March 02, 2019

Reading with Music for the closing reception of in which we all kiss something secretly (photo/light boxes by Maria Mercedes Martinez and poems by Denver Butson), read with Marco Cappelli on guitar and Mat Maneri on viola. It was their first time playing together, and my first time reading with both of them at the same time.

February 09, 2019

in which we all kiss something secretly is the third collaboration of these friends and artists over the past twenty years. Like the previous two projects, in which we all kiss something secretly marries the two artists’ work in somewhat random and indirect ways. Martinez’s photo boxes combine snapshots she takes on her way to work or walks through the city with handmade wooden boxes and a small LED lights to create glowing, quiet, meditative moments of singularity in our increasingly sense-scattered world. Almost like a peered-into viewmaster or a photo booth of times past, the photo boxes take these isolated moments and hold them still. Butson’s words, all taken from a series of poems using the repeated opening “in which,” accompany each photo box and add a discursive, dream-like narrative or context to what seems like random, unrelated images.