EB100 LEGACY PROJECT: VIRTUAL EXHIBITION/PERMANENT BANNER

One of the most delightful aspects of the celebrations of the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary in Great Village in 2011 were the colourful banners that the EBSNS created, which were displayed not only in Great Village, but also along the shore, from Masstown to Five Islands. The banners contained the image of Joy Laking’s painting “Starry Night in Great Village.” The banners were effective in publicizing EB100 and were so admired that the EBSNS sold them as souvenirs and as a fund-raiser for the EB100 Writing Competition book (another EB100 legacy project we’ll tell you about as it develops). Since the locally-made wrought-iron brackets are still in place, the EBSNS Board thought that a visual art contest for young people in the area might be a way to create a permanent banner, one that could be displayed every year during the summer.

 

This idea has turned into “Images of My Village,” a visual art project for young people in Colchester County. The purpose of this project is to celebrate the creativity of the youth in the county; to encourage them to think imaginatively about what home, village, community means to them; to express their feelings and ideas in visual art.

Elizabeth Bishop loved visual art and was herself an amateur painter, who created delightful images of the places where she lived. In the spirit of her love for her childhood home, Great Village, N.S., this visual art project will ask young people to re-imagine their own connections to home and express how their identity is connected to time and place.

The call for submissions is open to all young people in Colchester County from Grade Primary to Grade Twelve. The EBSNS will curate a virtual exhibition of all the submissions, which will be launched in the spring of 2013. The EBSNS will especially encourage youth in the Great Village area to submit. The society will choose an image from submissions that it feels best represents the spirit of Great Village, and create a permanent banner to be displayed in the village each summer.

The guidelines for submission can be found on the EBSNS website: http://www.elizabethbishopns.org/imagesofmyvillage.html

A LIVELY TIME AT WORD ON THE STREET

The annual Word on the Street Festival in Halifax, N.S., 23 September, 2012, was a busy day for the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia. Thousands of people throng the waterfront, attending readings and talking with all the exhibitors. Suzie LeBlanc and Sandra Barry were the keepers of the flame that day, with help from several enthusiastic EBSNS members. We all had a great time chatting with old and new friends. We were delighted to see how many people (local and from away) knew something about Elizabeth Bishop and were eager to talk with us about her. We were able to promote the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy recording, one of our main aims, as well as the other EB100 legacy projects. We even raised a little money for the recording. The purpose of this kind of event is to spread the word, to publicize our activities, and hundreds of people went away from our festive table with a bright shiny red, blue, green or purple pencil with “Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all?” and the EBSNS website address or this blog's address on them. Purple was the favourite colour!

A reminder about the wonderful perks available when you contribute

to the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording

(check them out on the EB Legacy Recording site)

Thank you to the volunteers who came by to help out, Janet Maybee, Brian Bartlett, Susan Kerslake and John Barnstead. A special thank you to writer Mary Ellen Sullivan and her husband Jim Stewart for help with the early morning set up. A heartfelt thank you to musician Joanne Hatfield who came by in the afternoon as our energies were flagging and treated us to some lovely Brazilian music!! There was a spontaneous jam session with Suzie and John Barnstead joining in, doing harmony. We had the loveliest-sounding exhibit in the whole place! We will be updating about the EB Legacy Recording in the near future (www.eb100legacyrecording.blogspot.ca).

 Left to Right: Sandra Barry, Suzie LeBlanc, John Barnstead, Joanne Hatfield,

at WOTS! Photo by Susan Kerslake

Elizabeth Bishop at Word on the Street in Halifax

On Sunday, 23 September 2012, the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia will be at Word on the Street (http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/halifax), a huge, fabulous, lively book fair on the waterfront in downtown Halifax – near the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. We are there to spread word about and accept contributions for the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording. Suzie LeBlanc will be joining us!! We’ll also have information about the other EB100 legacy projects and about the EBSNS itself.

 

The EBSNS will be located in the Word on the Street Marketplace – table # 5 in “the village.”

Word on the Street (http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/halifax) goes from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

If you are  at WOTS, stop by and say Hello, meet Suzie and me, and learn more about the EB Legacy Recording project (http://www.eb100legacyrecording.blogspot.ca). See you there!

Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording – Check out the new perks!!

A bevy of exciting new perks has been added to the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording crowd-source fund-raising campaign. Check them out at: http://eb100legacyrecording.blogspot.ca/p/thank-you-gifts.html

Some of these new perks include:

A movie or a skate on the Halifax Commons with Suzie LeBlanc and friends.

A getaway to Windhorse Farm
 (http://www.windhorsefarm.org/) in New Germany, N.S.

A private film screening for an upcoming documentary about Suzie LeBlanc’s retracing of Elizabeth Bishop’s 1932 walking tour of Newfoundland, produced by film-maker Linda Rae Dornan.

A tea party at the Elizabeth Bishop House and a guided walking tour of Great Village with Sandra Barry.

An evening of conversation with our own webmaster and Russian scholar John Barnstead where you will feast on a home-made dinner with a Russian theme.

Do check out these and all the other perks being offered to thank you for your contribution in support of the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording.

[Ed. Note: We are having a bit of a technical problem with the paypal link for the new perks -- but there is a donation link a the top of the perks page and also on the main page of the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording site. We are working to correct the glitch, so your patience is greatly appreciated, but if you want to donate, just go to the main page and use the link there. Thanks so much.]

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The Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia and Suzie LeBlanc will be at Word on the Street (http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/wots/halifax) this year taking place on 23 September 2012, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Halifax Waterfront, at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. We’ll be talking about the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording, about other EB100 legacy projects, about the EBSNS and about Elizabeth Bishop herself. Come and hear some poetry. We will be accepting donations for the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording.