Sunday, August 1, 2010 - Sunday, August 29, 2010

Echoes of Paumanok Art Exhibit

Echoes of Paumanok, now showing in the Gathering House at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, is an incredible and provocative art exhibit presented by Princess Ronkonkama Productions. This ground breaking art exhibit features the work of two fine photographers and a unique collage artist, all living with disabilities.  The excitingly vivid photography of Jeff Bevis,  the colorful Americana of Hedi Flickstein and the subtle and meditative shadings of Stuart McCallum’s photos are truly inspiring.  Poet Brian Burns, CEO of Princess Ronkonkama Productions says, “There are no limitations on artistic expression and this is very important and meaningful to artists with disabilities who have to deal with limitations in other aspects of life.” On Sunday, August 1, the exhibit held a poetry reading and reception at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site.

The three artists present remarkable life stories. Their biographies are detailed below.

Jeff Bevis

Photographer Jeff Bevis was born on January 4, 1955, at Southside Hospital in Bayshore, New York. At the age of two, he contracted spinal meningitis, which left him a quadriplegic with only limited use of his legs and right arm. To overcome this handicap, Jeff underwent numerous operations on his legs and right arm and has received extensive physical therapy.

 

Because his disability was similar to cerebral palsy, he attended the Saint Charles Cerebral Palsy School in Port Jefferson, New York, up through fifth grade, then attended regular public school. He later went on to attend C.W. Post College in Greenvale, New York, and earned a B.A. degree in Communication Art. Presently, Jeff is a full-time radio operator with the Suffolk County Department of Parks and also has his own business.

His photography can be seen at www.disabledartistsguild.com

 

Hedi Flickstein

Hedi Flickstein was born in the Bronx, New York. She attended the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan. After graduation she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and received an Associates Degree. In 1967 the family moved to Long Island. On 1979, Flickstein was a single parent raising two small children, her daughter Helise and son Kenneth. She returned to school and graduated from Dowling College with a B.A. in Visual Arts and Education. She also earned an M.A. in Special Education from Adelphi University and is currently working on a Ph.D. in Special Education. Ms. Flickstein has been a head designer for Cromwell Mills, a substitute teacher on Long Island and has taught arts and crafts classes and adult education classes. Ms. Flickstein also designs educational aides for learning disabled children and volunteers with the Epilepsy Association, STEP Program, Scout Den Mother, Longwood School District Legislative Committee, HANDS, HATS Heart Association, United Cerebral Palsy, Big Brother-Big Sisters and many others.

Artistic Accomplishments: First place, Dowling College pencil/charcoal.

Exhibitions: National Art Show, World Trade Center, Epilepsy Society of New York, Islip Art Center, St. Josephs College, Patchogue/Medford Art Center and H Lee Dennison Art Space.

Artist’s Media: Ms. Flickstein’s artwork is not limited to one medium. She is very ecologically minded and utilizes recyclable materials in her work.

 

Stuart McCallum

Stuart McCallum has been a photographer most of his life. Photographing the Long Island landscape and eastern environs has been an ongoing project for over 30 years. Parkinson’s has slowed that somehow but he now draws on the archive of images collected from earlier years. McCallum grew up in Melville and later moved to Wading River where he lived and photographed the nearby North Fork for 30 years. His work has been profiled in Black & White Magazine, Kaleidoscope Magazine, Focus Magazine, LensWork, CameraArts, and Large Format Journal. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Heckscher Museum and the Suffolk County Collection. His work is displayed on his website at www.stumccallum.com.

Photographer Stuart McCallum turns a very focused eye toward nature, finding or creating  detailed moments of delicate perfection in his mostly black and white photos.  McCallum turned that same nature loving focus to his poetry by contributing the very touching  poem “Walt”, bringing the influence of Whitman full circle since McCullan grew up in West Hills and walked the same hills and paths of the great writer.

 

Walt

The opening of the Echoes of Paumanok exhibit on August 1st was marked by a very moving poetry reading which was one part tribute to Walt Whitman, and one part poetic interpretation of the art pieces, which were themselves a meditation on the poetry of Whitman.

Poet Brian Burns began by reading several inspirational poems by Whitman, which set the tone for the event.  Burns, who grew up on Lake Ronkonkoma, recalled taking long Walt-like walks with his father and being inspired by nature. Burns said he was moved to be reading at the Walt Whitman Birthplace because he had come to the Whitman house for a tour when he was a youngster and had always dreamed of reading his work in the place where America’s poet was born.

As Burns read from his latest book of poetry, Kwan-Yin Heart, he took the audience with him on a transcendent, open-hearted journey.

Author Robert R.Fitzsimmons describes the poems in Kwan-Yin Heart this way:

Burns’ poetry is “heavily influenced by the spirituality of Zen Buddhism, his poems reflect a desire to attain a higher level of consciousness.  The spirit of this book is founded on the ideal that, on the path of enlightenment, no one and nothing can be left behind.  This is the promise of Kwan Yin.  This is what it means to live the Kwan-Yin heart.”

 

Whitman was another of Burns’ influences and he recited his humorous poem “Walt’s Brain” at the event.

Walt's Brain

Judy Turek

The poetry reading also featured three poems by Judy Turek, who took inspiration from artwork by each of the three artists in the show.   She was also inspired by the style and spirit of Whitman in her writing of these poems.  They are reprinted below.

American Tapestry -1
            after Collage (of the same name) by Hedi Flickstein
            in tribute to Walt Whitman
 
Stars and bars, white lines of freedom, crimson stripes of bloodshed,
blue field of orbs of night dappled, rippling waves
over oceans of peace and war and peace
again
            flag of teeming life!
babes and toddlers, children, teens
mothers fathers, brothers sisters
aunts uncles and grandparents
friends, strangers, and neighbors
            sing America!
salesmen and janitors in uniform voices
bricklayers in mortar choral, clerks
and cashiers in bells ringing, sanitation crews
clanging melodious cans in early morn -
            sing America!
tailors hum to threaded needle hymns
cell phone tunes embracing friendship
radios play for comrades arm-in-arm
to sway in peaceful circles
            sing America!
truck haulers and taxi drivers in red rays
of dawn/dusk light obeying white lanes
of roadway laws beneath a ceiling
of everlasting blue
            flag cerulean!
thick-sprinkled bunting! field of heavenly stars, a new constellation
"The New Colossus" crowning our Lady Liberty,
torch held high, head held high,
your Lady, Walt,
            my matron mighty!
erected in stony battle roars for freedom
in drum-taps, soldier taps and they tramp through
Manhattan (my own, my peerless!) down to the river
guns on shoulders, marching with pride for peace
            my sacred one, my mother

 

eyes watching over our beloved Paumanok,
"Liberty Enlightening the World" arm stretched
to draw back the darkness, the curtain of enslavement
to welcome the tired, the poor, the "huddled masses..."
            my matron mighty!
yearning to breathe free..."
flag, our flag, we salute you
you salute us by waving back
            Flag of death!
draped over eternal rest, folded 13 times
each fold symbolic:  the 1st for life; the 2nd for belief in eternal life;
the 3rd to honor and remember veterans; 4th for our weaker nature,
turning to His Divine nature in times of peace and times of war;
 
5th in tribute to our country,
6th where our hearts lie, with our hearts we Pledge Allegiance
to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic
for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty
and Justice for All -
 
            (read for you, Walt - our Pledge published
less than six months after your death) -
 
7th fold a tribute to our Armed Forces to protect us and our Flag;
8th in tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow
of death, that we might see the light of day; 9th a tribute to womanhood;
10th a tribute to fatherhood;
 
            ah my wooly white and crimson!
 
11th in tribute to the Hebrew God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
12th in tribute to the Christian God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
13th final fold reminds us "In God We Trust"
flag of life, flag of liberty, flap and rustle, cloth defiant!
flag of America!
                                                                                ~ J R Turek
                                                                                July 31, 2010

Miracles
            after Jeffrey Bevis photograph, "Yellow Flower"
            in tribute to Walt Whitman
 
Lengthening days full of garden ardor, raking away
the fall of dried umber leaves that crackle to dust, beggars
to be born again by limber branches, to wave in warming winds
to shield nursery nests of sparrows and wrens in green curtains
of shade, spade dug into barren beds, turning dry soil surface
digging in, airing out, inhale the earthy smell of spring -
the coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars
 
miracles
 
birthed in rivers and lakes of defrosted sleep
spring dawns saffron rays painted over grey gardens
nudges earthworms awake, breathes life to butterfly wings
breaks cold barriers, shakes dirt from rest to caress roots
to crawl forth for sturdy fingerholds in drenched loam
foothold support for stems, leaves and buds to color valleys -
and now the lilac that blooms the first
 
miracles, each one
 
tiny green specks in mud-puddle gardens stretch
to bask in ribbons of sun, veins of leaves pulsing warmth
rushing nutrients roots to stems to feed the need to grow
clusters of crocus, rows of sunny-face daffodil edge beds
of emerging purple hyacinth to perfume the garden, coax up
golden tulip and pale-pink ranunculus -
These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers
 
miracles in bloom
 
sundrops of vibrant color, yellow heliopsis dot lush green
foliage, stately allium, yellow poppies, fields of sunspots
cupped open to catch morning dew, allure pollinators
wisps of rose fragrance calypso on a breeze, waltz
with splendid stalks of grass, reeds singing lakeside
parade of pollinating honey-bees busy around the hive
and ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn
 
miracles, one and all


 
summer sun recedes, thin curve of a new moon rises
lifted by a string of yellow stars, cardinals and squirrels tuck in
to warm nests, worms tunnel down, tired runway models
tuck in petals, rest for display tomorrow while evening primrose
drinks in pale moonbeams, the day clocks out, night clocks in
but not before the portrait of day's end in the garden
with floods of the yellow-gold gorgeous, indolent sinking sun
 
miracles
 
bountiful blessings arise each day before our unseeing eyes,
spread beauty to cover our burgeoning Paumanok in vivid color
flourishing in blossoms, the air filled with songs of adulation
Shine!  Shine!  Pour down your warmth, Summer sun!
We bask - we two together you and I beside
a miracle of perfection
God's yellow flower
                                                             ~ J R Turek
                                                            July 31, 2010

 Impermanence
            as titled after Stuart McCallum's photograph
            in tribute to Walt Whitman
 
Leaves of trees birth from bud, vivacious green
hands from slender limbs of bark-skinned wood
flutter, ripple, wave in three-season ode to life
to turn red, yellow, brown in dirge of death
fall, tumble, fly, hands clasped in prayer to land
in patient Mother's lap - O Walt,
 
how fleeting this life of leaves, and grass, O Walt
how innocent tender lilac shoots of green
how abundant sycamores upon our shifting land
toppled in a rush of wind, charred branches of wood
left behind from wildfire flames of forest death
yet soon new roots, new birth, new life.
 
This constant state of flux we call life
this ever-changing impermanence, O Walt
each moment a miracle, yet a step closer to death
in birth, our aspirations sprout shoots of green
grow tall and limber, sturdy stately spine of wood
we live knowing we will die and fall upon the land,
 
yet we fight the absence of permanence to this land
curse our vulnerability, this fickle concision of life
conspire to defeat mortality, beat our breasts, would
that we could live forever - teach us, O Walt
that leaves cannot constantly remain green
that once upon a lifetime, we must face death.
 
Tell us we'll walk hand in hand with delicate death
led by chants of a thrush's song to an unknown land
of perennial lilacs with leaves of heart-shaped green
every leaf a miracle, as is now our life -
help us live our years without fear of death, O Walt
may we embrace this day without thought of coffin wood.

Impermanence  -2-

Let us wake tomorrow and dig a trench to birth new wood
rake away fallen dreams, bury the ash of promised death
observe a spear of summer grass, celebrate ourselves, O Walt
show us every sniff of leaf, every breath of sea and land
to never look through the eyes of the dead but sing of life
sun, moon, stars ever changing, hopes ever green.
 
O, that we would accept our temporary time on this land
not waste days dreading death, let laughter fill this life
O Walt, we embrace these leaves so capricious with green.
 
            (Sestina)
                                                                                 ~ J R Turek
                                                                                July 31, 2010


For more information about this exhibit please contact:
Hedi Flickstein (631) 331-2438 or Contact Susie at  631-4275-5240 ext. 11

email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Exhibit being held in the Gathering House at the Walt Whitman Birthplace:

Walt Whitman Birthplace
246 Old Walt Whitman Road
Huntington Station, NY 11746

Days/Hours: M-F (11-4) Weekends (11-5)