Community Collaborations
Clay and word collaborations are a major part of my practice. From co-founding the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival at the Emily Dickinson Museum to creating terracotta sculptures for a new spiral meditation garden at the Trustees of Reservations’ Haskell Public Gardens, I love the ideas that come from working with others and seeing how our different approaches lead to unexpected creations.
Michael Medeiros throwing one of the spiral meditation garden sculptures at the Haskell Public Gardens in New Bedford, MA.
Haskell Public Gardens Spiral Meditation Garden terracotta sculpture imprinted with leaves from the gardens and with bamboo chimes harvested on site.
Haskell Public Gardens Spiral Meditation Garden terracotta sculpture with bamboo chimes harvested on site.
Haskell Public Gardens Spiral Meditation Garden terracotta sculptures.
Community clay project creating tiles for the Haskell Public Gardens Spiral Meditation Garden, using leaves and flowers from the gardens. At the New Bedford Public Library.
Community clay project creating tiles for the Haskell Public Gardens Spiral Meditation Garden, using leaves and flowers from the gardens. At the New Bedford Public Library.
A Haskell Public Gardens volunteer with the Spiral Meditation Garden sculptures.
Mindfulness writing session in the Haskell Public Gardens' Spiral Meditation Garden.
Tiny Art 4 All Gallery exhibit on the Northampton Bike Trail. I created terracotta cauldrons and flowerpots with lines from Emily Dickinson's writings. Viewers were asked to write down one of their garden memories in exchange for one of the Dickinson ceramics.
Bicyclists stop to look at my Tiny Art 4 All Gallery exhibit on the Northampton Bike Trail.
A participant takes a cauldron after sharing a garden story as part of my Tiny Art 4 All Gallery exhibit on the Northampton Bike Trail.
Bicyclists ride to my Tiny Art 4 All Gallery exhibit on the Northampton Bike Trail.
From "We are Gardens Haunted by Each Other" exhibition at 50 Arrow Gallery in Easthampton, MA. The public was asked to share garden memories, which I preserved on terracotta flowerpots using traditional Portuguese smoke firing methods.
Story/Sound Arbor poetry reading and concert with Ide Thompson and Madden Aleia at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery, in Northampton, MA.
Story/Sound Arbor poetry reading and concert with Jade Gaynor and Madden Aleia at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery, in Northampton, MA.
Story/Sound Arbor window installtion at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery, in Northampton, MA. An immersive experience of words, shared garden memory and improvised musical exploration.
Story/Sound Arbor ceramics storycircle at A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery, in Northampton, MA. An immersive experience of words, shared garden memory and improvised musical exploration.
Visitors to Story/Sound Arbor at Northampton's A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery were asked to share their garden memories to be preserved on ceramics to be made for future public installations.
Participants in the Poetry Listening Horn project each chose a horn, spent time listening to the world through it, then gave it to me and spoke a word through it directly into my ear. I used that word to create a poem, which became part of the series "This River of Time and Its Creatures."
The "listening" portion of the listening horn project. Each participant chose a horn and listened to the word through it. Then they handed the horn to me, and spoke a word through it which I then used to write a poem.
Poetry Listening Horn
Visitor to "Record of Existence" exhibition at Herter Gallery using the Poetry Listening Horns.
Visitor to "Record of Existence" at Herter Gallery using the Poetry Listening Horns.
Reading at the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA.
Poets Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov, the Astro Poets, for their reading in the Amherst College Bassett Planetarium as part of the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival.
Poetry writing workshop at the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA.
Dinner set for a community dinner as part of a reading by poet Mary Ruefle at UMass Amherst.
Creating the Ruefle plate set.
Visitors to an Emily Dickinson Museum reading.
I created an event, "Doughnuts and Death: A Baker's Dozen of Emily Dickinson's Most Depressing Poems," that introduced people to Dickinson family and Amherst history at Amherst's West Cemetery, where the poet is buried.
With poet Amy Dryansky during a radio interview for the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival.