in the field

Opening of the Field

field guide

We did publish a "field guide" to the piece, with writing by Gary and artwork by Kimberly. Email Gary if you would like a copy: chimfarm@gwi.net or, even better, send a little donation for mailing and printing costs to Gary Lawless, 617 East Neck Road, Nobleboro, Maine 04555.

Here's a poem by Rumi:

When grapes turn
to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars wheel
around the North Pole
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees
and our body is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell, we made it.

(translated by Robert Bly)

poem from Jonathan Skinner

The Field
(Gary Lawless and Kimberly Callas)

sparrows' eggs
sit in satchels
in a wicker portal

constellated
like the pleiades
seven sisters
each in a satchel

counted by the
spindle headed
pigtail belted
star pierced
bearer of fortunes

a spirit in a cave
stares at the beehive
over a sunny portal

a halcyon sunflower with
honeycomb on the brain,

this piece is breaking frames
like a field of sunflowers
one seed at a time

Jonathan Skinner

I also thought of William Carlos Williams:

"It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force...
the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower"

("Queen Anne's Lace")

Thanks for opening some portals!
Jonathan Skinner

field reading

Field response

I find the work, both sculpture and writing, to be utterly devoid of even a hint of soul, and very dark. Cancerous cells spreading. No joy. If this is a field of dream, it is a nightmare.
Poetry, it is not. The shapeless forms holding sisters and baskets, etc., are places I hope we do not visit. There is no mystery there. It is faceless darkness and pain.
There is no voyage here, nor any attempt to make one. Put your egos aside.

bluetent

I should have added that had I not done soul-less work myself at various times, I would not have written so bluntly about yours.

The Field at Jonathan Frost Gallery

The Field, a collaborative project between sculptor Kimberly Callas and poet Gary Lawless will open at the Jonathan Frost Gallery, Winter Street, Rockland, Maine, on Wednesday, July 30, from 5 - 8 PM with a poetry reading at 7 PM.
We are inviting you not only to come and visit The Field, but to collaborate with us further on this project. We would like to know where The Field takes you, so we ask for your reactions, your images, lines, ideas, visions - what were your thoughts, your dreams after seeing The Field. Please let us know, as we are thinking of these portals we have created, and are curious about the worlds to which they lead us.
Gary has written a Field Guide for the piece, which is available for free at the show, but we would like to hear from you as well.


this field holds
the story of the world
this field holds
the stories our bodies
tell
what is sacred
what is personal
what is history and
what falls away -
this field faces
the Pleiades and
waits for a wind -
this field with four
portals, doors for
whole histories to
move through
and go -
this field knows

The Field