There are no better words than those which are heard.
Maria Butunoi
Childhood memories, identity and games – Open Studios Exhibition, May 2014, Stroud Arts Festival
The exhibition for the Open Studios, Stroud Arts Festival, May 2014 is now open to the public in Stroud (http://www.sitefestival.org.uk) and it will be open the following two weekends in Rita Fenning’s studio. (http://ritafenning13.wix.com/ritafenning-web)
The address is: Fieldside, Brimscombe GL5 2SW, Stroud.
You will see a selection of installations, collages, artist books Rita has produced inspired by my poems ‘Birthday Present’, ‘Family Photograph, ‘Lesson of Admiration’, ‘Games’ and ‘The Warm Bones’.
You can watch a video I made and listen to me reading the poems, with a selection of photographs produced by John Stadnicki (http://www.johnstadnicki.co.uk/Site/Welcome.html) for my collection ‘A Short Story about War’.
Here is a preview with some of the exhibited art work and a fragment with my reading. The video contains photographs produced by the artist John Stadnicki.
Many thanks to the sound manager Marc Fairclough from South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and to the video editor, the artist Clare Bottomley. (http://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/149322)
Games The Warm Bones project-rita1
Poems: Maria Butunoi
Installations: Rita Fenning
The exhibition will be open during the Open Studios Festival, May 2014.
A new collaboration with the artist Rita Fenning, part of The Open Studios, Site Festival, Stroud, Gloucestershire, May 2014
The 18th edition of The Site Festival, Stroud Gloucestershire, starts on the 1st May 2014 and it will bring a dynamic programme of visual arts, performance, music, screening and open studios. The artist-led festival promotes collaborations and projects including a wide range of visual media, ceramics, textiles and poetry.
http://www.sitefestival.org.uk
My collaboration with the artist Rita Fenning for the Open Studios http://ritafenning13.wix.com/ritafenning-web explores the concepts of ‘memory’ and ‘identity’, in an attempt to define and compare childhood stories and games in two different cultures, British and Romanian during the Cold War.
Rita has produced a series of artist books and installations as well as a doll’s house which will be the centre of a new exhibition open to the public in her studio. The exhibition is part of The Open Studios Festival which will be launched on Friday, 9th May 2014.
Click to access OS%20Directory%202014%20for%20Web%20v2.pdf
The exhibition in Rita’s studio will be open to the public on 10th, 11th, 17th and 18th May 2014.
A preview with some of the included work and video clip, to follow shortly.
Persistent Ink (III)
I suddenly stopped and kneeled in the meadow
To look for grasshoppers;
The earth was breathing beneath us
The burning sun tall, so very tall.
You suddenly sat down and placed the violin between us.
Your left hand took the red shining cloth
And wiped the dirt off the wooden strings.
Then I thought to say
Let’s not hurry back home, not today
We have plenty of time yet
Nobody will look for us for a while.
How many poems, you whispered, left unwritten
If I was to lock you in my heart
A black butterfly crushed between
The covers of a sacred book.
Beauty kills like the war does
And still you unravel
The invisible thread which
Keeps both of us alive in the world.
As I stood up to leave
The smoke that kept my bones together for so long
Covered the sky.
My black ashes, your farewell gift.
Photo: Rob Webb
Persistent Ink (I)
I did not know
how much you wrapped yourself
around my heart until today when
sitting in the park I accidentally caught
you eating bread. You took each bite
eyes closed and gently stroked the crust
like you’d do on Sunday at church.
You did not smile, it was
the sun which briefly smiled at you.
I had been there in the cold for quite a while
but did not move or blink nor even breathe,
just waited.
You packed the crumbs away
and quickly vanished.
And then I sobbed.
Picture
I saw her in the mirror today
And she saw me.
We watched each other for a while.
The black reached forward.
The blue moved backwards.
I pushed my hands against the glass
She did the same.
I leaned towards left
She towards right.
I stopped. She stopped too.
Then laughed.
I had no teeth.
She had some.
I had rain water in my hair
She had no hair at all.
None at all, had she, NO…THING.
There’s been no rain in her world for a while now.
Just a persistent thirst.
She carefully opened her palm to
Catch the falling drops and look at them
But I rushed out
Gently pushing the image away.
My wet hands, her cracked lips.
The soft memory of growing old
Alone.
Print: Lorraine Robbins
The Fragility of a Glass Statue in Front of an Angry Hammer
Behind the screen, I was putting my clothes back on
Thinking what the verdict would be in the white room
(I had been silently waiting my turn
Enjoying somehow the inevitable loss).
But then you dropped the pen,
And looked at the clean x-ray.
I took a chair and moved it back in the middle of the room.
As I sat down, my fingers just briefly touched your face.
I vaguely remember the conversation we had
But I know we said good bye
As I looked back, you waved,
Your left hand folding a notebook.
Since that day, I had been looking the word tenderness up
Just to see if you were right:
The fragility of a glass statue in front of an angry hammer.
Change and Permanence / Pamphlet 15
The first pamphlet of our Stroud Writers Group is done, printed and ready to be launched, with the financial assistance of Stroud Arts Festival. The featured authors are Rick Vick, Adam Horovitz, Sian Breeze, Judy Newman, Tim Wilson, Paul Kelly, Maria Butunoi, Alex Breeze, Eley Furrell, Jessica Wynne, Diana Humphrey and Daryl Carpenter.
Cover image Fortunes of War, Paul Thornycroft.
Pamphlet 15is a collection of fresh poetry, short stories and flash fiction, ready to come your way. If you would like a copy, email me at mariabutunoi@yahoo.co.uk.
Maria Stadnicka 