Emily Dickinson’s Garden of Verses
Emily Dickinson's Garden of Verses (December 23, 2009 - January 6, 2010)
a visual interpretation of Emily Dickinson's nature poems in artworks by Cindy Ruskin
chashama Times Square Art Space, 112 West 44th Street
cindy@cindyruskin.com | www.cindyruskin.com
www.girlsclub.org (between Broadway & Sixth Ave. / Subway: 1,2,3,B,D,F,N,Q,R,V,W to 42nd St., 7 & shuttle to Times Square. Bus: M104, M42 to Sixth Ave., M5, M6, M7 to 43rd St.)
Emily Dickinson's Garden of Verses
a visual interpretation of Emily Dickinson's nature poems in artworks by Cindy Ruskin and members of the Lower Eastside Girls Club
December 23, 2009 - January 6, 2010
Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri, 3-7p (except New Year's Day)
cindy@cindyruskin.com | www.cindyruskin.com | www.girlsclub.org
Ruskin created small oil paintings to reflect the intimacy of Dickinson's work, exploring the relationship between paint and the written word. Like Dickinson's poetry, the paintings use a concrete form to capture fleeting images, abstract ideas, and intangible emotions. To create Emily's  poetry garden, Ruskin ran mixed media art workshops at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. The five- to ten-year-old girls made  Emily and Me paper dolls, poetry posies, birdhouses, butterflies, flowers, and drawings inspired by Dickinson's poems. The teenage girls made accordion books based on poems, using pressed flowers as illustrations.
Ruskin will be working in the chashama space, cutting poems into paper that will be assembled into the kind of white dress that Dickenson wore during much of her life. Visitors are welcome to talk with the artist as she creates the dress on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (except New Year's Day) from 3PM to 7PM. On Tuesday, January 5th, at 4:30 PM, the Lower Eastside Girls Club will visit the chashama space to sing some Dickinson poems set to music, and Ruskin will host an Emily Dickinson tea party. The young artists will bring the  flower dolls that they made in Ruskin's workshop.
The complete installation will celebrate Emily Dickinson as both writer and gardener, showcasing the innovative vision of the 19th century Massachusetts poet who is still inspiring Ruskin and the young girls on the Lower East Side. details Cindy Ruskin's work has been shown since the late 1980s in California and New York. Recently she won Second Place at the Pen And Brush show, In Your Dreams, and her work was included in the East Village Invitational at Umbrella Arts Gallery. She had a solo exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery in 2006 to benefit the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Sudan.
After growing up in South Africa, and getting an undergraduate degree in art history from Harvard, Ruskin studied painting at the San Francisco Art Academy and the Art Students League in New York.
Ruskin is passionate about bringing art programs to the children of low-income families in New York City. Since 1999, Ruskin has run art classes at the Andrew Glover Youth Program, an alternative-to-prison program for juvenile offenders. She is the art director of the Lower East Side Kids Art Bike Parade. As a consultant to Artworks, a Learning Leaders program, Ruskin created the curriculum for guided tours of the Brooklyn Museum -- and updated the Met tours -- for public elementary school students. Ruskin's art classes at the Lower Eastside Girls Club have culminated in several shows and installations: Cindy and the Cinderellas (2008), Biker Chicks (2008), Park(ing Day) and Parking Day redux (2008) and Phenomenal Art/Phenomenal Women (2007). about CINDY RUSKIN The Lower Eastside Girls Club, based at 56 East 1st Street in Manhattan, is dedicated to providing a place where girls and young women 8-23 can grow, learn, have fun, and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world. By delivering strong and innovative arts, athletic, cultural, life-skills and career oriented programming, the club provides girls with the vision to plan -- and the tools to build -- their future.
On December 10th, 2009, the Lower Eastside Girls Club celebrated Emily Dickinson's birthday by student readings of over 1000 Emily Dickinson poems at multiple schools throughout the Lower East Side. The event culminated in a staged reading of select Emily Dickinson poetry by youth and special guest poets, such as Bob Holman and PoezThePoet, at the Bowery Poetry Club.
All the Lower Eastside Girls Club Emily Dickinson events are part of the NEA's  Big Read Initiative. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. about Lower Eastside Girls Club
a visual interpretation of Emily Dickinson's nature poems in artworks by Cindy Ruskin
chashama Times Square Art Space, 112 West 44th Street
cindy@cindyruskin.com | www.cindyruskin.com
www.girlsclub.org (between Broadway & Sixth Ave. / Subway: 1,2,3,B,D,F,N,Q,R,V,W to 42nd St., 7 & shuttle to Times Square. Bus: M104, M42 to Sixth Ave., M5, M6, M7 to 43rd St.)
Emily Dickinson's Garden of Verses
a visual interpretation of Emily Dickinson's nature poems in artworks by Cindy Ruskin and members of the Lower Eastside Girls Club
December 23, 2009 - January 6, 2010
Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri, 3-7p (except New Year's Day)
cindy@cindyruskin.com | www.cindyruskin.com | www.girlsclub.org
Ruskin created small oil paintings to reflect the intimacy of Dickinson's work, exploring the relationship between paint and the written word. Like Dickinson's poetry, the paintings use a concrete form to capture fleeting images, abstract ideas, and intangible emotions. To create Emily's  poetry garden, Ruskin ran mixed media art workshops at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. The five- to ten-year-old girls made  Emily and Me paper dolls, poetry posies, birdhouses, butterflies, flowers, and drawings inspired by Dickinson's poems. The teenage girls made accordion books based on poems, using pressed flowers as illustrations.
Ruskin will be working in the chashama space, cutting poems into paper that will be assembled into the kind of white dress that Dickenson wore during much of her life. Visitors are welcome to talk with the artist as she creates the dress on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (except New Year's Day) from 3PM to 7PM. On Tuesday, January 5th, at 4:30 PM, the Lower Eastside Girls Club will visit the chashama space to sing some Dickinson poems set to music, and Ruskin will host an Emily Dickinson tea party. The young artists will bring the  flower dolls that they made in Ruskin's workshop.
The complete installation will celebrate Emily Dickinson as both writer and gardener, showcasing the innovative vision of the 19th century Massachusetts poet who is still inspiring Ruskin and the young girls on the Lower East Side. details Cindy Ruskin's work has been shown since the late 1980s in California and New York. Recently she won Second Place at the Pen And Brush show, In Your Dreams, and her work was included in the East Village Invitational at Umbrella Arts Gallery. She had a solo exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery in 2006 to benefit the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Sudan.
After growing up in South Africa, and getting an undergraduate degree in art history from Harvard, Ruskin studied painting at the San Francisco Art Academy and the Art Students League in New York.
Ruskin is passionate about bringing art programs to the children of low-income families in New York City. Since 1999, Ruskin has run art classes at the Andrew Glover Youth Program, an alternative-to-prison program for juvenile offenders. She is the art director of the Lower East Side Kids Art Bike Parade. As a consultant to Artworks, a Learning Leaders program, Ruskin created the curriculum for guided tours of the Brooklyn Museum -- and updated the Met tours -- for public elementary school students. Ruskin's art classes at the Lower Eastside Girls Club have culminated in several shows and installations: Cindy and the Cinderellas (2008), Biker Chicks (2008), Park(ing Day) and Parking Day redux (2008) and Phenomenal Art/Phenomenal Women (2007). about CINDY RUSKIN The Lower Eastside Girls Club, based at 56 East 1st Street in Manhattan, is dedicated to providing a place where girls and young women 8-23 can grow, learn, have fun, and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world. By delivering strong and innovative arts, athletic, cultural, life-skills and career oriented programming, the club provides girls with the vision to plan -- and the tools to build -- their future.
On December 10th, 2009, the Lower Eastside Girls Club celebrated Emily Dickinson's birthday by student readings of over 1000 Emily Dickinson poems at multiple schools throughout the Lower East Side. The event culminated in a staged reading of select Emily Dickinson poetry by youth and special guest poets, such as Bob Holman and PoezThePoet, at the Bowery Poetry Club.
All the Lower Eastside Girls Club Emily Dickinson events are part of the NEA's  Big Read Initiative. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. about Lower Eastside Girls Club
