Art Center East Showcases ‘Arboreality: Poetry Broadsides’

Art Center East Showcases ‘Arboreality: Poetry Broadsides’

LA GRANDE, Ore. – Art Center East (ACE) is excited to announce the opening of “Arboreality: Poetry Broadsides”, an exhibit featuring several dozen letterpress broadsides curated by Eastern Oregon University (EOU) professor Nick Neely. Community members of all ages are invited to attend a free opening reception on Friday, July 19, 2024, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., biologist-writer David George Haskell, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, will read from his poetic book “The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors”.

The exhibit will be on display in ACE’s Main Gallery July 12 through August 31. Three of the broadsides on display will be raffle items; proceeds from the raffle support the ACE Gallery Program. The public is invited to attend a free closing reception on Friday, August 30, from 6 p.m.to 8 p.m.

Viewers of “Arboreality” can expect a combination of visual art and poetry that celebrates and explores trees and forests. Included is work from some of the greatest national and Northwest contemporary poets, including Gary Snyder, W.S. Merwin, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Ross Gay, Michael McClure, Jane Hirshfield, Forrest Gander, Raymond Carver, Carolyn Kizer, JohnDaniel, Juan Felipe Herrera, and others. Classic and recent books about trees, available to leaf through, will be interspersed among the broadsides.

Haskell’s visit is supported by the EOU MFA program in Creative Writing as part of the New Nature Writing Conference (July 19-20, 2024). The conference takes place on the EOU campus and at hq, a downtown La Grande venue.

Neely, an Assistant Professor of English/Writing at EOU, author, and director of EOU’s low-residency MFA with a special concentration in Landscape, Ecology, and Community, comments, “Trees extend our thinking through time and challenge us in the present—make us feel small, but also capable. They are an abiding metaphor, a way we make sense of how the world works and where we’ve come from, our roots. They are fascinating biologically, intricate beings. They also are often the object of our labor, sometimes of our violence, and ultimately they are a source of shelter, by the board feet. The hope is that these dendritic broadsides might constitute a woods worth wandering and help teach us something further about art and what continues to grow in and around us.”

Find out more about “Arboreality” and ACE classes, exhibits, and events at artcentereast.org. Art Center East is located at 1006 Penn Avenue in La Grande. Gallery hours are Wednesday – Friday noon to 5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Exhibits can also be viewed online at artcentereast.org thanks to a partnership with High Country Realty Professionals in La Grande. Galleries are open to the public and admission is always free.

Art Center East, based in La Grande, Oregon, was founded in 1977 and is a [member-based] 501(c)3 arts services organization that brings arts opportunities and education to the residents of ten Eastern Oregon counties. Our historic Carnegie Library building hosts art classes, art exhibits in our three galleries, and cultural events such as Día de los Muertos celebrations, Guinean drumming workshops, and literary readings. Our Artists in Rural Schools Program engages K-12 students across Eastern Oregon and our Community Music Program brings together community members of all ages in ensemble settings.

Art Center East programs are supported by members, community donations, local businesses, and regional and statewide foundations. For a list of our supporters and more information, visit artcentereast.org.