strolling the Codrescu haiga exhibit

9/1/2015

Living right down the road from Union College gave me the luxury of taking a quiet stroll around the Mandeville Gallery's Ion Codrescu Haiga Exhibit yesterday afternoon, in a preview of the experience awaiting those who attend HNA 2015 in mid-October. As expected, the entire visit was a treat for the eye and soul, with 30 haiga paintings installed around the second-floor balcony of the gorgeous Nott Memorial, and the building's dome and two other levels adding colors, light, and depth. Codrescu's Chinese ink-brush painting and calligraphy have a beautiful synergy with the haiku poems he incorporates into his haiga.

Here is a slideshow that does the circuit around the Codrescu Exhibit. The shaded semi-circular windows add a shoji-screen effect. Although I enjoy playing with the shadows and reflections off the framed paintings, you'll be able to view each piece from several perspectives when here in person, including glare-free angles.

This exhibition is held in conjunction with Haiku North America 2015 and is co-sponsored by the Mandeville Gallery, the Department of Visual Arts, Asian Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies.

p.s. Looking down from the Mandeville Gallery, near the end of my visit, I saw former Union College president Roger Hull (1990-2005) entering the building. (See the last photo in the Slideshow above.) Mr. Hull is credited with saving the Nott Memorial from demolition in the early 1990s, heading an $11 million restoration fund drive that culminated in the full restoration of the Nott in 1995. The story of the restoration of the Nott Memorial is told in this 8-minute video created by the College.

4 Comments

Tickled Pink Janis Lukstein

9/1/2015 04:10:58 am

Tues, Sept. 1, 2015 11am

Hi, thanks for the preview of the very nice Ion C exhibit of haiga- glad visitors and students can see it before to help educate and interest them about our poetry. I hope some students also come to both the haiku conference and the tanka event. It would be wonderful if we had some actual activities with them and to encourage some students to attend... a raffle, a contest for students who are interested to get a free conference registration or ?

Wish you could post some more photos with close ups since the majority are too small for me to read or appreciate even after I click on them once.
Thanks for helping w that tech issue and I hope you email me if possible to let me know if you can add some close ups of the tanka.
Are you a professor at the college? How did it work out for you to live there?

Thanks,

Tickled Pink Janis lukstein in So Cal\

[email protected]

David Giacalone link

9/1/2015 05:41:21 am

Hello, Janis, I don't know if you have tried this yet, but if you right-click on an image when it is on the slideshow screen, you can choose Open Image in New Tab, and a larger version will appear in a new tab; you should then be able to click on that image to make it a bit larger. I do not plan at this point to make or upload more shots of individual pieces. (We need to save some mystery for in-person exploration; and I need to attend to other duties.)

My understanding is that Union College students and faculty will be allowed to attend as space is available at the presentations, and are invited to the various special events. It is very nice that the Union community will have the opportunity to get to know Ion's work prior to his arrival, and also to become familiar with the haiku poem. (I don't remember any of the paintings in the Show having tanka rather than haiku.)

I do not teach at Union, but have lived in the Schenectady Stockade since I moved from Washington, D. C., in 1988. I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Yu, Hilary, John and Tom on the Web when they accepted my invitation a decade ago to be Honored Guest Poets at my now-retired (but still available) weblog, f/k/a. Of course, discovering that Hilary, John and Yu lived nearby was a pleasure.

At f/k/a, I daily interspersed haiku by about 20 accomplished English-language haiku poets with opinion pieces on lawyer ethics, clients' rights, politics, culture, etc. [If interested, go to http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/ ]

I hope to see you in Schenectady.

Jessica link

9/1/2015 02:09:58 pm

Amazing exhibit! Every artwork is stunning. I can't wait to be there. I almost fainted of joy when I read that the artist would be there.I'm so thrilled to be able to meet Ion Codrescu! Can't wait to meet fellow haiku poets at HNA.

David Giacalone link

9/3/2015 02:58:50 am

It's great to hear you are so excited about Ion's exhibit and meeting him and the other poets at HNA 2015. See you in October.

HAIKU NORTH AMERICA