“Rock Bottom” - Text(ure)
Join Kerry Madden-Lunsford and Doug Baulos to find voice in your stories and discover place as character.
Course Description
Madden (she, her) Baulos (they, them)
Flannery O'Connor wrote, "Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days." Eudora Welty said, "Place is one of the lesser angels that watch over the racing hand of fiction." So, with the words of Flannery and Eudora in mind, this workshop of text and texture will focus on finding voice in our stories and discovering place as character through what we write and make. Through a series of writing prompts to spark stories and bind books, we'll write and make and create exactly where we are with our work. We live in a world of uncertainty and developing the ability to write and make work while becoming comfortable with the unknown in these confusing times can strengthen us on the inside and prepare us to handle whatever arises with compassion, calm and patience. A strong sense of setting and endemic investigation of natural materials breathes both life and voice into our worlds where we are the story catchers and artmakers.
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Artist Biographies
Doug Baulos’s drawings, installations, and books have been exhibited/published both nationally and internationally. Their current works are explorations (visual) and meditations (poetry) centering on their ideas of spirituality, love, death, shelter, and hope. Books, because of their exterior/interior format, as well as their sequential ordering, have been a lifelong fascination. The book as an object allows the viewer to be guided through a thought process as well as evoking time and journey/text and image in an intimate fashion. The books and installations hope to explode process and natural forms into an embodied visual narrative, a sculpture of our inner life.
Douglas Pierre Baulos (they/them/Queer) received their MFA from the University of New Orleans and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They regularly teach workshops and lecture on their research in drawing, installation and visual ecology. In 2009 Baulos won the President’s Award For Excellence In Teaching at UAB. They are currently an Associate Professor of Drawing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Their drawings, installations, and writing have been exhibited/published both nationally and internationally. Their current works are explorations (visual) and meditations (poetry) centering on their ideas of spirituality, love, death, shelter, and hope.
Kerry Madden-Lunsford is the author Ernestine’s Milky Way, published by Schwartz & Wade of Random House. She wrote the Smoky Mountain Trilogy for children, which includes Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song and Jessie’s Mountain, published by Viking. Her first novel, Offsides, (Morrow) was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age. Her book, Up Close Harper Lee, made Booklist’s Ten Top Biographies of 2009 for Youth. She also wrote, Writing Smarts, published by American Girl. Her first picture book, Nothing Fancy About Kathryn and Charlie, was illustrated by her daughter, Lucy Lunsford, and published by Mockingbird Publishers. Kerry is a regular contributor to the LA Times Op-Ed Page and a professor of Creative Writing at UAB in Birmingham. Her newest book, Werewolf Hamlet, is forthcoming with Charlesbridge Publishing in 2025. The mother of three adult children, she divides her time between Birmingham and Los Angeles.
Learn more about Doug Baulos & Kerry Madden's work by going to their websites dougbaulos.com and kerrymadden.com, & checking out their Instagrams @doug_baulos and @kerrymadden27.
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Shakerag Workshops of St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School does not discriminate on the basis of race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or gender.