JAN FIGURSKI
Jan Figursky
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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.”
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EARTH DAY 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth
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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.
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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 |
