EMBASSY CULTURAL HOUSE
  • Home
    • ECH News
  • Community
  • Exhibitions
  • Projects
  • Background
    • Past Programming >
      • Exhibitions 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Curators
        • Index of Photographers
        • Index of Visual Artists
      • Film 1983-1990
      • Music 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Musicians
      • Performances 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Performers
    • Embassy Hotel History
  • About

JAN FIGURSKI

Picture
Jan Figursky
Jan Figurski is a poet, musician and papermaker working in London, Ontario. He participated in the Embassy Cultural House's poetry program, and this poem is one he would have read at the ECH. As a papermaker, Jan grows his own botanicals, or harvests them locally, and in combination with recycled paper from old books, he makes paper. “I love paper. Combining botanicals with recycled paper allows me to make uniquely beautiful paper, each with its distinct colour tones and textures. And doing one thing always leads to doing another …..  a process of learning and growing. I am learning now to make a variety of art and craft objects with the paper.” 
Picture

​EARTH DAY 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

Picture
Summer Solstice Vigil
 
by three in the morning
on the second storey roof
everything is coincident
a point of departure
moments relive themselves
shifting into new shapes
like dancers unwinding in the mind
this solstice morning
the tumid ground breathes
giving the day’s heat up
trees sigh, silhouetted
black branches swaying
and to eyes, unaccustomed
to such dim light
any definition
slowly softens, blurs
becomes dark shapes cast
into moonlit grey
and night becomes hands
carving supple rhythms
out of dark green wood
dancing until daylight
sucks the breath away
coaxing songs
out of hungry birds

© Jan Figurski 
The accompanying pictures are of paper flower sculptures. The anthurium flower is made from the seed pods of a redbud tree, a Carolinian tree species, and the “fantasy” flower is made from bulrushes. The stems, leaves, pistils, stamens and base of both flowers are made from a variety of sources including milkweed pods, lavender plants, bamboo leaves, tissue paper, and even dryer lint, all hand-painted by the artist.  ​

Picture
Images From Huron And The Bruce
         
hawk gliding on a hot gusty day
a span of silence imposed by the eyes’ hunger
the shadow of grace and guillotine poise
 
trees under gathering clouds
storm immanence in leaf-tips
fluttering silver-green omens
 
island, the texture of elephant skin
windworn, wearing its last disguise
alone before the horizon
 
paper moon hovering at the lake’s edge
an orange smudge behind cloud wisps
tiger’s eye blinking at the liquid horizon
 
the sure feeling of spring uncoiling
april hills smothered under grey blanket sky
there is thunder in the caves
 
© Jan figurski


EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS 
 
Jamelie Hassan 
& Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning 

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & 
Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA 
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi,  JoAnna Weil 

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, 
Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, ​Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson. 

Picture
OUR STORY
Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website. 

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.
Picture
Picture
Picture

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Thank you to our partners

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

E M B A S S Y  C U L T U R A L  H O U S E . C A

​London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.

Copyright © 2022  Embassy Cultural House.
All rights reserved.
Proudly powered by Weebly

  • Home
    • ECH News
  • Community
  • Exhibitions
  • Projects
  • Background
    • Past Programming >
      • Exhibitions 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Curators
        • Index of Photographers
        • Index of Visual Artists
      • Film 1983-1990
      • Music 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Musicians
      • Performances 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Performers
    • Embassy Hotel History
  • About