Tag: erika bell

Pysanka, Hampstead, and the New Hunt for Egg Art

Erika Bell Leave a comment

As a kid, some of my most vivid memories were Easter time when I was given the opportunity to hijack the cartons of eggs in the refrigerator, and create dozens of pretty pastel or neon colored treasures. The worst part was waiting for them to boil and harden, yet when they were ready for my eager hands, I jumped at the opportunity to get my markers, dyes, and glue stick out, so I could use my imagination in creating some of the most original Easter eggs ever.

For some this tradition is unchanging. Kids continue to enjoy the artistic freedom of recreating meal-worthy eggs to original artwork, and many adults still hold on to this time as an opportunity to showcase the possibilities that can come with the spherical blank canvas.

Pysanka (you may have encountered some of these Ukrainian beauties recently) are Ukraine Easter eggs made with wax resist and dye. These eggs mirror some of the traditional Ukrainian folk designs and can bear any design imaginable. The ancient Ukrainian’s viewed eggs as sources of life, and as the time progressed the ideology remained intact, and many Ukrainian families practice the tradition of Pysanka each Easter. These marvels open up the endless possibilities with egg designs, and are open for those willing to learn.

Traditonal Ukrainian Pysanka Eggs

Within the Hampstead School of Art in London, England, the egg hunt is for a different purpose. Sarah John, operations director of the school, created her giant Easter egg in hopes of reviving the fun of the Hampstead neighborhood, and the fun that art can be. The Egg stands at 3ft, and seems to have brought some light into the districts troubles. For more info check out the Hampstead Egg.

Artist Sarah John who made the giant egg for the Hampstead Easter egg hunt. Picture: Nigel Sutton

Artist Sarah John: Nigel Sutton

The new hunt for egg art has quietly taken over and brought a dynamic take to the tradition of egg decoration. Given the beauty of the new movement within egg art, from the detailed colors and designs, to the overall grandiosity, I judge the the majority of egg recreation will stray from a mushed up marker, color dye, and a glue stick, to some of the endless options developed in kid’s imaginations.

Rainy Days:From Photos to Life

Erika Bell 1 Comment

Life in Michigan involves various climate changes. It maybe sunny one day and drizzling the next, yet there is always a part of me that enjoys the beauty of the rainy days that come upon us. Mostly from the comfort of my room, I find looking out as the rain pours, the clouds fill the sky, and the darkness takes over the day, a natural beauty has taken over.

I came across photographs of Christophe Jacrot’s work, of rainy days in Paris (can you imagine that being such a bad day?), Tokyo, and Hong-Kong, and couldn’t help but feel connected to the intrigue of nature as a factor of art. The images showcased such perspective of how different rainy days in different countries created different moods and tones for its inhabitants. One photo, Alcootest, showcases a contorted view of a building as a woman walking on a late rainy-day passes it, and another, Huile 5, captures a neon-ed shot of a Hong-Kong city, as the rain softens and lengthens it’s structure.

70x105 ed.8 / 90x135 ed.6

Jacrot/Alcootest.

Jacrot’s photographs give such meaning to the complex time that comes from the rainy season. The power of his images being focused solely on seasonal changes in humanity creates a definitive feeling about how interaction with nature is such an intrinsic emotional connection that comes with a new seasonal change.

80x120 cm ed. 16 / 90x135 cm ed. 12

Jacrot/Huile 5.

If anything,  the rainy days to come, or the most likely snowy days, are opportunities for inspirational and artistic outlets. From seeing the misty silence that captures a town after a long rainfall, to the unified feeling you get from walking next to people who all feel dominated by the pelts of the cold day, there’s something to be inspired by from the nature and world around us.

Check out some of Christophe Jacrot’s Work Here!

Nikky Finney: Living in the Folds of Poetry

Erika Bell Leave a comment

Sitting down for my first poetry reading, I was overcome with nerves. Shifting in my seat, switching my legs back and forth, I began to realize that I wasn’t completely sure of what kind of audience member I was supposed to be at a poetry reading. At basketball games, I’m the obnoxious, overtly analytic member, and at plays I become the characters, I’m lost in the story, I sincerely don’t know who I am. So going into my first live poetry reading at the UMMA of Nikky Finney’s work, I was a little apprehensive of how I was going to react. What if she would look out into the audience and see my face mixed with unexpected, unrecognizable emotion, and I could ruin everything for her!

Luckily, what occurs in my mind is an overdramatized, yet very entertaining conglomeration of thoughts. As Finney was given an introduction gratifying her creative, opinionated, and humbled personality, I began to warm up to the reading. This was a real person who just happened to have written some incredible award-winning works, no big deal. Nonetheless, Finney began her readings, conversationally opening up about her moments of intrigue, and feelings of repression and progression, that brought her to relinquish her thoughts into words.

Most of her writing was so experiential. An interaction with a woman looking her in the eye telling her that “she writes like she’s never been hit before”, an affectionate love for her Uncle Freddie’s astrological beliefs, the connection to the mother and baby penguins after a viewing of March of the Penguins at the cinema, all became experiences transformed into poems about two women understanding each other’s journeys, developing an appreciation for the sheer luck of life, being the nurture that feeds nutrients to someone you care for.

By this point I was floating from my chair, no longer was I flipping rigidly from side-to-side, I was hanging on to every word Finney was saying hoping to absorb who she is as a writer and a poet, so I could revitalize who I was in return.

The poems read by Nikky Finney were complex, historical in their own right, and thought-provoking. I recommend picking up one of her collections this upcoming break and really look to take in the feelings brought on by each one, you might even float away like I did.

Smile Baby

Erika Bell Leave a comment

Gurgling in my stomach

making its way up through my chest

until its clenched in the back of my throat,

wanting a new location knowing there’s only one way out.

Starting off as a cackle it grows depth

it grows deep

it becomes as loud as the bell

interrupting much-needed sleep,

it has rhythm, soul, grit.

It escapes with a vengeance

searching for its heartless victim,

yet it will come out long, hard, strong, peaceful.

It pulsates, strengthens from the inner glow

lined with dreams and hope within the core of my body

connected like an invisible string.

It will flourish, when I flourish

Let’s be honest,

sometimes it takes every inch of every bone

in my carelessly contorted body to hear it again.

It tries.

Starting from the back of my throat,

a meek squeak escapes,

sucked clean of all soul,

a dry towel looking to quench another’s

dying desire for it’s presence.

My mouth brick ups, I tell myself

“just smile baby.”

Hip-Hop Dug Up

Erika Bell Leave a comment

In the grand plant of hip-hop lies so many stems that lead to the root of its existence. Take into consideration the art, the poetry, the dance, the culture, the beats, the lifestyle. We hear lines from over-played rappers on the radio testifying the same word of wisdom, sometimes words of irrelevance, but what really originated these rappers are their predecessors. From Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Nas, Run DMC, Public Enemy, Warren G, Wu-Tang Clan, Common,  Melle Mel, Salt n Pepa, to so many more my brain could explode. All of these people have left seeds into the art of what we call hip-hop, and are waiting to see the flower flourish.

Many misconceptions come with the understanding of what hip-hop music is, it having no substance being one of the biggest misconceptions, and I would whole-heartedly have to disagree with that. I know of only what I listen to and watch when it comes to the hip-hop world, and what really cements this music into the hearts of so many people I believe is its culture. From Jazz to Blues, hip-hop grew from the lyric-less tunes of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. The soul  and vision that was made from such a simplistic music genre gave many lyricists the drive to paint the picture through words for audiences. Hip-hop reminds me of some of the most powerful and complex poetry that could have ever been spoken aloud. When you hear Kanye West begin a rhyme about college drop-outs and ending it with odes to sunny days and good mornings, it’s understandable that confusion is one of the first feelings you’ve felt. Just like poetry hip-hop music serves a purpose, to illustrate what the writer feels needs to be illustrated however befuddled it may seem.

Hip-hop music rides a beat that poetry has a difficulty in creating. Beat-makers, break-dancers, dj’ers all showcase the flow that hip-hop brings. The intricacy of one note, the power of one sound, the softness of a song’s ending, all are a part of creating some of the greatest art-forms of all time.

What keeps hip-hop growing is its fan-base. Its much-deserved appreciation is because of its reality and understanding that people experience when listening or dancing to it. The lines of hip-hop connect people to a centralized feeling of understanding, translated through that head-nod, or that hand-move, hip-hop has grown within us.

Let’s Talk About Poetry

Erika Bell Leave a comment

I’m taking a creative writing class that is focusing on the creative side of poetry, and it got me thinking about the vastness of poetry, and what it gives us as readers. Now, I’ve been a poetry reader for a good chunk of my life, but I wouldn’t say I understood everything I read. I then took a class a year ago where our focus was analyzing poetry and prose for it’s deeper meaning, what was this writing trying to say and why? Going from an analytic mind in regards to poetry to a creative one is kind of scary. The world of creative writing is a large one, and it can entail some of the weirdest facets of a person’s mind and soul, as well as some of the greatest.

Sometimes it seems that the best poets are those who have come before us, from the 18th-20th century, and let’s not forget Shakespeare. Never forget Shakespeare. Poetry from the past has become so relevant to the present it’s scary. Poems about anger, joy, love, heartache, washing dishes, just about any topic of life and death has been covered somewhere in the realm of poetry.

Poetry from the past has lined up a set of expectations for poets in the 21st century to reach and overcome. It has to be creative, witty, meaningful, and somehow inconspicuous so you don’t know exactly what they’re saying, but then again you do.

I read poetry because it reminds me of the romantic connection that I have with writing. It sounds silly, but when I read poetry, I feel like I’m reading a personal piece of something in someone’s mind, and some deeper connection about life and its many ups and downs is brought to light. With it there’s a rhythm, a power, that a novel can’t always get at, and a song can’t always thoroughly explain. Find a favorite poet or a favorite piece and thrive on the energy that either brings to you.

To delve into the repertoire of poets then and now would be to wide a margin to cover, but I do encourage the practice of reading poetry for the sole reason that it allows its readers to take a quick and, I’m not going to lie, effort-filled journey, through a story they’ve had yet to experience. Collections of poetry are like personal notes addressed to you that open up the crooks of someone’s imagination just for you to enjoy.

Here are some poems from a couple of my favorite poets:

Homage to my Hips by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top

Dover Beach  by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.


Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.


The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.