Here, we hold a space for each other
where we allow our inner voice to have the floor
where BEYOND is our brief
where the water holds our stories and the WAVES lift them up
WAVES ALIVE
this
April 12 | June 14 | August 8-9 | October 11 | December 6-7
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My creative intentions are to share my explorations, attempts and hopes with sister explorers, attempters, and hopers. To see and hold, and to be seen and held in the nurturing arms of the waves, in the waves of the sea from where we emerged millennia ago; but also in the waves of cyclical resonance – of synchronicity, intuition, compassion and invention. That the resulting voices, these undulating frequencies, may be received as an invitation – not so much to join into an existing space, but [so that we can/to], all of us, step into our selves more freely and fully.
Carrie Nassif
“Unbreakable Spirit” by Tina Ferguson
What does my art mean to me: Through good times and recent hardships, art has been my therapy and my voice, allowing me to communicate emotions that words cannot capture. It is my passion, my refuge, and my way of making a meaningful impact in the world. Art saved my life.
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So what if my heart is broken.
That’s part of a heart’s job – to break
a thousand times over the darkness of this world
and still peer through the smallest window at dawn,
ready to leap across the empty lawn
and gather whatever light lies waiting,
like manna, to fuel a single day’s breath.
I take what I can – a spectrum of color
as photons dance in shimmering waves,
the light brilliant and endless.
“Available Light” by Sandy Coomer
…
If the work is reprehensible, that work is also me, coming from a reprehensible part of me. I’m not going to stop doing it because what else could I do?
Hamza Walker
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What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself – a Black woman warrior poet doing my work – come to ask you, are you doing yours?
Audre Lorde
“Button Your Lip” by Mimm Patterson
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The light reveals some tracks out back
on dunes of ice—rabbits, squirrels, or
the coydog glimpsed next door
who slipped so fast below our sight.
I want their marks to mean my friend
has sent her love to all of us
who walked with her. A death too soon,
and still too new. A poet who could
melt the mounds of ice with sound—
her self, her homeland alive—
yes, her voice remains.
A woman I revere for ways
she led and taught. A grace on days
she hid her pain. She cared to ask
what others feel about this life.
Clouds of grief release the light,
a dawn on frozen waves of snow.
“Waves of Snow” by Holly Guran
for Danielle Legros Georges
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I want my work to be bold, rooted, and unapologetically alive—a touch that does not just land but lingers, does not just decorate but deepens, does not just reach but roots itself in the world.
Saranya Francis
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The Q: What does it mean to touch what you’ve made? Can you? How would you? What might change if you did?
