Art & Poetry Calendar for 2015 by Sharon Giles

For the last five years I have created an art calendar annually that is professionally printed by LuLu.com. It’s mainly for my personal use for gifts to family and friends, but you can also purchase it online for $20 plus shipping. I’m including a couple of images here, but you can view a snapshot online for free.

This year’s images include prize-winning artwork, like “It’s a Step to the Left”, “Reaching for the Moon”, “Escape from Schroedinger’s Box”, and “Cat Dance”. Most of the work reflects my continued fascination in working with the Gelli Plate to produce monoprints in acrylic and watercolor. But there’s also acrylic, collage, Suminagashi and watercolor.

The two images I’m showing are both collages with a hand shape, derived from tracing my own hand. The blue one is made from collage papers created by me using a Gelli Plate. The one below uses hand-marbled papers that I purchased, along with old book paper.

Since 2014 I have added my poetry to the images on the calendar. For some reason a couple of years ago I felt impelled to start writing poetry again — something I hadn’t done since I was a teenager. This year’s calendar includes a couple of poems from that era. I feel a little anxious about publishing my poetry, since it feels so personal.