Reading Series ⋅ 2016-2019, w/ pop-up collaborations -present

  • Oversee all event planning, scheduling, and networking of the series
  • Pursue interactive community partnerships (LGBTQ+ Groups, Young Authors Greenhouse)

River City Revue started as a free monthly reading series at The Bard’s Town featuring established and emerging poets and musicians. To facilitate more community-building, RCR now features as pop-up events at various places throughout the Louisville area.

River City Revue as a reading series has received recognition in Insider Louisville, Louisville.com, WFPL News, 91.9 WFPK Radio, and at Louisville Literary Arts Writer’s Block Festival. 

Currently, I like to think that the spirit of River City Revue continues via collaboration as I work to de-center myself and serve in various collectives rather than solely curate and produce. I love to celebrate and uplift Rheonna Nicole Thornton of Lipstick Wars and Robert Eric Shoemaker of Poetry Is. These collectives are inspiring and innovative, and it’s truly an honor to participate in their magic.

 

 

Spalding university mfa 

writing + art

Reverse-Ekphrasis w/ Aaron Lubrik’s Advanced Painting Course (2019)

kelli gard

“Tell me about your mother”

Rock pushes against my back as I lie at the bottom of the creek. Submerged underwater, my hair above me. Cloud-line. 

I part the stream like curtains to find a layer of glass. I see her standing by open French doors with her back to me,

arms wide against hard wind and dark green sky.

I want to strike the glass / to feel something break. I want to cut open my shut mouth & / scream at her to turn back around.

I watch the sky chew the ocean / as sand digs into my bare legs a protest— / 

& I’m always here on the gulf of the storm, confronting the sky.

harley hemming

“tell me about your face”

I think the moon is lying to me.

She is all purple honey and sweet tea as I pick bugs from my mattress.

My face hides behind kudzu southern gothic—

Cars on stilts, I can feel bones crack. Something grows inside of me.

My body, a love letter folding into origami. Paper birds dissolve into sky.

kckenna newman

“Venus in retrograde”

On the outer edge of Venus in retrograde, the moon tells me—It’s a time to shed.

A snake about to shed its skin is known as being in the blue.

Scales become dull, eyes cloudy. And because they cannot see well, there’s an increase in nervous behavior.

A snake sloughs its body, including eye caps, all at once.

However, sometimes the blues stay, and the shedding is incomplete.

When I Google this phenomenon,  the internet tells me it’s from poor husbandry. From trauma. 

Quote: Trauma, and too much handling, can result in your snake not properly shedding.

Whole shedding should always include the eye(s). 

The moon tells me: We do not have to limit our becoming.

The sky shifts, and I return to reading Sappho – fragments of a self, sewn between brackets.

The moon uncovers her veil from my view, and I extend my silences 

not silences at all,

[           ] pieces

of my own shedding.