21 March marks World Poetry Day & International Color Day
The Shaker Sisters at Harvard MA recorded coloring (they wrote collouring) in their Journal. Coloring meant dyeing. Dyeing is making color. Dyeing is possibility.
This poem uses text from their Journal and will be part of an upcoming exhibition, ‘anything but drab’ at Fruitlands opening in May.
we collour
we color scarlet on stormy days
we color indigo when we are indefatigable
we color butternut roses blooming abundantly
we color prusy blue pick some pease
we color logwood smelling lilacs
we color fancy blue to match azure skies
we color slate silk with sicily sumac to match slanted rain
somewhere between today & tomorrow on that illusive Leap Day Mother Ann Lee was born 29 February 1736 — 8 September 1784
Mother Ann Lee embodied cosmic feminist karma bringing a new religion into the world founded on principles so radical that they endured persecutions
One could say her broadsheet was verbal; she being illiterate to written words yet literate in all realms cosmic . The written Testimonies of her contemporary believers and works of the later visionists- scribes themselves of hearts and leaves and maps and flowers and trees-- scripted scrolls brought down from spirits’ energies spoke to her cosmic energy.
[excerpt from meetinghouse, Brece Honeycutt and Miriam Cantor-Stone]
[image, detail An Emblem of the Heavenly Sphere by Polly Collins, 1854]
[image, detail, From Holy Mother Wisdom…To Eldress Dana or Mother by Miranda Barber, 1848]
I SAY: Women Artists and the Words They Use February 7 - March 7, 2025, The Hotchkiss School
Fern Apfel, Lesley Dill, Louise Eastman and the Victory Garden Collective, Madge Evers, Guerillia Girls, Jenny Holzer, Brece Honeycutt, Corita Kent, Melanie Mowinski, Leslie Roberts, Linda Stein, Tiny Pricks Project and historical objects. Curated by Joan Baldwin, Curator of Special Collections.
justest war, charcoal, graphite, tea, earth, pastel watercolor on paper, 50″ x 40″
“The worst peace is better than the justest war…….”
reds of cochineal and crimson yellows of bark gold brown yellow green greens invisible olive pea and myrtle blues Prussian deep royal slate drabs red sandy silver sage salmon and dove purples crimson deep marron logwood lavender browns fast damson fawn olive and claret greys bark liver dark smoke batwings and doves
sending new year’s rainbows joy and radiance for 2025 and thanks for your presence here
[studio doodle | work in progress for 2025 project dye book from Harvard Shaker community]
