Healing Fractures
A Mid-Valley Poetry Society Poetry in Performance Event
2-4 p.m., Sunday, April 25, via Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85235663282?pwd=NERyWU45M0t1RGFMWDVnVUhuWmMxdz09
Featuring
Painter & Writer Cynthia Herron & Singer-Songwriter Kristen Grainger
Free ● Open Mic between Sets by Featured Presenters
This Poetry in Performance event will be a program of art, music, and poetry for “Healing Fractures.” Painter and writer Cynthia Herron will present her art, and Singer-songwriter Kristen Grainger will perform with Dan Wetzel, her partner in the True North duo.
Enter the link above into your browser to attend the free Zoom event. Meanwhile, you are invited to write poems in response to a visual work, “Low Field with Mended Oak Leaf,” by Cynthia Herron and/or a song, “The Ghost of Abuelito,” by Kristen Grainger—and then to perform the poems during the open mic segment of the April 25th program.
Grainger’s “The Ghost of Abuelito,” in a performance with the True North band, can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awdcRGNcOzA,and a purely audio version can be heard at https://youtu.be/3HACGF-UY00. (Abuelito is Spanish for grandpa or granddad—an affectionate variant of abuelo/grandfather.)
Cynthia Herron’s paintings reflect an interest in nature and the outdoors that began at the age of six when she experienced thunderstorms from her Ohio backyard. She has painted landscapes in Alaska, New Mexico, Arizona, eastern Canada, and Oregon, often hiking for long stretches to take in nature’s wild places. She wanders forest, field, and coast, sketching with watercolor crayons and ink. Later in the studio, she refers to color sketches made in the field. She works with oil and cold wax on wood panels, building layers of color and texture, alternately drawing with thick paint sticks and thin grease pencils, sometimes scraping away, sometimes building up the paint. Her abstract images bring the wildness, color, and poetry of nature to viewers.
Cynthia lived in the southwest for 25 years, then moved to Oregon in 2004. She received her BFA in painting from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, a Teaching Certification in 1994 from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and her MFA in painting from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2003. Since 1995 she has taught painting and drawing at the university level and currently teaches foundation classes at Chemeketa Community College. Her paintings and collages have won awards in regional juried shows and can be seen at Freed Gallery in Lincoln City and Fog Forest Gallery in New Brunswick, Canada.
Singer-songwriters Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel have been performing music together for live audiences for more than a decade.
A songwriter whose star is rising, Kristen was named, alongside Brandi Carlile and Dolly Parton, one of the Women Who Wrote Our 2020 Soundtrack by The Bluegrass Situation. She won the 2020 USA Songwriting Competition (folk) and the 2019 Local Roots Music NW songwriting contest. She has won or been a finalist in some of the nation’s most prestigious festival songwriting contests, including Telluride Bluegrass Festival (CO), Wildflower Festival (TX), Merlefest (NC), and Kerrville Folk Festival (TX).
An accomplished singer-songwriter who toured nationally as a solo artist, Dan is also a luthier, handcrafting musical instruments, including most of the ones he and Kristen perform with, which look and sound beautiful. His superb skills, particularly on guitar, both flatpick and finger style, give True North’s songs their driving groove.
The duo co-founded bluegrass-infused folk quartet Kristen Grainger & True North. Their 2020 release, Ghost Tattoo, was named one of the Top 20 Albums of 2020 by Folk Alley’s Listeners Choice, hitting #1 on folk radio charts for both albums and singles. According to Folk Alliance International, Ghost Tattoo was the second most-aired album on folk radio in 2020. With deep roots in Oregon and Washington, they tour nationally and internationally — when not curtailed by a global pandemic. Learn more at www.truenorthband.com.
Before deciding to play music full time, Dan was a professional builder of custom homes. For many years, Kristen was a vice president at Willamette University and also worked in strategic communications for three Oregon statewide-elected officials, most recently, Governor Kate Brown.