Street Work
The “work” is a unique volume of almost one hundred pictures in which street marks and configurations—the stains, found objects, cracks, accidental chalk phrases; an occasional house, trees, foliage—variously combine to drive mind and eye into an alchemy of reflection bearing insights; crossfire politics, dance, romance, love, death, and words themselves bear down to offer life and consciousness into the formation of a human community.
A great new book from Stephen Vincent—hurray! That most difficult kind of writing: simple & astonishing. A book that teaches us in addition to the admonition to “look up” we might also “look down,” taught by the artist & to see and think about the messages, visions, and koans that are at our feet with each walk that we take.
— Hank Lazer, Author of Abundant Life: New & Selected Poems
In Street Work, the reader gets to share in the world of language and visual images that Vincent documents on his many strolls through the city. As great art aspires to do, the cloud-like glyphs and sticks and smudges light up the wires that turn images into thoughts and words. Often the bright colors of the sidewalk art are more hopeful than the world in which they exist. Vincent provides the perfect mixture for our troubling times: words that cut to the quick or directly observe the “view” below his feet, always illuminating and illuminated by what nature and humans do to mark the environment by accident or intention. In this heartfelt collaboration, walk with him through the pages: there’’s much to see!
— Maxine Chernoff, Poet, most recently author of Light and Clay: New and Selected Poems
THE OBAMA PROJECT
Two boxes, two separate times, presenting Haptic Drawings & Journal entries made while taking the pulse of the country during the emergence & final days of Obama’s Presidency
The First 100 Days of Obama
January 20 – April 29, 2009
The First 100 Days of Obama was initiated as a drawing and journal project on January 20, 2009, the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States. For each day, Stephen Vincent—artist, poet and writer—created a journal account and a “haptic” drawing. Made with pen and ink, the abstract marks emerged from a close listening to public and/or private sounds of the particular day. The original drawings and a printed volume, pairing the art and journal pages, were then gathered and shelved into a uniquely built silk, copper colored, bound box.
The Last 100 Days of the Presidency of Barack Obama
October 13, 2016 – January 20, 2017
In this parallel volume, the drawings are in color. Made with the aim of responding to the country’s pulse before and after the election of Donald Trump, the journal pages are further enriched by a thirty-day train trip. Approaching the writing and art work as if it were a national conversation, sites included those of historic significance: Chicago, Boston, Walden Pond, New York City, Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, Atlanta among them. As with the first work, drawings and catalog are also shelved into a silver silk bound, companion box.
