Sono Kuwayama & Bob Holman
Untitled 8 (sun opens its eye ...)
Sun opens its eye
Day radiates elongates
This is all I know
Plaster, plant and mineral pigments, hand-spun plant-dyed wool, calendula, encaustic beeswax, and watercolor, 75 × 75 inches (2024), with a haiku by Bob Holman. This work is part of a series exploring the relationship and dialogue between poetry and the visual, created while walking in the footsteps of Matsuo Bashō in Japan.
Sono Kuwayama lives and works in New York City. Her works include installation, painting, sculpture, video and writing. For Kuwayama, an intimate connection to her materials is essential: “nearly everything she creates is sourced by hand. She forages berries and crushes charcoal to add pigment to milk compound paints while spinning her own yarn and going so far as to identify the sheep that it came from.” (Rebecca Kim, Hypebeast, 2020).
Bob Holman is a New York–based poet, educator, and arts advocate whose work spans poetry, performance, and media. He began his career at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, directing Poets Theater productions and later serving as coordinator. A founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café slam scene and the Bowery Poetry Club, Holman has produced award-winning television (The United States of Poetry, Words in Your Face), founded the spoken-word record label Mouth Almighty, and co-founded the Endangered Language Alliance. His books include Tear to Open (1979), Sing This One Back to Me (2013), Life Poem (2019), and The Unspoken (2019).