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Poetry break: Destiny L. Smith

8/14/2023

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Editors note: This was a post on social media a couple weeks back that we asked the author Destiny L. Smith, a local artist, if we could share it with our readers. 
​

1973 my mother and I lived in little Italy
a rundown two story, 
tucked between two larger buildings 
split into two apartments 
we lived downstairs 
200 block of west 18th 
at night my bathroom had 
water bugs the size of monsters
they would scatter when 
you turned on the light 
it’s gone now
that house
someone tore it down 
now a place where old men sit 
on folding chairs smoking cigars
talking about the good old days
in that kitchen mom was crying
praying to the silent god by the corner window 
Ian Kirk’s mother called from Scotland to say her son was married with two kids and to stay in America 
my first passport was never used 
Saint Patricks day at the corner bar 
offered a remedy 
mom and dad married not long after 
dads mom, my Polish grandmother looked my mom up and down when they first met, 
I’m sure she was tired 
already raised her many children on delicious food and lots of prayers
mom got the big family every orphan craves dad got a second wife and a fourth daughter 
small me felt loved
three new sisters, 
the eldest tender and kind
the middle indifferent 
and the youngest traumatized 
all of us abandoned in our own way 
trying to find our place in the world
Polish people use butter like 
a fairy godmother uses her wand
Everything gets covered with it
butter on bread before the lunch meat, 
butter on noodles before the sauce, 
butter on all the cooked veggies
and butter on warm cake
for a hungry child butter was a simple joy
dad likes his toast buttered corner to corner 
I’ve always had a memory like an elephant 
my mind is like a time traveling ghost
I have the ability to open any door in my past 
wandering all I want in each moment as if it was happening now
not long before my parents met
I was sent to bed without supper 
mom had a blue floral Avon lady’s suitcase 
with tiny little sample lipsticks and to my luck some leftover crackers to tide me over
why did parents put “bad” kids to bed without dinner?
I turn the page in my ghost travel memories and my dad is passed out in his vomit on the second floor of my aunts house 
before he found sobriety, 
it’s a testament to how far he’s come
we lived in my dad’s sister house 
at beginning of my parents life together 
a swimming pool in the backyard and skinny dipping with my sisters in the rain
I was so afraid of getting into trouble 
same house had a claw foot tub
mom bathed my great grandmother 
her breasts floated in the warm water 
like clouds 
great granny Sophie taught me that 
#1 was pee, #2 was poop and #3 was diarrhea 
what a thing to learn at three
her hands were knotted up with arthritis 
curled like a crows feet on a branch 
her accent thick as molasses 
she’d come over from the old country 
took a boat and left her whole world 
eventually married 
an Armenian tailor In Philadelphia 
not a very nice man as my uncle tells it
he died early with a bad heart 
granny moved to Erie
she left this world in 1976
scent is the safe deposit box of memories 
bacon grease in a tin can and I’m in my grandmas kitchen 
the one that adopted my mom from the orphanage 
a stern human but her pie crust made with lard was so tender and flaky 
and her garden as lush as Eden
I tell these little bits of my history because there is so much to say but mostly because I feel everything with the intensity of the sun memories burning my mind and heart
Others I here, don’t remember things 
or feel so deeply that they are paralyzed 
are they empty vessels that can float through life unbothered?
why am I the ghost traveler 
why are others midnight with no dreams?
my blood, my kin are plagued with generational trauma 
an oil slick of wounds we can not heal 
each one runs through my mind like a horror film with no end and I drown over and over 
still I search for a solution, resolution and peace 
the people are living in some fantasy world that everything is okay 
we could discuss this philosophically but we know how it ends. 
there’s an endless supply of memories but for today that is all.




Destiny L Smith 8/23
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Graffiti Gallery to open new location with solo show by OC artist

8/12/2023

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Oil City artist CJ Hurley will hold the inaugural show in the new Graffiti Gallery space at 228 Seneca Street. 

Hurley's show, titled "The Lyrical Landscape", will be a five-week, multi-faceted exhibition featuring recent paintings, a program on Romanticism in art history, an artist demonstration, and community outreach with programs for students. 

The opening reception for the show will be held from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday, Sept. 8. The exhibit will run through Saturday, Oct. 14. ​

The show will mark a new phase for the Graffiti Gallery, which was been in the basement area of the National Transit Annex Building for more than a decade. The Oil City Arts Council, which coordinates the not-for-profit art space, recently announced it was moving the gallery to street-level space down the block. 

The move will be complete when Hurley opens his show, which describes as a "fresh look at his lifelong influences" such as the art of Japan, the Post-Impressionists, Art Nouveau artists, and the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow.
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 “The new work has moved towards creating a greater sense of depth, with a greater understanding of recognizing the shapes found in nature.

​This is combined with the concentrated use of small details, rendered in ink, which, generally, dominate the foregrounds of the compositions," he said. "I revisited the teachings of Arthur Wesley Dow, and they hit me in a new way.

Revisiting Dow has altered my view of Japanese art, which has been my greatest influence over the decades, and I think the changes in my approach to image making (are) evident with this new series.

​The Lyrical Landscape is my ultimate vision of nature. It is a vision of our world where people are guests of a majestic and sacred place – not despoilers, exploiters and profiteers.” 
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"We are honored to have been awarded a NWPA Arts Recovery Grant from Erie Arts and Culture to fund the programs that accompany the exhibition," Hurley and his wife, Barbara Pierce, posted in their art newsletter.  ​

Hurley accepted into regional art organization​
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It has been a busy summer for Hurley, who was ​recently accepted into the Northwestern Pennsylvania Artists Association.

NPAA is a regional arts organization based in Erie. It was founded in 1974 to help professional artists promote the visual arts and to protect their artistic endeavors from being exploited by an uninformed public.

​The founders based the NPAA on the national organization, "Artist Equity," which required its members to be accepted to at least three national exhibits.

Now in its 49th year, the NPAA organizes several annual exhibits for its 130+ members.

The organization also donates college scholarship monies to local graduating high school seniors, and generally promotes the visual arts in the region.
 
Hurley's first exhibition with the group is at the Kada Gallery in Erie. The open reception was on Aug. 4 and the show runs through Sept. 2. 
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Harvey is a must see

8/1/2023

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The Barrow-Civic Theatre is a mad house these days with four productions on the burner and youth theater camp just ending. Cued up next for an audience is the Off-Barrow production of "Harvey," which opens Thursday in the Little Theatre.

The 1944 Pulitzer Prize winning play, written by Mary Chase, follows Elwood P. Dowd and his imaginary six-foot tall white rabbit as Dowd naively goes through life happy while others think he's a bit nuts.
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Dress rehearsal on Tuesday found cast and crew working out the finishing touches in order to be ready by 7:30 p.m for the already-sold-out opening night show Thursday.
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Dowd is played by Jim Nash of Titusville, a veteran of many recent Barrow plays. He is joined by Brooke Lawrie, Kent Cornmesser, Dawn Polito, John Herrick, Melana Vaugh, Andrew Ritsig, Joshua Devlin, Ashlynne Cornmesser, Cindy Heffern and Devin McIntire.

It is directed by Aaron Ritsig and produced by Nicholas Hess.

There will be five performances in four days. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and matinees both Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $20. To purchase tickets visit the box office of online here.
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Other shows coming to the Barrow
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Aug. 11, 12, 19 and  20
​
Red-Eye Theatre
Auditions - Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m
​Performance - Sept 2 at 7:30 p.m.
​
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