drum roll please!

Last year's edition of Chokecherries: a SOMOS Anthology now sports this shiny gold sticker! As editor, I'm popping my buttons! Thanks to cover photographer Gus Foster and designer Lesley Cox - (my photographs are way below par -I  couldn't wait for tomorrow morning's light!).

And while basking in this glory, the new edition arrived! It has an Agnes Martin biomorphic painting on the front cover. We're pretty excited since early next year will see the centennial celebration of her birth and the Harwood Museum is planning a month of events surrounding it.

There's a story that goes along with the back cover - two paintings that are actually one!

Sometime in the 1950s, Agnes Martin was getting rid of her "old" work as she was about to embark on the minimalist work that she is so well known for. She was throwing away an unfinished painting done on masonite when fellow artist, Beatrice Mandelman came into the studio and asked for one of the throwaways - presumably to reuse it for her own work. But instead of painting over the unfinished work, Bea painted on the other side and left Agnes's piece intact on the back! It's a good story and with the help of the Harwood Museum we located the painting at the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York. The book's interior is strewn with old photos of the Taos Moderns photographed by Mildred Tolbert in the 50's and 60's. The visuals only enhance the amazing poetry, memoir, and fiction within the book's pages. It's an outstanding gathering of talent.

I don't use this blog to sell stuff, but if anyone out there is interested, copies can be purchased directly from SOMOS at somos@somostaos.org (575-758-0081). SOMOS is a non-profit literary arts organization that has managed to survive with grants, sales, donations, general generosity, in a rollercoaster ride through 25 years of economic changes! For more information about them, check out www. somostaos.org.

Meanwhile, as you're doing that, I'm breaking out the chilled bottle of (common, but bubbly) Andre Brut that Ron just happened to have purchased while I was away.