APRIL 3-14, 2024
THE ELEPHANT VANISHES: FULL CIRCLE
ARTIST RECEPTION: APRIL 12, 5-8pm;
Performance with Fumi Tomita has been CANCELLED
This series of works by Allen Fowler takes its name and was inspired by a September 2019 performance of Fumi Tomita's The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami.
From Allen Fowler: "In listening to Fumi discuss translating and interpreting the written word into music, I considered how I might translate his jazz pieces into visual art. Over the following months, I created 10 pieces corresponding to the 10 jazz compositions. All are non-representational, some on canvas, some assemblage, some a combination of the two."
To bring the creative work full circle, during the exhibition visitors will be invited to provide responses in one or two words to any piece that inspires them. Local poet, Jen Blackburn, will be using these as word banks to create short “found word” poems. The poems generated throughout the exhibition will hang in the gallery’s window and beside the pieces which inspired them.
During Arts Night Out, Fumi Tomita has assembled a quartet to play selections from his critically acclaimed album, The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami, including Jeff Holmes, piano; Felipe Salles, saxes; Thomas Giampietro, drums; Fumi Tomita, bass. Gallery visitors will also be encouraged to add their responses to the word banks as we hope to create a final set of “found word” poems.
Allen Fowler is an artist and writer living in Western Massachusetts. He has taught visual arts, literature, and composition at both the secondary and college levels. His art has been shown in juried exhibitions nationally and in a number of venues in and around Franklin County. His poetry has appeared in The Café Review and the Georgetown Review. His short plays have been performed at the Playwright’s Platform Summer Festival (Boston, MA) and the Fledgling Short Play Festival (Providence, RI). His play, Unspeakable (Not a Word), moved to the semifinalist round of Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries at the American Shakespeare Center. Currently, he works as a copy writer for a consulting firm working to improve behavioral health systems across the U.S.
Fumi Tomita is a jazz bassist, educator, and author. He was active in the New York jazz scene for over fifteen years performing throughout the tri-state area as a sideman and leader. Recent performance highlights include a performance at the Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans and a short tour of Georgia, both in January 2024. His latest book Early Jazz: A Concise Introduction from its roots through 1929 was released by State University of New York press in February 2024.
Jennifer Blackburn is the Program & Outreach coordinator for the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College, where she works to support and develop poetry initiatives across the college and in the wider community of Western MA. You can find her writing (as Jen Jabaily-Blackburn) in SIR, Arkansas International, Palette Poetry, Salamander, Fugue, Banshee, On the Seawall and Couplet Poetry, and her poems have twice been included in Best New Poets. Her first book of poems, Girl in a Bear Suit, the winner of the 2023 Elixir Press Annual Poetry Prize, is forthcoming in 2024.