Organization For Inspiration Featured Artists
Holly Haebig
Holly Haebig is a Milwaukee based musician who is involved in a
rich variety of musical projects. She celebrates spirit, earth, and community through her musical and dance collaborations with One Drum, The Kirtan with Ragani, Beautiful, Devanation, and De La Buena. Holly may also be seen frequently in a solo act, or teaming up with fellow Milwaukee musicians such as Harvey Taylor or Celia, to name a few. Learn more about her musical adventures by visiting
http://www.onedrum.net
http://www.devanation.com
She is also a practicing Massage and Occupational Therapist locally and at Orlanu Therapies. Check out
http://www.orlanutherapies.com/ to learn more.
rich variety of musical projects. She celebrates spirit, earth, and community through her musical and dance collaborations with One Drum, The Kirtan with Ragani, Beautiful, Devanation, and De La Buena. Holly may also be seen frequently in a solo act, or teaming up with fellow Milwaukee musicians such as Harvey Taylor or Celia, to name a few. Learn more about her musical adventures by visiting
http://www.onedrum.net
http://www.devanation.com
She is also a practicing Massage and Occupational Therapist locally and at Orlanu Therapies. Check out
http://www.orlanutherapies.com/ to learn more.
Suzanne Rosenblatt
Suzanne Rosenblatt writes travel journals, performs with the Earth Poets and Musicians, draws wordrawings along Lake Michigan and moving dancers during performances, paints sunrises on the beach, does tai chi and yoga, bikes, gardens organically, and is an environmental and political activist. Her books include Everyone Is Going Somewhere (MacMillan), Memorandance (Marcel Dekker), and Shorelines (Gallery of Wisconsin Art), and illustrations in her daughter Sarah's books, On the Waterbed They Sank to Their Own Levels and One Season Behind (Carnegie Mellon University Press). Web site: http://www.rosenblattgallery.com Blog: http://www.shorewoodnow.com/blogs/communityblogs/between_yesterday_and_tomorrow.html
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I play life by ear, pick paths with unknown destinations, try to be open to whatever comes along. That's why I somehow went from visual artist to writer to performer, never giving anything up, just combining. I write in my drawings and paintings, sing and dance (sort of) in my poetry performances, collaborate with musicians, and intertwine media whenever possible.
In any art, it's the element of surprise that helps make the work come alive, the spontaneous brush stroke or pen stroke that becomes more than merely a mark. When I draw dancers in the dark, my mind has a hazy image of what I want, but I don't quite know how it gets onto the paper. I know it has to do with getting into the flow, know that if I stared at the paper, tried to get an exact likeness, became picky, perfectionist, or self-conscious, I might as well tear out the drawing and toss it into the recycle bin.
I'm fascinated by motion, whether in dancers or in floating clouds or rolling waves or in the beat of words in poems. And I'm fascinated by light, shadows, reflections, by forms and how they combine, by humans and their relationship to each other and to their surroundings.
In my paintings, drawings, wordrawings, poems, and blogs, I try to make people see whatever is happening around them a little differently, and I try to make them more aware of the world and of their impact on it.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I play life by ear, pick paths with unknown destinations, try to be open to whatever comes along. That's why I somehow went from visual artist to writer to performer, never giving anything up, just combining. I write in my drawings and paintings, sing and dance (sort of) in my poetry performances, collaborate with musicians, and intertwine media whenever possible.
In any art, it's the element of surprise that helps make the work come alive, the spontaneous brush stroke or pen stroke that becomes more than merely a mark. When I draw dancers in the dark, my mind has a hazy image of what I want, but I don't quite know how it gets onto the paper. I know it has to do with getting into the flow, know that if I stared at the paper, tried to get an exact likeness, became picky, perfectionist, or self-conscious, I might as well tear out the drawing and toss it into the recycle bin.
I'm fascinated by motion, whether in dancers or in floating clouds or rolling waves or in the beat of words in poems. And I'm fascinated by light, shadows, reflections, by forms and how they combine, by humans and their relationship to each other and to their surroundings.
In my paintings, drawings, wordrawings, poems, and blogs, I try to make people see whatever is happening around them a little differently, and I try to make them more aware of the world and of their impact on it.
Jeff Poniewaz
Jeff Poniewaz received a B.A. and M.A. in English from UW-Milwaukee,
where since 1989 he has taught "Literature of Ecological Vision," a course
he devised. His eco-activism spans from local urban greenspace struggles
to the global rainforest catastrophe. His poems have appeared in Earth First!,
Greenpeace Chronicles, Los Angeles Times, Blake Times, Exquisite Corpse, Viet Nam Generation, New York Quarterly and numerous other periodicals. His collection of eco-poems spanning 1975-82, Dolphin Leaping in the Milky Way (Inland Ocean Books, 1986) was praised by Allen Ginsberg for its "impassioned prescient ecological Whitmanesque/Thoreauvian verve and wit." Another collection of subsequent eco material is forthcoming, as well
as a volume of selected poems on miscellaneous subjects spanning from 1965 to the present. He has compiled a many-poet anthology of eco-poems titled On What Planet--Poems in Praise and Defense of the Earth, which awaits a receptive publisher. He is included in the chapter on eco-poetry
in Simple in Means, Rich in Ends—Practicing Deep Ecology, Bill Devall's
1988 sequel to his 1985 classic Deep Ecology—Living as if Nature Mattered. His poems appear in a many anthologies, including Earth Prayers (1991), Prayers at 3 A.M. (1995) and Prayers for a Thousand Years—Blessings
and Expressions of Hope for the New Millennium (1999), all three published by HarperSanFrancisco, The Soul Unearthed—Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal through Nature (Tarcher, 1996) and Will Work for Peace (Zeropanik Press, 2000). Lawrence Ferlinghetti called his epic “September 11, 2001” the “best poem I’ve seen on 9/11.” Extensive excerpts from it were published in September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond (William Heyen, ed.), An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind—Poets on
9/11 (Allen Cohen, ed.), and in Van Gogh’s Ear out of Paris, France. He
has taught "Poetry of Wilderness" at Esalen Institute and has taught and performed poetry at the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder, Colorado and
at Antioch College in Ohio. He won a 1987 "Discovery Award" from PEN, the international writers' organization. In addition to the Eco Lit course
he has taught since 1989, since 1999 he has taught a course on Whitman
and subsequent poets inspired by Whitman. In March 1997 the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed the special "Song of the Rainforest" concert he brainstormed, consisting of great but neglected rainforest-inspired music, to draw attention to the global rainforest crisis.
He was given an Earth Guardian Award at Milwaukee's Earth Day 2000.
His last name is pronounced POE-nYEAH-vAHsh and is Polish for "because."
Allen Ginsberg's introduction to Jeff Poniewaz's July 5, 1990 poetry reading
with Antler during the "Eco Glasnost" Conference at Kerouac Poetics School:
"The next poet has a really interesting proposition to resolve, which is how
do you write poetry and at the same time present information, facts, statistics, ecological primarily; how do you package knowledge, informational knowledge, in poetic form? He's one of the most interesting exponents of that effort. His subject has been ecological destruction and restoration all along for the last twenty years. He's part of an interesting poetry team of himself and Antler who've been friends for decades now, both from the very beginning concerned with the situation of Earth, which is the focus of this week's studies. It's kind
of remarkable that we have so many poets on hand [here this week] who for so long have been dealing with the Earthen subject which has now reached crisis proportions and begins to penetrate general public consciousness. These poets are the antennae of the race—and Jeff Poniewaz and Antler, rising up out of Wisconsin, make a kind of miracle of a flowering of intelligence and information out of the provinces rather than out of San Francisco or New York, and so we have poets from the interior of the country, rather than from the capital cities, with information important to the capitals. So: Jeff Poniewaz!"
where since 1989 he has taught "Literature of Ecological Vision," a course
he devised. His eco-activism spans from local urban greenspace struggles
to the global rainforest catastrophe. His poems have appeared in Earth First!,
Greenpeace Chronicles, Los Angeles Times, Blake Times, Exquisite Corpse, Viet Nam Generation, New York Quarterly and numerous other periodicals. His collection of eco-poems spanning 1975-82, Dolphin Leaping in the Milky Way (Inland Ocean Books, 1986) was praised by Allen Ginsberg for its "impassioned prescient ecological Whitmanesque/Thoreauvian verve and wit." Another collection of subsequent eco material is forthcoming, as well
as a volume of selected poems on miscellaneous subjects spanning from 1965 to the present. He has compiled a many-poet anthology of eco-poems titled On What Planet--Poems in Praise and Defense of the Earth, which awaits a receptive publisher. He is included in the chapter on eco-poetry
in Simple in Means, Rich in Ends—Practicing Deep Ecology, Bill Devall's
1988 sequel to his 1985 classic Deep Ecology—Living as if Nature Mattered. His poems appear in a many anthologies, including Earth Prayers (1991), Prayers at 3 A.M. (1995) and Prayers for a Thousand Years—Blessings
and Expressions of Hope for the New Millennium (1999), all three published by HarperSanFrancisco, The Soul Unearthed—Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal through Nature (Tarcher, 1996) and Will Work for Peace (Zeropanik Press, 2000). Lawrence Ferlinghetti called his epic “September 11, 2001” the “best poem I’ve seen on 9/11.” Extensive excerpts from it were published in September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond (William Heyen, ed.), An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind—Poets on
9/11 (Allen Cohen, ed.), and in Van Gogh’s Ear out of Paris, France. He
has taught "Poetry of Wilderness" at Esalen Institute and has taught and performed poetry at the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder, Colorado and
at Antioch College in Ohio. He won a 1987 "Discovery Award" from PEN, the international writers' organization. In addition to the Eco Lit course
he has taught since 1989, since 1999 he has taught a course on Whitman
and subsequent poets inspired by Whitman. In March 1997 the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed the special "Song of the Rainforest" concert he brainstormed, consisting of great but neglected rainforest-inspired music, to draw attention to the global rainforest crisis.
He was given an Earth Guardian Award at Milwaukee's Earth Day 2000.
His last name is pronounced POE-nYEAH-vAHsh and is Polish for "because."
Allen Ginsberg's introduction to Jeff Poniewaz's July 5, 1990 poetry reading
with Antler during the "Eco Glasnost" Conference at Kerouac Poetics School:
"The next poet has a really interesting proposition to resolve, which is how
do you write poetry and at the same time present information, facts, statistics, ecological primarily; how do you package knowledge, informational knowledge, in poetic form? He's one of the most interesting exponents of that effort. His subject has been ecological destruction and restoration all along for the last twenty years. He's part of an interesting poetry team of himself and Antler who've been friends for decades now, both from the very beginning concerned with the situation of Earth, which is the focus of this week's studies. It's kind
of remarkable that we have so many poets on hand [here this week] who for so long have been dealing with the Earthen subject which has now reached crisis proportions and begins to penetrate general public consciousness. These poets are the antennae of the race—and Jeff Poniewaz and Antler, rising up out of Wisconsin, make a kind of miracle of a flowering of intelligence and information out of the provinces rather than out of San Francisco or New York, and so we have poets from the interior of the country, rather than from the capital cities, with information important to the capitals. So: Jeff Poniewaz!"
Musah Swallah
Musah Swallah is a brilliant artist and craftsman in Ghana, Africa. His masterpiece "Our Music" was used on the July 25th 2009 Art Not Apathy flyer, also his works grace a couple products in our online store including a shoulder bag. Other of his works can be seen on our online gallery. He depicts the soul of his artful life in Ghana. His Piece "No food for Lazy man" shows brilliantly the attitude towards western culture that a large percentage of the worlds population has developed. We at O4I are looking forward to working with him in the future.
Antler
Written about working in a factory beside the Milwaukee River in 1970 when he was 24, Antler's epic poem Factory was acclaimed by a wide range of poets, environmentalists and factory workers. Published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Photo by Allen Ginsberg --> as a book to itself in 1980 as #38 in the City Lights Pocket Poet Series, it was heralded by Allen Ginsberg as "the most enlightening and magnanimous American poem I've seen of '60s and '70s decades." Of Antler's book Last Words, published by Ballantine in 1986, Ginsberg said: "More fineness than I thought probable to see again in my lifetime from younger solitary unknown self-inspirer US poet...one of Whitman's 'poets and orators to come'." His book Ever-Expanding Wilderness is seeking a publisher. Antler: The Selected Poems was published in December 2000.
Antler spends one to two months per year backpacking and/or canoeing through wilderness and ekes out a living by performing his poems far and wide in the spirit of Whitman's invocation of poets who would be "itinerant gladness scatterers." He won the 1987 Witter Bynner Prize awarded annually "to an outstanding younger poet" by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York City, and the 1985 Walt Whitman Award, given annually to an author "whose contribution best reveals the continuing presence of Walt Whitman in American poetry." The citation accompanying the Whitman Award stated: "His poems make audible the words of the earth, with original energy, insouciance, and affectionate comradeliness toward all beings."
Introducing Antler's poetry reading at the "Eco Glasnost Conference" held at the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder in 1990, Gary Snyder said: "Antler has been writing with a clear focus in a vernacular mode dealing straight-on and first-hand with the actualities of American and planetary life. He's a fine performance poet and one of the half-dozen or so truly committed wilderness poets in American letters."
Antler's poems have appeared in hundreds of periodicals, including City Lights Review, New Directions Journal, Whole Earth Review, Earth First! Journal, the Amicus Journal, Utne Reader, Exquisite Corpse, Kenyon Review, Chiron Review, New York Quarterly, Wilderness and The Sun. His poem "Somewhere Along the Line," published in The Sun, was awarded a 1993 Pushcart Prize. His poems have also appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Erotic by Nature, Son of the Male Muse, Earth Prayers, The Soul Unearthed—Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal through Nature, Wild Song—Poems of the Natural World, What Book!?—Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, The Journey Home: The Literature of Wisconsin through Four Centuries, and American Poets Say Goodbye to the 20th Century. He has taught at Esalen Institute in California, Omega Institute outside New York City, Antioch College in Ohio, and the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder. He has performed his poetry at Wilderness University, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, Sarah Lawrence College, the 1980 International Festival of the Poet in Rome, with poets from pre-Tiananmen-crackdown China in Nov. '88 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and many other places.
He was chosen by Friends of Milwaukee Public Library to be Milwaukee's poet laureate during 2002-03. In 2003 the Council of Wisconsin Writers chose him to receive its Major Achievement Award. When not wildernessing or traveling to teach and perform poetry, he lives near the Milwaukee River in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
http://www.antlerpoet.net
Antler spends one to two months per year backpacking and/or canoeing through wilderness and ekes out a living by performing his poems far and wide in the spirit of Whitman's invocation of poets who would be "itinerant gladness scatterers." He won the 1987 Witter Bynner Prize awarded annually "to an outstanding younger poet" by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York City, and the 1985 Walt Whitman Award, given annually to an author "whose contribution best reveals the continuing presence of Walt Whitman in American poetry." The citation accompanying the Whitman Award stated: "His poems make audible the words of the earth, with original energy, insouciance, and affectionate comradeliness toward all beings."
Introducing Antler's poetry reading at the "Eco Glasnost Conference" held at the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder in 1990, Gary Snyder said: "Antler has been writing with a clear focus in a vernacular mode dealing straight-on and first-hand with the actualities of American and planetary life. He's a fine performance poet and one of the half-dozen or so truly committed wilderness poets in American letters."
Antler's poems have appeared in hundreds of periodicals, including City Lights Review, New Directions Journal, Whole Earth Review, Earth First! Journal, the Amicus Journal, Utne Reader, Exquisite Corpse, Kenyon Review, Chiron Review, New York Quarterly, Wilderness and The Sun. His poem "Somewhere Along the Line," published in The Sun, was awarded a 1993 Pushcart Prize. His poems have also appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Erotic by Nature, Son of the Male Muse, Earth Prayers, The Soul Unearthed—Celebrating Wildness and Personal Renewal through Nature, Wild Song—Poems of the Natural World, What Book!?—Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop, The Journey Home: The Literature of Wisconsin through Four Centuries, and American Poets Say Goodbye to the 20th Century. He has taught at Esalen Institute in California, Omega Institute outside New York City, Antioch College in Ohio, and the Kerouac Poetics School in Boulder. He has performed his poetry at Wilderness University, the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, Sarah Lawrence College, the 1980 International Festival of the Poet in Rome, with poets from pre-Tiananmen-crackdown China in Nov. '88 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and many other places.
He was chosen by Friends of Milwaukee Public Library to be Milwaukee's poet laureate during 2002-03. In 2003 the Council of Wisconsin Writers chose him to receive its Major Achievement Award. When not wildernessing or traveling to teach and perform poetry, he lives near the Milwaukee River in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
http://www.antlerpoet.net
Infinite Nature
Infinite Nature is a group in the Milwaukee area that lives up to their name. The philosophy of the groups image is that they can have an infinite amount of band members and change their sound in infinite ways. They formed early in 2009, and have already been playing at a myriad of places in the downtown Milwaukee area, the members listed on the site thus far include Jacob Green - Vocals/Guitar/Piano/Writer Nerissa Eichinger - Vocals/Percussion/Writer Mark Wesling - Drums/Percussion/Turtle Flute Jessica Howard - Vocals/Percussion/Writer Adam Nash - Vocals/Harmonica/percussion Matthew Reiland - Vocals/Lead Guitar/Writer Rhea Saldivar - Vocals/Writer Andrew - BASS Jesse - Lead Guitar/Vocals AND.... YOU!
Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/infinitenature1
Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/infinitenature1
Catherine Palmeno
Catherine Elizabeth Palmeno, Milwaukee, WI, illustrator extraordinaire. BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in illustration. I make high-quality illustrations (i work fast!), paintings, and the occasional photograph. all work is copyright catherine palmeno, and all other use is strictly prohibited. please contact me at catherinepalmeno@gmail.com for any inquiries.
http://cpalmeno.blogspot.com/
http://cpalmeno.blogspot.com/
John Sieger
John Sieger is a singer/songwriter in an earlier sense of the word. In other words, before there were singer/songwriters (read James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and less talented adherents baring their souls and exposing their diaries to the cruel light of day), there were acts such as Chuck Berry, Smoky Robinson, Buddy Holly and The Beatles singing songs they wrote. Please, if you don't mind, lump him in with that group of artists who see value in entertainment and think Saturday nights should release a little of the week's built up tensions. John would prefer to be playing an electric guitar (Strat or Dano) when all of this happens, but has been known to hoist an old Gibson Southern Jumbo or Country Western model and perform solo. He made a record for Warner Brothers in 1988 with his band Semi-Twang, called "Salty Tears." It was produced by Mitchell Froom along with Jerry Harrison and Chris Thomas (Understudy to George Martin and producer of The Pretenders). It didn't sell a million copies, but it did sort of hint at the coming Alt-Country Insurgent Americana Twang-Fest of the '90s. It also rocked. Before that he had a cool record with the R&B Cadets on Twin Tone records, called "Top Happy". Nick Lowe produced a track for it. He has released a couple of solo records and one with Springfield's finest, The Skeleton's called "Her Country." It features songs written with his long-time collaborator, Michael Feldman, host of Public Radio's "Whad'ya Know?" His current band project is The Subcontinentals. Please visit their page! It includes his bro, Mike on bass and vocals and Kelli Gonzalez, a very under-rated singer in the Dusty In Memphis mode. The drummer is John Carr, a veteran of several important Milwaukee bands. Together they cover a lot of turf, from John's roots oriented tunes, to some old soul and swing. They even do Mambo Italiano by Patti Page. As a songwriter, John has had some success, with covers by artists ranging from Dwight Yoakam (I Don't Need It Done), Jerry "Talking Head" Harrison (Rev It Up, a hit in Australia!), The BoDeans (The Strangest Kind) Flaco Jimenez (I Found Out). The list includes about twenty artists from all ends of the musical spectrum. John currently produces an occasional song clinic for aspiring writers and has a ProTools studio (Room w/a VU) where he recently finished production on Justin Scott's debut CD "Three Chords and The Truth. The next two projects waiting for a little time and attention are John's next solo CD, "The Shaming Of The True", and the Subs debut, tentaively titled "The Early Years." Both are near completion and scheduled for release this year. Preview "Warm Welcome In A Cold Town" from the "Shaming" sessions and go to the Subs myspace page for a little preview of "The Early Years!"
http://www.myspace.com/subcontinentals
www.myspace.com/johnsieger
http://www.myspace.com/subcontinentals
www.myspace.com/johnsieger
Joshua Calloway
I am a graduate of the Peck school of the Arts from Milwaukee WI, with a BA in Studio art (painting/drawing). I have a passion for the figure but I enjoy many varieties of artwork. I am interested in furthering my understanding of digital art as well as oil painting. Some of my favorite artists are Titian, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Jeremy Lipking and Andrew Jones. I try to find inspiration anywhere I can; be it books, music, conversations or random shapes in the clouds.
Michael Hoppe
Guitarist Michael Hoppe presents a diverse repertoire of original music ideally suited for: Arts and crafts; county and state fairs; music, church and art festivals; corporate, convention, municipal recreation and business improvement department functions; college, high school, grade school programs.
Guitar, music theory, composition workshops and residencies offered for all types of schools and community art council organizations.
Guitar, music theory, composition workshops and residencies offered for all types of schools and community art council organizations.
The Dead Man's Carnival
The Dead Man's Carnival as explained on their myspace,
( www.myspace.com/karnalville )
This is a mutli medium sensory short circuit experience. The combined effects of... Live Music, Magic, Tumbling, Theatrics, Gymnastics, Juggling, Burlesque, Prizes, Dancing, Interactive Games, Side Show Circus Stunts, Fire (eating, spinning, breathing), Beautiful and Terrifying Costumes. There is no word or combination of them that could ever replace or define the mind warping and life changing entertainment that is weaved at The Dead Man's Carnival.
( www.myspace.com/karnalville )
This is a mutli medium sensory short circuit experience. The combined effects of... Live Music, Magic, Tumbling, Theatrics, Gymnastics, Juggling, Burlesque, Prizes, Dancing, Interactive Games, Side Show Circus Stunts, Fire (eating, spinning, breathing), Beautiful and Terrifying Costumes. There is no word or combination of them that could ever replace or define the mind warping and life changing entertainment that is weaved at The Dead Man's Carnival.
Danny Zuko
A Milwaukee Hip hop artist with a broad outlook on life who calls himself "one of "Milwaukee's Best" kept secrets"
Visit his myspace at
www.myspace.com/dannyzuko
"Everybody's a Rapper" is the
1st single from the upcoming E.P.
"A Quarter of a Century"
Produced by: 40 Mil
Film Directed by: Chili Shizzle
Visit his myspace at
www.myspace.com/dannyzuko
"Everybody's a Rapper" is the
1st single from the upcoming E.P.
"A Quarter of a Century"
Produced by: 40 Mil
Film Directed by: Chili Shizzle
Harvey Taylor
Introducing Harvey Taylor
It's Harvey Taylor's good fortune to have an abundance of opportunities, as a poet and musician: he combines song and poem performance in numerous shows at venues ranging from coffeehouses, concert halls, cafes, auditoriums, parks, schools, bookstores, prisons, libraries, bars, clubs, and churches, to Summerfest, Milwaukee's renowned festival, and the Performing Arts Center; he's collaborated with interpreters for the hearing-impaired on Art's Place, Milwaukee's public television showcase, worked with the 'Earth Poets' ensemble for twelve years, encouraging ecological awareness, and does an ongoing monthly presentation of Ethereal Transmissions, featuring poetry and jazz, on award-winning radio stationWMSE; he participates in many benefits, including events supporting Milwaukee's Peace Action Center, the Wisconsin Community Fund, Share Our Strength, the Milwaukee Greens, Rethinking Schools, and Woodland Pattern Book Center, among others.
Taylor also facilitates creative writing and music workshops, (many of which are 'special needs' oriented), in various schools, community centers, summer arts-camps, nursing homes, hospitals, and prisons, through the agency of Artreach-Milwaukee, Very Special Arts-Wisconsin, Kindcare's Artlink, and ACAP (the Adaptive Community Approach Program); he's been on the faculty of Arts World, a program co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Arts Board, the Department Of Public Instruction, and the University Of Wisconsin, and is a regular presenter at UW-Whitewater's Creative Writing Festival; he's published widely, for example, in the Wisconsin Academy Review, the Wisconsin Poet's Calendar, the Wisconsin Art's Board Bulletin, and the anthology of men's writings, Warrior Wisdom, in addition to twenty-nine books of poems and song lyrics.
Always interested in widening his creative horizons, Taylor has danced in a multi-media 'happening,' played percussion for dance concerts, performed poems and songs with jazz and rock bands, live, and on radio; he designs graphics for his publishing company's book covers, engineered an electronic sound track for a photography exhibition, and is currently concentrating on producing and recording music in his Tree House Studio. He also facilitates Muse-Power, a monthly music and poetry performance series, presents interactive programs at the Betty Brinn Children's Museum, and gigs with the 'Rainbow Poets', focusing on multicultural themes.
This variety of involvements is reflected in Taylor's being selected in the 1993 Milwaukee Shepherd-Express reader's poll for the poet category, which cited "...his published works, public appearances, and work nurturing Milwaukee's budding poets," an honor likewise awarded in the '98 and 2001 polls. Taylor was also profiled in the Shepherd-Express and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which noted his sideline as a longshoreman, and he appears on Wisconsin Public Radio's variety program, Hotel Milwaukee.
Harvey Taylor's specialty is creating customized song and/or poetry performances in which he shares the musical and poetic products of his own unfolding process of becoming more aware and appreciative, the personal story of his encounters and adventures, as he passes through this amazing, bewildering, splendidly-poetic world. He also designs and presents a wide variety of student workshops with cross-curriculum relevancy, such as 'Walking In Someone Else's Shoes,' in addition to teacher in-service sessions, and artist-in-residence affiliations, catalyzing creativity in community, educational, entertainment, and institutional settings. He is particularly pleased to arrange appearances on behalf of the Earth Poets and the Rainbow Poets, as well as produce Muse-Power presentations.
True Skool
Hip Hop is more than music.
TRUE Skool’s mission is to use cultural arts to educate and empower youth from different backgrounds and cultures to become leaders for positive social change in their communities. We advance our mission by infusing conflict resolution, creativity, self-expression, non-violence, youth organizing, community activism and community service projects into our programs and services. www.trueskool.org
Mama Nomusa
Multi-talented, multi-disciplined Nomusa Xaba was born in Chicago, IL and is veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. During those years she was trained a community organizer and served in her native Chicago and in rural Mississippi, her ancestral home. She credits her family and the Civil Rights movement with instilling in her a keen awareness of the potential of all human beings and she uses that awareness to motivate and inspire her audiences.
A teacher by profession, she simultaneously spent many years teaching, raising her 5 children and performing as a poet/percussionist with her former husband, South African pianist Ndikho Xaba. She has been able to seamlessly wed all of these experiences into an Educational Consultant who is eager to share her talents with all audiences whether they are teachers, administrators or children.
As a performing artist Mama Nomusa, as she is affectionately known by her audiences, has amassed a wealth of games, songs and stories that allow the audience to interact with the performance. These performances have occurred in numerous venues, schools, churches, museums and libraries all over the United States, Canada and East Africa. She and her family spent 2 years performing in Canada and 3 years teaching school and performing in Tanzania, East Africa. These were memorable and unique experiences that she shares in her presentations.
Mama Nomusa uses an array of indigenous African instruments including the Mbira (African thumb piano), Shekere (a beaded gourd), Ngoma (wooden xylophone), bells, tambourines, drums, etc. To enhance her stories, which come from the vast reservoir of folk stories which permeate the African continent, the Americas and the world.
Mama Nomusa is an artist/educator in process, a real cultural ambassador, always using her skills to improve and better serve the needs of the global community.
http://www.mamanomusa.com
Playing For Change
Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music.
Llysa Spencer
Llysa Spencer is a gothic folk funk jazz soul country urban latin honky tonk girl into the fusion as she spouts on her myspace, she is a resident of Riverwest and is a filmaker who on occasion volenteers at Pathfinders homeless youth shelter. Visit her myspace at http://www.myspace.com/llysaspencer
She made the above music video "War is Not the answer" to accompany her CD "Lost Language" Released 2009 by Akashic records.
She made the above music video "War is Not the answer" to accompany her CD "Lost Language" Released 2009 by Akashic records.
James McGarvey
I'm a singer/songwriter trying to get somewhere other than small town Wisconsin. forced to learn and perform mostly by myself, I've devolped a rhythm style that I feel that, though not entirely unique, helps to bring my lyrics to the forefront. I'm a singer first, guitarist second. A lot of the songs I write are love songs, or something to do with a relationship. It's never something I tried to do, but it happens.