May Art Events

 

With spring and summer comes the second half of my art year. Each year I sit down and plan out all of the art shows that I want to enter. Local galleries, state and county fairs, and outdoor art events provide ample opportunities. This gives me a progressive way to accomplish more art and pick up good challenges that are available. I always have a ton of ideas floating around in my head and hanging out on scraps of paper, but these challenges really push me to explore new ideas and methods. 

The Cottonwood Center for the Arts had a challenge I accepted and for which three pieces were juried in and will be showing throughout the month of June.  

SELF STARTER

OPENING reception | JUNE 6 | 5PM - 8PM

 

The selfie has become a part of our culture that means different things for different living generations in our society. It can be an exercise in narcissism, ironically indifferent, politically poignant, or even just plain candid. For this call, we ask artists to start with a smart-phone-generated self portrait. This digital image will be the launching point for a work of art that expresses their relationship with the world, however they define that real or virtual space.

  

The three pieces that were accepted are based on a Lyft selfie I took recently and printed on my copy machine: Lyft #1 Animal Head surrounded by several wild animals (which I love to represent in art), Lyft #2 Color Head done entirely with neon crayons, and Lyft #3 Book Head completed with a black Sharpie. It was very engaging to explore these specific world-relationships. 

 

 

© M.R.Hyde 2025 

 

I think I've done three self-portraits in my life, the first being a college assignment to represent myself with an inanimate object ("She's a Good Egg" was also my first oil painting that still hangs in my home), the second a pen & ink and watercolor that was destroyed, and the third "Wild Horse Dreams" completed in 2022 based off of a non-selfie photograph of me as a child on vacation. These have not been the unflinching life-time self portraits like Rembrandt's, but it's been fun. Perhaps I'll do more.

 

© M.R.Hyde 2022

Artwork from my Gnarled series of drawings with acrylic ink can be viewed at Manitou Art Center as well.

Thanks for enjoying and supporting the arts! 

 

How About Some Poetry on Civil Rights?

 Here are a few selections from The Reluctant Poet.

Black Face – A Lament

How can I plead youth’s ignorance
Through innocence?
Thirteen of two thousand,
That’s all there were.

And I, with grease paint,
Feigning empathy,
Lead to the bowels of the theatre.

Why was I not offended
Resisting the sponge pressing
Centuries of black face on mine
So that Tituba’s story
Could be retold
In a tiny theatre
On a privileged white campus?

Why could not her story be told
In white face?
I am torn now
How do I make amends?
How do I repent?
How do I let justice roll
Down like a river?

My crucible
Has been too long in coming.

Forgive me. 

Pinned

They have pinned their hopes on me—
Pinned me to the thin table of their expectations.
I have hovered too long, my shadow falling on their taut linen.

Their dreams have impaled me and carefully place me
Into a shallow, windowed box You did not design,
Where the light of their insufficient glow
Falls on the muted shades of unusable, and muted wings.

This You did not desire.
Nor do I.

I have tried to find my way
And the Way I have found is in You.
Their ways are not Your ways
As my ways are not Yours.

Thanks be to God!

I no longer have regard for their crestfallen faces,
Their languishing looks
Their disbelief that You could, You would
Lead me onto a different path that can be
    Equally or more effective for You,
    Equally or more obedient to You,
    Ultimately the Way of humility and joy.

So I wrestle off of that pin
My blood dripping down its spine.
I lift the glass with my ploughed back
And fall into Your wonderful Light.
    Your Light that graciously illumines,
    Your Light that powerfully transforms,
    Ultimately, the Light of Salvation for all.

Free me to fly into Your expectations and hopes,
Your dreams for me and all the dear ones.
Truly, others can lay plans for me.
But, You know the Way
And I will walk in it.

Let Me Lay It Down

Let me lay it down
This white and fairest skin.
The epidermis that has
Dominated so very many.
Please let me lay it down.

Let me lay it down
The fathers’ sins are hard to bear.
Those sins they press against
The temples of my head.
Oh, let me lay it down.

Let me lay it down.
Not because I despise it,
Nor because I refute it,
But because I see how in history it has been used.
So, please let me lay it down.

Let me lay it down.
I do not intend toward conquest.
I do not plan oppression.
I do not desire dominion.
So, please, please let me lay it down.

Let me lay it down,
That strange fruit of Billy’s,
That shackle, that chain
The whip and that pain!
Oh, do let me lay it down.

Let me lay it down,
Not to forget it or refuse it,
But to move to newness,
To find,
    With you
The lovingkindness.
I want to lay it down.

Let me lay it down
And if you lay yours down, too
Perhaps we can come to terms
Can come to images of the new
As we all lay it down together.

 

© M.R.Hyde 2025

 

April Art & Poetry

 

It's a busy month in April with several events and shows!

Cottonwood Center for the Arts Friday, April 5, 5-8 pm be one of the first to see my latest work in this juried exhibition for the month of April featuring works in response to an open call to the public: OMISSION.

Negative space in a work of art is the space around and between the focus of the piece. That space has a form. For this call, we asked artists to create works that celebrate the value and import of negative space, to examine quiet empty elements and elevate them to primary subject matter.

 

It's National Poetry Month! Art Aloud 2025 celebrates this in live written works readings and artwork by local artists and poets. Art Aloud is featured at four locations throughout this month. My work will be shown with poems I wrote related to each piece and you can hear me read poetry at these specific locations and times.

 

Saturday April 5, 1-3 pm Sand Creek Library

Tuesday, April 15, 5:30-8 pm Rico's Cafe

Friday, April 18, 4-7 pm Academy Art and Frame Company

Saturday, April 19, 3-5 pm Platte Collections

 

New artwork can be viewed at Manitou Art Center as well.

 

Enjoy these spring arts events!

 

 

 

March Art & Poetry

 

ART

I was privileged to be invited to submit to the Purple Colorado show at Cottonwood Center for the Arts. I was then delighted when two pieces were accepted. This invitational exhibition is for the month of March. Purple Colorado asked creatives for artwork exploring Colorado on a micro level - depicting flora and fauna that are native and unique to the Colorado Rocky Mountains as the primary subject matter. I am exited to see what the other artists depict. 

Come experience this exhibit and enjoy two floors of open studios + galleries this First Friday, March 7, from 5-8 pm, and all month during normal business hours.

I have other artwork still is on view at the Manitou Art Center's First Amendment Gallery and the Academy Art and Frame Company gallery in Colorado Springs. 

POETRY

Pikes Peak State College Creative Writing Program and Latino Alliance present Spring Reading 2025: The Nearby Universe, Students, Faculty, and Colorado Poet Laureate Bobby LeFebre.

March 20, 2025

The Student/Faculty/Nearby Universe Reading group will be reading and there is an open mic from 6-7 pm. Finally, from 7-8 pm, Bobby LeFebre takes the stage! 

Join us at the Downtown Studio West Campus!

22 N. Sierra Madre Street

Colorado Springs, CO 

I will be reading some from my new poetry books and they will be available for purchase. 

Looking forward to seeing any of you at these art-full events and locations!

M.R. Hyde

 

 

February Art

 

I sat down recently and planned out my submissions for local art. It promises to be a full year of new challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned for new postings about where to see more.

This month I will have new pieces showing at the Manitou Art Center's First Amendment Gallery and the Academy Art and Frame Company gallery in Colorado Springs. 

There will also be a few public readings of poetry coming in the next few months. I will post those closer to the time of the events. 

Here's to a great February for everyone!

M.R. Hyde

January Art & Poetry

 

I recently renewed my membership with the Manitou Art Center and am looking forward to participating in future shows as well as taking classes there. The Manitou Art Center's First Amendment Gallery continues through February 1. Two of my pieces are there, with one new one titled "Juvenile Jackdaw (England)". 

 

Academy Art and Frame Company gallery in Colorado Springs has a 20% off of everything sale through January 31! My Gnarled series is still there along with the very eclectic artists represented.  Consider the gift of art for Christmas.

Don't forget about the poetry collections now available at Lulu.com and other fine retailers.