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Arts & Entertainment

Ferndale Poet, Pleasant Ridge Artist Present Work at Art X Symposium

Poet Chris Tysh and multimedia artist Abigail Newbold are among the local artists showing new works this weekend as part of Art X Detroit, an "arts experience" presented by the Kresge Foundation.

In 2008, the Kresge Foundation announced an unprecedented commitment to the local arts community with Kresge Arts In Detroit, a program that annually awards grants to visual, literary and performing artists. This weekend, the foundation is giving its 2008-2010 Kresge Artist Fellows the chance to show off their work in a public celebration called Art X Detroit: Kresge Arts Experience.

Poet Chris Tysh of Ferndale and visual artist Abigail Anne Newbold of Pleasant Ridge are among those whose new works will be heard or seen at the event.

A commitment to the local arts community

The Kresge Arts In Detroit Foundation is a private foundation that, since 2008, has awarded 36 artist fellowships – 12 literary, 12 performing and 12 visual – of $25,000 each, as well as three Eminent Artist Awards of $50,000 each.

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The program, according to its website, is “aimed at developing and supporting individual artists” and furthering the Kresge Foundation's belief that “fostering a thriving arts and cultural community … can help spawn creativity, spur innovation, and accelerate revitalization while enriching the lives of Detroit-area residents.”

Chris Tysh: From prose to poetry, French to English

Tysh is one of 12 literary arts fellows chosen by the Kresge Foundation to receive grants in 2010. As part of the Art X event, Tysh, also an English professor at Wayne State, will read excerpts from her new project, Molloy, the Flip Side, from 4-5 p.m. Sunday at the Virgil H. Carr Cultural Arts Center, 311 E. Grand River, Detroit.

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The book-length poem, which Tysh plans to complete this year, has three parts. The first, from which she will read Sunday, is a take on Samuel Beckett’s novel Molloy, a translation of sorts from the French prose into a poem in English.

“It is translation, in a way,” said Tysh, who was raised in Paris and moved to the United States in her 20s. “But it is also trans-creation, and trans-location – emphasizing the ‘trans.’ ”

Tysh said the postmodern approach to an existing work was a reaction to her most recent work, Night Scales: A Fable for Klara K., a play that was based in part on her mother’s experience during World War II.

“That was a very personal work,” Tysh said. “I wanted to get away from the self, so this new work is almost like ghost writing or dictation, a voice in my head.”

Tysh’s reading, the last scheduled event on the Art X docket, promises to be more than what people think of as a typical “poetry reading.”

“I put a lot into my readings,” she said. “They are very energetic. And since my work tends to be a bit challenging (on the page), some people might be surprised.”

Abigail Newbold: Ruminations on home

Newbold, a multimedia visual artist, was born in Boston but has lived in many places, once moving 14 times in just nine years. She has called Pleasant Ridge home since 2003, but her many migrations have become the subject of her work.

Home Maker Series, Newbold’s latest work, is a collection of objects – some found, some rebuilt, some made from scratch out of wood and metal – that embrace the idea of a portable home. Parts of the series (including a prairie-style wagon, drawn by a rebuilt bicycle and filled with tools) will be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) through April 24.

“I’m fascinated by the idea of the home being portable,” Newbold said in her home studio, itself a rebuilt garage. “The process of moving is so disorienting and inelegant, so why not make it something planned for?”

The various parts of her ongoing Home Maker project explore various ways someone could literally carry their home with them – or at least carry with them the tools necessary to build a new home.

“Americans are wanderers,” said Newbold, who is a graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and currently works at the museum there. “This series is me trying to locate myself and feel at home.”

For the past eight years, Newbold has lived at the end of a quiet street on the east side of Woodward where owls coo outside her window and broods of pheasants roam wild. After years of her own wandering, Newbold says that Detroit (and Pleasant Ridge specifically) finally feels like home.

Artists meeting the public, and each other

For Newbold and Tysh, the Art X symposium provides two different opportunities. 

"The most exciting thing for me about this event," said Tysh, "is to have the 2009 and 2010 (Kresge Arts In Detroit) fellows discover each other."

Tysh met rapper Invincible, a 2010 Performing Arts Fellow, at a previous Kresge event and was immediately seduced. She loved the rapper's work so much, she asked her to open for her at her next reading.

"I think those kinds of cross-pollinations are the most exciting thing about this event," Tysh said.

For Newbold, however, seeing the public react to her work is the most rewarding aspect. "I've actually gotten the most interesting feedback from the general public," she said. "Other artists tend to compliment me on my craft, but it's fascinating to see what real people react to when they aren't thinking of it as 'art.' "

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