Each December, the Escondido Municipal Art Gallery puts on a juried art exhibition entitled "Summation (year)".  Poets are invited to come in and view the art before the exhibition opens, select some art works, and write poems inspired by these works.  The poems are also juried.   (This is known as ekphrastic poetry for those who are into technical jargon).  Initially, the poems were available only in a few copies placed around the exhibit hall during the exhibition.   However, starting in 2008, the art works and poetry have been collected and published in an annual anthology entitled "Summation yyyy: The Merging of Art and Poetry".  The book is edited and designed by us.  The poetry is for the most part selected by the poetry juror, Robert O'Sullivan Schleith.   (Starting with the 2010 year, we have switched to a simple Roman Numeral naming scheme.)

The first of these efforts, entitled Summation 2008: The Merging of Art and Poetry, contains the works of 17 artists and 10 poets, and was a Finalist in the 2009 San Diego Book Awards.

The second, Summation 2009-10: The Merging of Art and Poetry, was released in March 2010 and has works by 33 artists and 20 poets.  It was named a Finalist in the 2010 San Diego Book Awards.

The third in the series, Summation III, was released in March of 2011, and contains 36 art works and 39 poems.  Like its predecessors, it is a Finalist in the San Diego Book Awards, for 2011.

The fourth in the series, Summation IV, will be launched on July 14, and bigger and better than ever, with 40 art works and 56 poems.

     The art was on display from December 6 through December 31, 2011.  
     The book is finally edited and off to the printer.  The publication party is scheduled for Saturday, July 14 at 4 pm in the Escondido Municipal Art Gallery, 362 E. Grand Ave. in Escondido.

Publication Party Time!

The Escondido Arts Partnership, who publishes the series, will sponsor a reception following the presentations and the public is welcome.

Dedicated to Escondido’s Robert O’Sullivan Schleith, poetry juror for the first three volumes, this fourth ekphrastic anthology features 56 poems mostly by member of Poets INC (Inland North County) but also includes visiting writers from as far as Woodland Hills, Pomona, Tehachapi, and Chula Vista.

With art juried by Balboa Park’s Charlotte Cagan, the full color SUMMATION IV displays 40 images of various media that range from Tim Cline’s and Victoria Johnson’s bronze to Jill Feltovich’s gourd and Janice Stephenson’s fabric sculptures.  Paintings span from the acrylics of Shant Beudjekien, Jaime Dreyfus, Vita Sorrentino, Carol Mansfield, and Nora Nouvet to oils by Marjorie Weaver, Linda Phillips, and Janice Gordon and watercolors by Sharon Feingold, Rachelle Farber, and Denise Hilton Campbell.

While this year’s anthology continues to feature photography by Louis Nidorf, Wayne Richard, Donna Consentino, and Shimon Gonen, it also displays fiber and woven hangings by Terrilyn, Jill Le Croissette, Skip Mueller, and Sylvia T. Clark and several calligraphic drawings of Risa Gettler.  Among the mixed media artists are Janet Perkins, Michael Duke, Kait Matthews, Gladys Jimenez, and Claire-Lise Matthey Anderegg.   

Subjects vary from flowers and canyons to abstracts, portraits, and collages.  Twenty-one of these details are also pictured.

Featured on its front cover is Chuck McPherson’s harbor scene, Cantos Cove, New England, while Isabel Camacho Diamond’s Hang in There, Lady dramatizes the back of the book.

Among the award-winning poetic participants are Oriana Ivy, Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld, R. T. Sedgwick, Teresa Gonzales-Lee, and Sandra Carpenter.

Also included are the Lake San Marcos contingency of Mary Lenore Quigley and Kathy and Casey Derengowski, and Oceanside’s El Corazon Creative Writers, Joni Gerstein and Joanne D’Amato. 

From Escondido, songwriter Kathy Keogh joins visual artists, Chrisanne Moats and Tanya Alexis Notkoff, pastor Diantha Zschoche, activist Linda Lou Oster, and dance teacher/film maker Gwen Henry in contributing to the collection.