Words and Forms at Wisdom House
Passport, Litchfield County Times
Guests visiting the Wisdom House Retreat and Conference Center in Litchfield, Conn., ... are in for a treat, as two phenomenal woman will engage them with literature and art.
Nationally-acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose will teach guests how to "close-read" and artist Joy Brown will not only show the evolution of her work but will take part in a forum that is sure to fascinate guests.
In her program, Ms. Prose will include her New York Times bestselling nonfiction work "Reading Like a Writer, A Guide For People Who Love Books And For Those Who Want to Read Them." In the book, she describes how writers learn to write by reading, and how reading and great literature can help you learn to write.
"Word by word is how we learn to hear and then read, which seems only fitting because it is how the books we are reading were written in the first place," she writes in the first chapter.
The more you read, she explains in her book, the faster someone can see how the letters have been combined into words that have meaning.
"The more we read, the more we comprehend, the more likely we are to discover new ways to read, each one tailored to the reason why we are reading a particular book," she writes.
Ms. Prose explained that the upcoming program at Wisdom House is essentially about looking at a way of reading for writers--by reading word for word, slowly, and considering the technical aspects of a text like narration, dialogue, detail and gesture.
"We are going to just look at stories and go over them line by line, word by word. [We will] look at the choices the writers make how the writer gets his or her ideas on the page how fiction is written,: said Ms. Prose. For the class, Ms. Prose has chosen stories by John Cheever and Denis Johnson, who recently won a National Book Award, along with other writers.
The book "Reading Like a Writer ....," evolved out of giving lectures and talking to students about what they were reading and from years of teaching and being a writer. Ms. Prose has written 14 novels. She is currently working on her new novel called "Golden Grove." Ms. Prose is not only a teacher, but also a critic and essayist, and she has taught literature and writing for more than 20 years.
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Artist Joy Brown will be displaying the evolution of her work at the Marie Louise Trichet Gallery in an exhibition entitled "Life With Clay: 35 Years of Joy Brown." It will consist of her earliest works as a potter to her most recent figures and ceramic wall murals.
Ms. Brown will also take part in a forum with other artists in which she will engage in a conversation about the role of acceptance and rejection in her own life and how she has grown spiritually through experiencing both. The forum is entitled "Acceptance and Rejection Tending the Spirit" ..."
Ms. Brown was raised in Japan, she returned to the United States for college, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Eckerd College in Florida. After college, Ms. Brown returned to Japan and studied as an apprentice for four years with the family of Ichino Toshio, a 13th generation potter in Tamba.
In those four years, she learned how to become a potter by making a thousand cups without ever firing one. It taught her the technical skills of pottery and the experience of working with clay. After her apprenticeship was completed, she traveled around Japan and Korea, researching different forms of pottery and kilns.
"In Japan I was working in a potters village [that had] a continuous history of pottery for thousands of years and everyone had something to do with making the pots," said Ms. Brown. She returned to the United States and settled in New York State for five years before moving to Kent, Conn., where she built her own wood-fired kiln with a showroom and workspace.
A major part of her evolution included transforming over time the figures she developed while she resided in New York. Ms. Brown makes her iconic ceramic figures from red brick clay and uses a coil, pinch and paddle method.
"I start with the torso and coil out from the bottom part to make the legs inch by inch," said Ms. Brown. She will then slowly coil out the arms in what she described as a "slow meditative process." The hands, feet and face are made separately and added on. Ms. Brown credits the influences of pre-Colombian figures and Japanese tomb figures known as "Haniwa," and she has always loved the sculptor Henry Moore. Her other works include vessels, carved and bronze figures.
Ms. Brown opened the Art Within Gallery six years ago; it is predominantly an online gallery with a few shows at Ms. Brown's home. She also co-owns a nonprofit organization called Still Mountain Center that she started 10 years ago. The organization provides opportunities for cross-cultural appreciation, education collaboration.