With Jim Armstrong
Try Everything: A Multi-Media Approach to Creative Writing
Thursday, June 20, 2024 | 6:30pm - 8pm | MMAM
MMAM and RAA members free | Non-members, free with MMAM admission
Registration is required, and space is limited to 25 attendees per program.
A writer is not just someone who sits at a keyboard: the full use of the imagination requires multiple aesthetic adventures. Poetry especially exists at the intersection of the visual, the musical and the linguistic; it benefits from the immediate tactile experience provided by the fine arts and also the practical arts. As a poet I have learned traditional penmanship, pursued drawing in various media, engaged in a daily photographic practice, experimented with putting poems to music, and learned to design and hand-sew chapbooks. All these pursuits have helped enliven my arts practice and kept me from being “stuck.” This program will follow several projects as they move from daily writing through to finished work and will show how journaling, sketching, photography, musical composition, and book making contributed to the final product. The working assumption is that a writer should not be afraid to try new media and that the adventure of acquiring a new artistic skill can keep one nimble and generative.
About James Armstrong
James Armstrong is the author of three poetry books, Monument in a Summer Hat (1999) and Blue Lash (2006) and Empire (2023). He is also the co-author with Kim Chapman of a book of essays, Nature, Culture and Two Friends Talking (2015). Armstrong has published poems in Triquarterly, Gulf Coast, Orion, The New York Times Book Review, Poetry East, Split Rock Review, Terrain.org, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the PEN-New England Discovery Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in poetry. Armstrong taught in the English department at Winona State University for 24 years. He was Winona’s first Poet Laureate and is one of the founders of the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. You can learn more about him at https://jamesarmstrongpoet.com/
About artsXchange
The Minnesota Marine Art Museum + River Arts Alliance are coming together to bring you a monthly informal artist exchange - a chance for artists and creatives from across a variety of mediums to gather for inspiration, exploration and exchange at the museum. Each month, a member from River Arts Alliance, a nonprofit that supports and celebrates regional arts and culture, hosts a 90-minute artist meet-up and conversation with an artist, maker, designer, writer, or another creative person.
The event will begin by gathering in the atrium at MMAM and meeting their artist host. The group will then a take a short inspirational tour of the museum (identifying a couple of signature pieces to spark conversation, chosen by your artist guide), and continue with a meet-up in the Oberton Education Room for inspiring conversation that ranges from anything from technique, to who’s making what, to sales strategies, and other opportunities.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.