This summer I got asked to substitute teach a summer workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. The poet who was supposed to teach got sick and couldn’t come, so I offered to fill in. The theme of the course was ekphrastic poetry, or poetry that uses visual art as a source for poems, and I offered to jump in and teach the class. While I wasn’t quite what the students in the class had signed up for, I knew I could offer them some insights into writing about art, and this way at least they would have a class to attend for the week. I also decided that we would go have a look at what was on offer in Provincetown that summer in the museums and galleries and see what we could make of the experience.
As a group we made three field trips. The first was to the Hudson D. Walker Gallery at the Work Center where the summer show was on display. Everyone We Know Is Here was curated by Heidi Hahn and featured work by 22 former FAWC visual arts fellows. This collage by Georgia Dickie was a particular favorite.
Our second outing was to the Provincetown Arts Society at the Mary Heaton Vorse House. Once the home of journalist and writer Mary Heaton Vorse, it’s now one of the most beautiful and romantic houses on Cape Cod (according to me!). There we saw a show of recent portraiture by James Everett Stanley, David Hilliard, and Salvatore del Deo. We were able to settle in and write there for over an hour. One student in the class—a professional pianist—played for us while we worked, and I can honestly say that this hour was one of the highlights of my summer.
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