Capital student poets put their work on display in a campus-wide event inspired by the work of Wassily Kandinsky. The event was held in collaboration with the Conservatory of Music’s NOW Music Festival in Schumacher gallery.
Schumacher Gallery hosted a multimedia event on Feb. 15, featuring sketches from Kandinsky’s Sketchbook. Kandinsky’s sketches are on loan from an Eastmoor resident, Edward Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky has a wide variety of Russian and European avant-garde art he received almost 30 years ago as payment for painting a basement for an Ohio State University professor.
“I think Capital University and Schumacher Gallery are making history today,” Khodorkovsky said. “I don’t know any other museum in Ohio that would have fifteen original Kandinsky’s in a room.”
The sketches were accompanied by electronic music created by student-composers. The exhibition encompassed multiple video devices throughout the entire floor of the museum space. The multimedia experience will continue throughout the spring semester.
In addition to the multimedia experience, students from Dr. Griffith’s poetry students had poems on display to accompany the Kandinsky sketches they were inspired by. Noah Fischbach, Trinity Langbein, Ayaka Machimura, Laura Jones and Megan Shoemaker all read poems they had written in the fall semester for Dr.Griffith’s class.
For many students, this was their first time getting the opportunity to read their poems outside of the classroom. Some students were even shocked they had the chance to share their work with the outside community.
“I was surprised because this was my first time reading a poem and I was really nervous,” said Laura Jones. “Hopefully Capital can do more readings like this.”
Each student got to study Kadinsky’s work and bring it to life in their own way through their poetry.
Third-year Ayaka Machimura’s poem, “Alzheimer’s,” was inspired by her personal connection to the disease. “I wanted to dedicate it to someone that’s a family friend that was special to me, that lost her father last year, and he had Alzheimer’s,” said Machimura. “He actually regained his memory in the later part of his life, through music, and he just played the piano. And that would help him regain his memory, which was really great. And I just wanted to capture that moment [in] the artwork and my poem.”
Not only did this event allow for the Capital community to come together, but students also felt it brought the Bexley community together, as well.
“This exhibit really captures the multifaceted nature of art and people, as well, because art represents people,” said Trinity Langbein. “I think it’s so interesting that something so amazing was nestled in the Bexley community and that came here from overseas. It’s just following people’s storylines and it’s really capturing them all together in a beautiful way. It shows how people mesh together, how [communities] mesh together, how they all fit together like a wonderful piece of a puzzle which in itself is a piece of art.”
The multimedia experience will continue throughout the spring semester and includes Kandinsky’s Sketchbook, student poems and student composed electronic music. The Schumacher Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
