Los Altos Artist Rebecca Palmer Paired With Poet in Benicia Show, "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy!"

Art and the news are far apart and in separate sections of the newspaper. They appeal to different people or to different parts of the same person.

Analytical writing and art work are (maybe) from a different part of the brain.

While art and news are separated in many ways, Ronna Leon, Poet Laureate of Benicia, hatched the idea of bringing them together in a unique way. Pairing fourteen pairs of visual artists with poets, she asked each pair to chose a news article and respond to it in a creative way.

The result: which opens Wednesday at the .

Los Altos artist Rebecca Palmer has been making art for over 25 years, most of it photographic, though she sometimes works with mixed media.

“I have long realized that I am a news junkie," Palmer said. "I first noticed this trait many years ago when I lived and worked in South East Asia.

"I discovered I could purchase the International Herald Tribune and this purchase always seemed worthwhile. I felt I could connect with the USA and Europe. Today, I find myself checking Google News often as well as reading two daily newspapers.”

She was teamed with Nils Peterson, a poet from Santa Clara, who has written a poem.

In his poem, Peterson says, “In all things of nature there is something of the
marvelous. Nature does nothing uselessly.” His verbal collage ends,
“Only the dead are disengaged.”

Palmer has exhibited her work in many venues in the San Francisco Bay area as well as California, she said.

"In 2008 the Triton Museum granted me a one-person exhibition of recent work," she said.  She has exhibited at the Silver Eye in Pittsburgh, PA and the Houston Center for Photography in Texas. She has also exhibited in Laon, France and Barcelona, Spain, she said.

Palmer says she only rarely creates using current news events.

“My series on the Iraq invasion was an exception. In general, my art addresses what Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “news of the heart.” 

Poet-Artist Pairs:

• Poet Dan Cooper of Concord with artist Jose-Luis Segura Jr. of Vallejo
• Poet Nils Peterson of Santa Clara with artist Rebecca Palmer of Los Altos
• Poet Valerie Ibarra of San Francisco with artist Rebecca Martinez of San Francisco
• Poet Jannie Dresser of Crockett with artist Freddy Camargo of Benicia
• Poet Barbara Mossberg of Pacific Grove with artist Stephanie Martin of Santa Cruz
• Poet David Starkey of Rome with artist Mehrdad Khataei of Tehran
• Poet Mary Rudge of Alameda with artist Jan Cook of Vallejo
• Poet Lois Requist of Benicia with artist A. Gaul Gulley of San Francisco
• Poet Maria Rosales of Martinez with artist d of El Cerrito
• Poet Sandra Lee Stillwell of Benicia with artist Katya Madrid of Benicia
• Poet Donna Rudolph of Benicia with artist  of Benicia
• Poet Ken McKeon of Berkeley with artist Thomas Stanton of Benicia
• Poet Joel Fallon of Benicia with artist  of Benicia
• Poet Joseph Martino of Benicia with artist  of Benicia

The show opens Wednesday, June 22 and runs through July 29. 

Some special events take place during the exhibit: the opening reception June 30 from 7-9 p.m., a symposium from 2-4 p.m. on July 16, and a poetry reading July 28 from 7-9 p.m.