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What: "An Evening of Poetic Art" series
Where: The Fine Art Center at Town & Country, 300 E. Stroop Road, Kettering
Series dates: March 17 and April 21
Time: 5 to 7 p.m.
ON VIEW NOW
What: Paintings by Diana Marra
When: Continues through Thursday, Feb. 28
More info: (937) 293-5381 or www.townandcountryfineartcenter
Every first-year fine arts major in college has learned about “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” English poet John Keat’s works were characterized by sensual imagery, and his series of Odes during the last few years of the his life are some of his most remembered poems. If indeed “beauty is truth, truth beauty,” then it would seem highly appropriate to intermingle the truth of the written word with the beauty of visual art.
The Fine Art Center at the Town & Country Shopping Center, in Kettering, hosts Evenings of Poetic Art, a series that links poetry and visual art.
Fine Art Center member Rosie Huart said, “This past Sunday (Feb. 17) we had our second Poetic Art event of this year, and it was standing room only.” For these Evenings of Poetic Art, the poets come to the gallery beforehand, choose a work and then write a poem about it.
At the event itself, the poets then read their poem, and the audience goes around trying to locate the work that inspired the poet. After someone guesses the correct work, that piece is brought out on an easel so the poem can be read again and the guests can see the connection to the painting.
One of those connections was made by Dayton poet Kathy Austin to a work titled “The World Awakens,” an acrylic and gesso abstract by artist Karen Benedetti.
“I loved her poem because it just seemed to fit,” said Benedetti, a Kettering resident. “It represents the theme of most of my paintings: the earth, rocks and forests, and our ancestors. Kathy really understood it beautifully. I could not have said it in a more lovely and insightful way.”
Huart, a Dayton artist, knows all about mixing text with imagery. Like many of her abstracts, “Messages of Truth” includes thoughts about love, tranquility and spirituality.
The series has momentum, gaining in popularity and numbers, Huart said.
There are two more Evenings of Poetic art this year, one in March and one in April, which is national poetry month. On that last evening, the tables are turned.
“This is the most climatic night of the series,” Huart said. “Prior to the poetry event, the poets give me their poems and then I show them to the artists. The artists select the poems they want to paint.”
Also at the gallery
The Fine Art Center at the Town & Country’s visiting artist, Diana Marra, is featuring paintings that seem like “poetry in motion.” Her exhibit, “Every Now and ZEN — The Orient-Expressed,” even has a poetic title.
She uses the ancient art of Chinese brush painting to express a love of nature with contemporary flair. She is showing animal, botanical and landscape ink and watercolor paintings in the T&C visiting artist window.
“For the February Poetry series, I read and showed my first painting of a haiku that I wrote,” said Marra, who lives in Cincinnati.
Marra was able to follow her lifelong dream of becoming an artist after retiring as a global product manager with Formica in 2008. She studied brush painting at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. She also studied art techniques with Karl Feng in Montgomery, Ohio, and Ning Yeh in China.
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