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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
 
   
 
 

Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

On the Quest again, still

Friday, May 24th, 2013

Where’s my Life Help button? – foto Smith

Took an hour to drive through Chicago yesterdfay, and that’s only because we were lucky to hit the 3pm traffic rather than the after-work rush, although can one call it a rush if no one’s moving? But we regained the lost hour due to a time zone change I’d forgotten, so it’s almost like we’re already here when we’ve hardly left at all.

Lady’s been taking fone fotos of odd moments, like the windshield-wiper wiping, and trying to post them to her FaceBook wall, but the reception’s not good or fast enough. Says this road trip to a far city in a new state in a strange country to show some art and read from our book is a quest.

Also says she’s fairy, was told in a dream. My first thought was fairies are small like Tinkerbell, but then flashed on Cate Blanchett as a Lord of the Rings fairy, as well as my own 7-foot sculpture titled Tinkerbell, so why not. This world could use some extra pixie-dust.

So she’s fairy and on quest without good connection to post quest steps.

And it ties in with the Gamut Gallery whose basement we’re reading in Saturday night in Minneapolis because the current show upstairs is a fairy land, so of course my fairy Lady and I would be reading in the basement. I’m more underground Orcish or beneath bridge Troll anyway . . . she’s Lady, I’m scamp.

Actually her and my 7yr8mo relationship has been (and is) quite the quest, of magic, in adventure. If we ever get this memoir jump-started, I can start writing the tale of what happened next. Already know a perfect place for it to end — with our 1st book busting loose. Now just have to manifest that.


Tinkerbell, 1996 – sculpture & foto Smith

 

WANTED: AN EVENING WITH OUTLAW WRITERS

Thursday, May 23rd, 2013

small piece of Lady’s art – foto Smith

We’re driving to Minneapolis for Saturday’s poetry and memoir reading and one-night art show.

Here’s the Gamut Gallery’s press release.

WANTED: AN EVENING WITH OUTLAW WRITERS
LIVE READINGS IN THE GAMUT GALLERY STUDIO

MINNEAPOLIS–May 25, at 8:00 p.m. 2013, Christopher Shillock presents four poets, direct from the underbelly. Self-confessed art criminal “Smith” and his domestic partner in crime “Lady K,” will read from their new book “Stations of the Lost and Found: A True Story of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle and Leaving the Country.” This memoir of Smith’s journey from lawless provocateur to known Cleveland artist, brings the authors’ crime spree all the way to Minneapolis. Here they will be aided and abetted by two local literary miscreants and works from a great outlaw writer of history, François Villon.

Tabatha Predovich and Christopher Shillock have created a musical, literary adaptation of some of Villon’s fifteenth century poems; Shillock will read his modernized, artistically translated lyrics. Also in accompaniment to the authors’ readings, Smith and Lady K will show their “assemblages,” which are mixed-media, found-object works on canvas. These visual pieces were inspired by the same themes the artists were driven by in their writing.

Steven B. Smith has been a poet for 50 years, artist 49 years, publisher of ArtCrimes 28 years, editor of AgentofChaos.com, 11 years, WalkingThinIce.com blogger 8 years, ReverbNation.com/MutantSmith singer & lyricist 3 years. Public radio’s WCPN reports Smith as “one of the 70′s artistic renegades and anti-establishment types who proudly wore the banner of criminal and terrorist: Smith is something of an underground legend in the Cleveland art scene.” (September, 2012). He’s also called “the ultimate insider of outsider art” (Northern Ohio Live, 2005). “funny and poignant, but with rough edges worthy of a tetanus shot.” (Scene, 1996); “equal parts artist, poet, publisher, eccentric, gadfly. lightning rod, underground cultural icon” (Deep Cleveland, 2006)

Kathy Ireland Smith, a.k.a. Lady K, is a poet, publisher, artist and surreal photographer from Northeast Ohio. She and her husband Smith spent 31 months of traveling in 10 countries on 3 continents from 2006 – 2009, you can follow their adventures at WalkingThinIce.com. Kathy is also founder and editor of The City Poetry (www.thecitypoetry.com), a cutting edge art and poetry zine based in Cleveland.
Paul Singleton is the author of “The Punk Rock Bible”, a work-in-progress posted on www.tcpunk.com under the pseudonym vishnu666. He drives a cab in Minneapolis and made himself indispensable to the early punk scene in Minneapolis.
Scott Vetsch was a member of the Minneapolis All-Star Poets. His book “Hauling Ass: Cab Driving Poems” was featured in the program “Streets of Minneapolis” He is the son of the notorious “Ma” Vetsch.

Christopher Shillock is a poet, philosopher and radical, whose 80′s activism “led him to the losing side of every factional dispute.” He attended Haverford College, received a MA in Philosophy from CUNY in 1972 and studied comparative lit. at the U of M. He writes in three languages, translates poetry in seven. Shillock now lives the creative life as radical act. He received a Verve Grant in 2003 and continues to work in various media, locally and around the world. http://tcbard.blogspot.com/

François Villon hails from Medieval Paris. He went to the gallows three times and received a pardon every time (France really respects its poets).

-The Smiths’ Book is available here: https://www.createspace.com/3903652
-Tickets are sliding scale $5-10, no one in need turned away

Gamut Gallery
1006 Marquette Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55403
(612) 701-8272


the two of us – foto Smith

 

Borderlands: Poetry On the Edge today 2-4pm

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

Three faces have I – foto Smith

Poet Louise Robertson and I are reading today down in Mansfield at Borderlands: Poetry On the Edge, Main Street Books 2-4 pm: facebook.com/events/182212025266698/.

A week from today Lady and I are the featured readers at the Gamut Gallery in Minneapolis, MN (data to follow tomorrow).

Main Street Books is at 104 North Main Street, Mansfield, Ohio 44902, (419) 522-2665

From Face Book:

Borderlands is a poetry reading series composed entirely of Ohio writers. This month’s reading features Louise Robertson and Steven B. Smith.

Louise Robertson lives, raises her kids, works, and is involved in the poetry scene in Central Ohio. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from George Mason University.

Robertson’s publication credits include many small press journals (including a feature set of 6 poems in the Jan. 2011 Pudding Magazine), a couple anthologies, one chapbook produced by a reading series, and a law school newspaper. Additionally, Pudding House Publications published her chapbook Teaching My Daughter My Language. She runs Rewriting Ovid Publications, a very small press with a growing set of high quality authors.

A passionate advocate for the presences of live poetry, she has organized and helped organize numerous poetry events such as the Writer’s Block First Draft show, the Poetry Forum at the Rumba Cafe, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam.

Robertson’s awards include, more recently, the 2009 and 2007 Columbus Arts Festival poetry award after having placed 3rd in the 2006 Columbus Arts Festival competition. She also placed 2nd in the 2006 William Redding contest. She won an honorable mention in the 2005 contest from Perigee. Her most prestigious academic award was the 1992 Mary Roberts Rinehart award. She took 3rd in the 1991 Virginia Downs competition. She also received the Mary Cotton Fellowship and a general academic fellowship while getting her MFA.

Steven B. Smith is a poet, memoirist, photographer, blogger and collage/assemblage artist who makes his home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. He’s been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and for more than twenty years he published the famed “Artcrimes” journal. He created a massive online art/poetry archive at agentofchaos.com, and a wide array of his poetry and collages have been published in the critically acclaimed book “Zen Over Zero: Selected Poems 1964-2008″ (The City Poetry Press). Smith and his wife Lady have traveled the world extensively, creating and living art in places like Croatia, Morocco, and Mexico, while blogging about the best, worst and most unique bits of their journey at walkingthinice.com. They’ve also collaborated on a book about Smith’s life entitled “Stations of the Lost & Found — A True Tale of Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Outsider Art, Mutant Poetry, Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle, and Leaving the Country,” published in 2012. For more information on Smith, read his bio at agentofchaos.com/bio.php. Check out his musical collaborations at >reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.


Poet – foto Smith

 

caffeine & cannabis

Friday, May 17th, 2013

That ole debbil weed – foto Smith

Since I’m not toking past few days for next few days or weeks, I’ll write of past, a.k.a. the golden haze. (still doing two cups of strong Costa Rican cowboy pan coffee though)

Defy, Get High

Caffeine and cannabis
what a great way to start the day

Like an afterglow henhive in yesterhaze oldtown
where savedface rosebuds manifest

I’m laughing with you
even though you’re not laughing

— Smith, 5.17.2013


Lucky green – foto Smith

 

from Genesis to apocalypsim

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Relativity – foto Smith

An odd one, recorded yesterday.

Low-slow easy-going-nowhere almost-vocal floating through a junkyard of outer space sound.

Click here to hear or download free: Statement, Mix B

Statement

Let us take this world that is rather round
And topsy turvy turn her upside down
Then all the oceans which cover her face
Would soon drain off into outer space

Without the water it’s a bouncy ball
Drop it out the window and watch it fall
How it falls so fast how it hits so hard
Bouncing in pieces all over the yard

From the Genesis to Revelations
And evolution through all its stages
From the flood down through apocalipsim
We’re fighting for a better system

Take a stick and stick the world on top
My goodness what we have is a huge lollipop
But o alas what’s the use of it all
I can’t take a lick cuz my tongue’s too small

— Smith, 5.14.2013

Music, mix and recording by Peter Ball; worfds and vocal Smith.

Sixty-some more musical collaborations at reverbnation.com/MutantSmith.


Innerlight – foto Smith

 

 
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