Art

Art  EXHIBIT

Winners Announced for 2020 Focus on the Boro Photo Contest

JUDGES FOR THE 2020 Focus on the Boro community photography project have announced adult and youth winners in nine different categories.

Participating photographers submitted images in categories including people, landscape, still life, animals, fl ora, architecture, sports/action, abstract/ special effects and Murfreesboro. Focus on the Boro awarded separate honors in each category for youth (17 and younger) and adults.

Although the 2020 contest and art display was an online-only endeavor, the Focus on the Boro team says it aims to hold another exhibit at Murfreesboro City Hall in 2021.

For more information about the Focus on the Boro contest and exhibit and photography in Murfreesboro, email photographyconnectmboro@gmail.com.

MTSU Professors Art Show at City Hall Rotunda Celebrates Women’s Suffrage

MTSU ART PROFESSORS Erin Anfi nson, Kathleen O’Connell, Kimberly Dummons, Nicole Foran and Sisavanh Phouthavong will be featured at the Rotunda of Murfreesboro City Hall from July 28 through Sept. 10.

Aug. 18, 2020, marks the 100-year anniversary of the passage of a woman’s right to vote. The City of Murfreesboro is hosting these fi ve prominent female artists in celebration of the historic anniversary.

The Rotunda is open to the public from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday through Friday and is located at 111 W. Vine St., Murfreesboro.

The artists will be in the Rotunda from 6–8 p.m. during the Boro Art Crawl on Aug. 14 to greet the public and talk about their art on display.

For more information on this and other art exhibits at Murfreesboro City Hall, contact Deb Hunter at 615-801-2606 or dhunter@murfreesborotn.gov.

GALE STONER Best in Show “This Could Leave a Mark” (top left) MIKE BARBIERI Best in Show Runner-up “Orient on a Leather Strap” (middle row left) GLADYS TACKETT Community Choice Award—“Summer Colors” (middle row right)

 YOUTH WINNERS:

KEEGAN DIETZ Best in Show—“The Cat” (bottom left) BRADON DAVILA Best in Show Runner-up “Stand Your Ground” (bottom middle) ELLA NEWBERG Community Choice Award—“Dreaming by the Stream” (bottom right)

 “Vestiges (Silphium Laciniatum)” encaustic and paper on board by Erin Anfi nson “Harvest  Doorway” monotype collage by Kimberly Dummons

Art 

POETRY BY KORY WELLS

Poetry in the Boro, Calendar Project, Sketching and Poetry Learning Videos

Poetry in the Boro Virtual Open Mic On Sunday, July 12, Poetry in the Boro continues in a virtual format. Attendees are encouraged to connect at 6:45 p.m., with the show running from 7 p.m. about an hour. As usual, you can share a poem of your own or a favorite by another author. All styles of poetry and spoken word are welcome, with a four-minute time limit. Pre-registration is required for those wanting a turn at the mic. Check out Facebook or poetryintheboro.org for details, including this month’s word challenge. Submit Your Poem, Haiku or Photo for Local Calendar Poetry in the Boro has announced the group’s first annual Poetry Calendar. This 2021 wall calendar will feature poetry and photography by creatives with a connection to Rutherford County. Proceeds from the calendar will go to support Poetry in the Boro programming in 2021 and beyond.

Deadline for submissions is July 15. Contributing poets and photographers will be paid $45 per image or poem. Featured haiku writers will be paid $15 per haiku. Each contributor will also receive a complimentary copy of the calendar.

The calendar will be released in late fall 2020. Find submission details and more

information at poetryintheboro.org.

View These Videos Anytime Poetry in the Boro and Poetry in the Brew, a Nashville reading series and open mic, recently co-sponsored a Black Voices Matter event on Facebook Live. Hosted by local poet and comic Nick Bush, the event featured Middle Tennessee poets and spoken word artists including Destiny Birdsong, Tiana Clark, Christian Collier, Jasmine Dominique, Henry L. Jones, Shondell McFall, Ciona Rouse and more. Find the video on Poetry in the Brew’s Facebook page.

The Murfreesboro Cultural Arts Laureates have been busy in the studio recording a new series called “Learning with the Laureates.” As of this writing, poet laureate Amie Whittemore has recorded two segments, one about metaphor and one about persona poems. Painter laureate Dawna Magliacano shares drawing ideas in two segments, “Sketchbook” and “More Sketchbook Fun.” Watch these videos and then get to your own creativity on a hot summer day!

Reading, Storytelling and More Inspired by the women’s suffrage centennial this August, Bloom: The Stage Where Our Stories Grow will focus on Tennessee’s War of the Roses and other stories of “women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights and doubling down for democracy” for its next quarterly show. Check producer Kara J. Kemp’s Facebook page, or Poetry in the Boro, for a call for submissions later in July.

Other local groups, including the Rutherford Arts Alliance and the local League of Women Voters, are celebrating the 19th amendment centennial by inviting the community to read The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss. Be watching online for event details.

Almost Midnight

BY DEBORAH A. MIRANDA

Courtesy of Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database at splitthisrock.org

Wife and dogs have gone to bed. I sit here with the front door open.

Crickets sing patiently, a long lullaby in lazy harmony. Rain falls

on our tin roof; sharp taps of reality, start and stop. I breathe myself back

into my body. Come back, self. You’ve been out fighting demons and bullies

and liars. You’ve been talking to an electronic box with no ears.

You’ve been cheering for a democracy that doesn’t exist. We’re all walking on bones.

Some of us are walking on more bones than others. Breathe. Back into the body,

little one. The human world is broken, but so beautifully. Corruption of the soul

never shows scars; when you don’t resist, no wounds exist. Breathe, breathe it back.

In this world, we live in bodies of flesh. In this world our souls tether them selves

with blood. This is a good thing. Otherwise we might take wing into darkness,

never touch our Mother, twist language into silvery shapes. Breathe now. Let

the crickets tell you their truth. Let it be yours, for now.

Listener Supported Public Radio

DA 5 BLOODS

DIRECTOR Spike Lee STARRING Delroy Lindo, Clarke Pe

ters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr.

RATED R

Iconic director Spike Lee’s latest fi lm since 2018’s excellent, Best Picture-nominated BlacKkKlansman swims in the similar waters of a thrilling story set in the context of historical racial injustice, something that has been Lee’s bread and butter since the classic Do the Right Thing, and arguably something that no one else does better (time will tell if Jordan Peele carries this torch).

Da 5 Bloods is a modern retelling of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre set in Vietnam as four old vets return to the country to retrieve a case of gold bars they buried some 50 years ago. Like his previous fi lm, Lee peppers the story with clips of stock footage of the time, opening with Muhammad Ali speaking on his refusal to go kill foreign strangers, and ranging from the ’69 Apollo 11 launch to Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their black-gloved fi sts at the ’68 Olympics. The effect is striking.

Paul, Otis, Eddie and Melvin (played by the actors listed above, respectively) are then shown dancing through a club, drinks in hand, awash in the neon red lights while Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” plays, putting Lee’s mesmerizing mise-en-scène and masterful use of music on full display.

The four old friends commiserate over drinks, fondly remembering the fi fth member of their group, their leader, and the only one not to make it out of ’Nam alive: Stormin’ Norman (played with proper charisma by Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman). On the pretense of recovering his body for a proper burial, the four bloods set out on Norman’s original plan of retrieving the gold to give back to their communities back home.

The fl ashbacks are told through the bombastic lens of an ’80s action fi lm, recalling Rambo III or Missing in Action VHS cartridges viewed on an old cathoderay tube television, complete with 4:3 aspect ratio. Rather than pull a Scorsese in The Irishman, Lee lets his elderly actors play their younger selves free of any CGI de-aging distraction device, giving these scenes the feeling of a surreal memory.

The specter of Norman haunts Delroy Lindo’s Paul the most. Paul is a tortured man, and Lindo’s powerful portrayal of him is ferocious and empathetic. Lee has a knack for creating exciting and thrilling action/ adventure tales that tackle issues on both a micro and macro scale.

Da 5 Bloods addresses everything from fatherhood, greed and distrust, to racial injustice and the lasting physical and cultural effects of war, and a lot of the thematic heavy lifting falls on Lindo’s shoulders. While that may sound too heavy for some, Lee’s greatest talent is contextualizing these deep themes in an entertaining and thrilling (if only a hair too long) adventure. Da 5 Bloods is available on Netfl ix. — JAY SPIGHT