Artspeak Radio with Graham, Dirks, Sanders, and Medina

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, August 25, 2021, noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes writer Brandon Graham, artist/curator Teresa Dirks, poet/film producer Poet TL Sanders, and Kansas Poet Laureate Huascar Medina.

BRANDON GRAHAM studied visual and written narrative at Columbia College, Chicago at the Center for Book and Paper Arts. He is a visual artist who writes. Graham’s newest novel, Half Dead was recently released August 10, 2021.
Half Dead- “Calvert Green literally believes he’s dead–but that won’t stop him from diving deep into the secrets that threaten to bury him. 

The car accident took his wife and nearly killed him too, but Calvert Green’s problems are just beginning. He was a respected Russian literature scholar in Chicago, but due to severe head trauma, he’s now suffering from Cotard’s Disease–a rare physiological condition that makes him believe he’s dead. He has also lost much of his memory, including the academic knowledge that defined his life.

Calvert knows few details about the accident but believes there’s more going on than he’s been told, so he leaves the care facility determined to find the truth behind his “death.” His search lands him in the middle of a city being terrorized by a murder spree, and young homicide detective Whistler Diaz has a prime suspect. But Whistler’s cousin Moe, a crusading journalist, zeroes in on Calvert, determined to prove he’s not all he seems.

Intuition and improvisation were never Calvert’s strong suits, but now he has to draw on his hidden inner resources to clear his name. On a harrowing journey into the city’s underbelly–and deep into his psyche–Calvert begins to uncover the shocking truth of who he once was.

Calvert might be on the verge of finding a new definition of sanity–but a malevolent force lurks in the shadows bent on total madness.”
www.brandongrahambooks.com

Conscious Love
This body of work explores “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane and reflects my year long research and interpretation of this monumental jazz piece. Coltrane’s work expressed a conscious attempt to change himself and the world and my work reflects that. The pandemic and social injustice solidified that there is love in the darkness and this love parallels Coltrane’s triumph over drugs and alcohol. This work celebrates that spirit or consciousness.
Throughout my body of work, jazz and its instruments played a vital role through palette choice, motif, mark making and movement. Rhythm is basic in both music and visual art and conveys pattern. Jazz and the nature of improvisation fell in line with my current work of including text, elevating love and asemic writing. Both arts share a loose form. And in the end, they have a language that when shared and composed correctly creates a composition that marks a point in history.

Conscious Love: Artist Collaboration with Huascar Medina, Poet T.L. Sanders, & Teresa Dirks
Our conversation began in June 2019. Jeanne Martin, Shanna Steitz and myself began discussing our then titled show “Love Supreme.” The inspiration we discussed was artwork inspired by John Coltrane’s work and vision regarding his revelation and success over a painful addiction. Shanna had an entire sermon series and sabbatical planned over this monumental piece of music. This all felt right and in line with my current work of including text elevating love and asemic writing. I was electrified about this body of work and research to be done over the next year.
The two incredible poets, Poet T.L. Sanders and Kansas Poet Laureate, Huascar Medina graciously agreed to write and perform poetry for the show here at the Frank Lloyd Wright, Community Christian Church. After months of discussion, research, writing, painting and collaboration, we were almost ready. Poet Sanders came to my studio at the Livestock Exchange Building. We listen to “A Love Supreme,” loud and deeply reverberating over a gorgeous March afternoon. I painted and created. He constructed, performed and practiced. This moment was transcendental, I imagined much like Coltrane when he wrote his historic riff and powered his way through drug addiction and alcohol. The experience was something outside of myself.

Please join us in celebrating Conscious Love, August 27, 2021, 5pm – 8pm at the historical Frank Lloyd Wright Church, Community Christian Church 4601 Main St. KCMO
Poetry performance at 6pm and 7pm
More info on Facebook and instagram at Teresa Dirks’ Studio.

TERESA DIRKS Growing up in the rural quasi-south, around seamstresses, quilters, gardeners, and farmers, I learned to love nature, nurture, growing and making. This made me. Creative. So now, when I create art, my aim is to reconstruct those experiences from my life, from the environment and from the horizon. No matter who you are or where you live, you have a horizon, a sunset, a connection to humanity that each individual experiences. The horizon is a connection that ties us together. My work is an abstraction of that concept and connection. My work combines linear texture along with the visual elements and principles of color, movement, and pattern.
Ultimately, we are all interwoven in humanity and our horizon is a part of that. So as we merge into this new realm of technology and political unrest, it is vital to make these interconnections. My work conveys my desire for us to unify and develop a holistic community.

POET TL SANDERS- As a performance professional based in Kansas City, MO, Poet t.l. sanders is always looking for opportunities to collaborate with creative professionals, perform for awesome audiences, and speak at special occasions. His first, groundbreaking, project—a poetic screenplay, entitled kNew (published by Flying Ketchup Press), won the Producer’s Pick Award during the 2019 KC Fringe Festival.
​Poet has performed at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (in the 2019 KC Opera’s production of Bizet’s ‘Pearl Fishers), at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, and—serendipitously—he has performed at several venues located in Kansas City’s Historic Jazz District, 18th and Vine: the American Jazz Museum, at the Gem Theater, and in the Blue Room (which is the setting of kNew: The POETICscreenPLAY). In May 2021, Poet won first place in the Artful Poetry contest! As a result, Poet will fulfill one of his goals: to perform poetry on the Kauffman Center’s stages.
Poet AKA Àtwist – The Language Artist, is a modern-day renaissance man who lives to build minds and loves to body build. He speaks French. He plays bass. He is a cage-fighting martial artist. He educates. Give him a stage, he articulates. Lend him an ear, he motivates. As Paper Birch Landing Art Gallery’s 2019 Poet in Residence Recipient, a Prairie Lands Writing Project Teacher Consultant, a Missouri Writing Project Network Teacher Consultant, a member of the National Writing Project Writers Council, a current curriculum director, and former elementary, middle, and high school English teacher (with 16 years of teaching experience), Poet embraces the value of our shared stories. Whether he is public speaking, teaching, writing, or breathing, he has a passion for empowering people.
​Find him on YouTube under Bethephenom, on Twitter and Instagram @PoetTLSanders and on Facebook: facebook.com/bethephenoms.
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Note: Poet is his legal, first name!
www.poettlsanders.com

HUASCAR MEDINA is the 7th Poet Laureate of Kansas. He currently works with the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission reimagining and developing innovative programming for the poet laureateship. He is a peer facilitator for Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Artist INC program. Artist INC is dedicated to the professional development of artists of all disciplines in the Midwestern region and connects them to the resources, tools, and opportunities necessary to build entrepreneurial skills and strengthen their artistic practice.
As Literary Editor for seveneightfive magazine, he provides a platform for Kansas writers by reviewing and spotlighting their work. He is the host and creator of Kansas is Lit on KSEF-DB, an online radio show specifically created to increase the visibility and reach of Kansas writers. He serves as a Staff Editor at South Broadway Press out of Denver, Colorado. He is also an Op-Ed writer at Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit news organization providing in-depth reporting and diverse opinions to all Kansans. Medina proudly serves on the ArtsConnect board and Kansas Book Festival council. He takes pride in the rise of Midwest artists and has dedicated himself to the emergence of “The Prairie Renaissance”.
His poems can be found in his collection How to Hang the Moon published by Spartan Press. He is the winner of ARTSConnect’s 2018 Arty Award for Literary Art. His new collection of poems Un Mango Grows in Kansas is available at huascarmedina.com.
Press release dated June 23, 2021, President Biden Announces 17 Key Nominations including Huascar Medina, Nominee for Member of the National Council on the Arts.

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