Biennial Residency
July 1 - August 27Riverfront Park Suites 135, 120, and 170Here at Home: 6 ArtistsLighthouse Writers Workshop and PlatteForum have came together to offer a collaborative residency for three visual and two literary artists for one month this summer of 2010, to work together and produce new work around the themes presented by the Denver Biennial of the Americas: Innovation, Sustainability, The Arts, and Community.ARTISTSDavid Ocelotl Garcia, Life in Our HandsChristopher & Rachel Smith Hecker, Life Portraits: Laura, Troy, AztechanTsehai Johnson, Table LessonsTei Kobayashi, Remembering the Forgotten: Sheltered VisionCara Lopez Lee, Homes Within, Communities WithoutPOETS RESPONDDee Casalaina, On the RiverfrontJ Diego Frey, Eat and/Or be Eaten; Triolet for TeiGinny Hoyle, Here at HomeRoger Thomas Wehling, Welcome to Little Raven's Place
HERE AT HOMEOne day, a keen-eyed wanderer stumbles on a leafy suite of rooms beside a skimpy river where men once hunted gold. It is a vacant space brim full of ideas. A work space strewn with ink and paint, voices and tape, with monitors, hammers and wires, with clay and glaze, and the soulful ruins of an old mountain cabin. Here is a workshop laced with light and the slow thunder of passing trains. Here is a space where art is lived and breathed and shared with keen-eyed wanderers' and with a new generation of seekers hungry to learn. This is a safe place to unleash the storms of memory. A good place to turn loose the wild dogs of imagination. A sane place to question what you know. This is Judy's place. Home for the fearless. An airstrip on the South Platte where flights of fancy take off daily. A forum where lives are voiced, stories converge and truth unfolds.— Ginny Hoyle, 2010
Welcome to Little Raven’s PlaceI came first in misty rainfine and straight, to a new placeacross the river, across the trackswhere trains slow down for the big bendwhere the Platte zigs,where the Arapahoe camped.They’re building bridges herewith long strandsof metaphorical wire, steel words,small acres of paint to daub the livesof some of us in solemn shrines, shatteredchina reassembled as Buddhas’ begging bowls,canvas snarled and scratched to submissionthe doorway to somewhere always open,and just outside, a shelter so incompleteit covers worlds.Here on the fringe of this other Denverwhat village arisesamid steel and glasswhere the trains passslowly, close enough to touchsmell taste hear feel in the bones?The screech of metalon metal pierces the fragrant air:something’s cooking.Here an earnest band of artists dwellin newly sacred spacesanctified by Indian campfires, hobo memories,government grants and honest labor.Bridges to futures incomplete.Find here plates paintedwith invitations to dine on words,pictures with stories to tell.Find wooden and metal dreamscapeshidden in vibrant closetsto recall more metabolic entitiesembodied in their own worlds of words.Find the door between you and mebetween worldswhere we arewhat we wantwhat might be.Find the tree of life a seedlingemerged from strugglesto survive, to live in the layerswithin color and light.Find the house of forevertaking shape, always becoming.No future, no past,the bridge circlesfrom now to hereand back home again.— Roger Thomas Wehling, 2010 The 2010 Biennial of the Americas is an international event that celebrates the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere, hosted by the City of Denver.This project is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and SCFD Tier III. Platte Forum/Lighthouse Writers Workshop is proud to partner with the Biennial of the Americas, a celebration of the arts, an international event that celebrates the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere. During the month of July, the Biennial will offer provocative talks by world leaders, hot music, stunning art and great food. For more information about the largest international event of the year in the U.S., please visit www.biennialoftheamericas.org
