Bonnye Brown has developed an innovative use of padding in her paintings that fascinated me and gives them dimension. She has an affinity for the world of women as a subject for her art. Riehlife: Bonnye, tell us about your show at Portfolio Gallery. Bonnye Brown: I have about seven pieces of artwork in the…
Click here to read Riehlife profile on Keith Shepherd. (All photos courtesy of Bonnye Brown) Bonnye Brown and Robert Powell in front of Bonnye’s painting “Color Folks.” Keith Shepard in front of his painting “Jelly’s Last Jam.” Keith Shepard, Bonnye Brown, Anthony High, and Ed Hogan (not pictured).
Students! Want to enter the annual writing contest, The Big Write? Get started now. Submission deadline is Sept. 12. The three top winners in each of two grade level categories: (1) 4th and 5th graders, and (2) 6th through 8th graders, will win $100 for 1st place, $50 for second place, and $25 for 3rd…
Poet Michael Castro is the founding editor and spiritual father of River Styx. Since 1974 Karen Duffy has hosted literary readings at her Central West End restaurant, Duff’s. Says Newman: “Our literary agenda is to promote accessible poetry. In the early ’90s, poetry had been taken over by academics. It was obscure, unmoving poetry, and…
The connection wasn’t merely kinship but of generations of shared experiences.–Keith Shepherd Portfolio Gallery and Education Center’s current show is 4 OF A KIND featuring the work of Anthony High, Keith Shepherd, Bonnye Brown and Edward Hogan, all artists from the Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas community. I had the pleasure to interview…
Juneteenth is “the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States”. I celebrated my first Juneteenth in the early 1990s as a member of Luisah Teish’s “Full Accord Ensemble: Arts at the Crossroads.” This year, though, I celebrated Juneteenth with Dick Gregory at the Starlight Room on Broadway in North…
1) In the year I’ve been here I’ve learned that St. Louis is such a Big Small Town. I love going to functions and watching everyone greeting one another with such warmth—folks they’ve often known all through school, grown up in the same neighborhoods, and can compare the ages and names of brothers and sisters…
I was eager to hear Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, read his poetry and give good advice on writing a first line that arrests the attention and makes the reader want to keep going. He did not disappoint. With charming diffidence and low key humor he kept us enthralled and left us wiser for…
It was like a rock concert this week when David Sedaris (pronounced as in “dare”) came to town to speak at Left Bank Books. Folk who couldn’t find seats stood up inside. Folks who couldn’t get in the room stood up outside or lounged in those great portable camp chairs. I sat next to a…
Hey! Dick Gregory, internationally known comic and social activist, is coming home to St. Louis. How cool is that? The New Millennium Group invites you to welcome Gregory on June 19, 2008. Doors open at 5 p.m. at the Starlight Room on 8350 N. Broadway. Dick Gregory Dick Gregory recently stole the stage at Tavis…