Words inspire art at Kimball Jenkins
An upcoming exhibition at the Kimball Jenkins Estate will pair works of art with poetry but flip the traditional ekphrastic approach. Since time immemorial, poets have written about paintings, but “Dwelling Places” instead has painters responding to poems.
The effort, which opened Aug. 7, unites Kimball Jenkins-affiliated artists with a Concord-based poetry group.
The idea traces back to last year, when Kimball Jenkins Executive Director Martha Lemire attended the Percheron Poets’ annual Poetry & Pie event for the first time. “I was so inspired by the poets and their original writing,” she recalled. “I said, wouldn’t it be cool if next summer we did an exhibition around poetry, and have artists respond to your words?”
Art in Bloom, floral arrangements coupled with artwork, is a January tradition at Kimball Jenkins, and Lemire wondered if poets could inspire a mirror image of that. “We did it backwards,” she said. “I thought it would be an interesting concept to see what they could come up with.”
The Percheron Poets enthusiastically endorsed the idea.
The mechanics of the pairing varied. Some poets already had artist collaborators and had been working alongside them for months, while others didn’t. Lemire put roughly five or six unmatched poems out to the wider community of artists who exhibit at or teach for Kimball Jenkins, who then chose the ones that spoke to them.
The show’s evocative title came from the poets themselves. “This is your show,” Lemire told them. “We were hoping to have the poems shine in this whole collaborative exhibition that we’re doing together. So I gave them the opportunity to come up with their title, and they did.”
In a Zoom call, Percheron Poets member Brenda Wilbert explained the title’s meaning.
“It reflects a positive feeling associated with writing from the seat of one’s own heart and mind — the inner life where the soul dwells,” she said. “Dwelling places are bright enough to encompass the poems and artwork. It’s a fun way of thinking of them dwelling for a while in the old, elegant mansion.”
Wilbert is also an artist, one of the exhibition’s many hyphenates. She works in wearable and digital art, built around her Heart Full of Color unisex clothing collection. One of her pieces was recently featured in a Montreal Clothing Co. marketing campaign. She recently had a solo show of her artwork at Kimball Jenkins.
“I was so blessed and honored,” she said of the five-week exhibition of her paintings alongside a room of mannequins dressed in her clothing line, including one posed at a piano. Wilbert is also a playwright and once ran her own theater company, following in the footsteps of her late husband, also a playwright.
For “Dwelling Places,” Wilbert contributed two poems. She created the artwork for one herself. For the other, “How They Grew,” about her father’s tomatoes, she recruited Susan Huppe, a retired art teacher. “Susan doesn’t really show her work, and now I encouraged her to do it,” she said. Huppe’s painting is being used to promote the exhibition.
The Percheron Poets origin story traces back to a workshop Adele Sanborn ran in Boscawen at the now-shuttered Twiggs Gallery. “Right outside Twiggs, there were Percheron horses,” Wilbert said. “We were looking at the horses when we’re in this meeting, and this is how it all started.” The group has met monthly ever since.
Wilbert spent her earlier career in mental health services. She’s written often about grief but came to poetry late in life.
“I decided I wanted to do it,” she said, pointing out an overlap between that kind of writing and visual art. “Writing poetry or expressing art is often very healing.”
What is Wilbert most looking forward to at the event? “People being present with both the poems and artwork,” she said simply. “Like to really go through them, the mansion, and just sit with us. Really look at the poem, read the poem, look at the artwork, and just be present there.”
She’s also eager for another year of the gathering that inspired “Dwelling Places.” However, she’s quick to clarify one thing: for Poetry & Pie on Aug. 23, Wilbert will only read — she does not bake. “I’m not a cook, forget it,” she said. “I go to the Co-Op; I get a lot of great pies over there.”
Art & Poetry: Dwelling Places
Where: Kimball Jenkins Estate, 266 N. Main St., Concord
When: Through Saturday, Sept. 5, various days and hours. Public opening reception Aug. 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Kimball Jenkins Mansion.
More: kimballjenkins.com
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.