Camarillo, Calif., April 20, 2015—A 9-foot by 4-foot lighted ox, antique animal photos and hundreds of children’s poems are at the heart of an art and poetry installation shepherded by CSU Channel Islands School of Education Lecturer and Ventura County Poet Laureate Mary Kay Rummel.
The public will have two more opportunities to see “Bards and Beasts” in the multi-purpose room at Walnut Canyon Elementary School at 280 Casey Road in Moorpark.
Walnut School will welcome guests from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, April 24 and 3 to 5 p.m. Monday, April 27.
Rummel launched the idea for a multi-faceted art/poetry installment with the Ventura County Arts Council as a way to get different generations from different parts of the county working together to create art and poetry.
“My objective as poet laureate is to connect different parts of the county and get everyone talking about poetry,” Rummel said.
Rummel and Sandra Hunter, a Moorpark College professor, novelist and poet, worked together to round up the animal exhibit.
Rummel had worked with Santa Paula artist John Nichols before, so she integrated Nichols’ collection of amateur black and white snapshots of animals or people with animals, some of the photos dating back more than 100 years.
Then, Hunter contacted a colleague, Moorpark College art professor Cynthia Minet, who agreed to display an ox from her show called “Packing Caravan,” a collection of what she calls “unsustainable creatures.”
Her “creatures” are made from discarded plastics and lit with LED lights. Her art has been shown internationally with “Packing Caravan” recently on display at the Los Angeles International Airport.
“Sandra Hunter is a friend of mine and told me she’d be working with the kids and I thought that being part of being part of something kids can respond creatively to would be a nice opportunity,” Minet said. “I like the idea of bringing art to kids and giving them the idea of repurposing plastics.”
Rummel and Hunter then contacted CI alumnus Theresa Garner, principal of Walnut Canyon, a magnet school for technology and performing arts.
With Garner’s cooperation, the almost 500 students at Walnut Elementary created poems around at least one animal in the black and white snapshots.
“A lot of our kids here at Walnut Canyon have a natural affinity toward the arts,” Garner said. “The teachers brought their classes in and each student found one piece that moved them. We’ve got free verse, traditional verse. It varies from class to class, grade level to grade level.”
An excerpt from one poem entitled “Bears” read, in part:
“The sight of them may scare you gone,
Out of forests and to your lawn.
Yet their nature is a bit discreet,
They’re actually pretty neat.”
Moorpark College students also got involved, helping the students write and display their poetry.
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