Taking center stage in the felt and fiber exhibit was a shrouded human-size figure, death wrapped in yellow — the color of butter and bees — but called Chrysalis to imply resilience
resilience in the face of everything
OMG, the everything we face sometimes feels like death — its foul smell invading even the simple pleasures
it’s hard to ignore the crises in woods that are dying it’s hard to ignore the crises in the violence of a Sunday drive it’s hard to ignore the crises when even my favorite characters are battling hate and headlines
every thing of the injustice
I long for the days when my favorite characters could just fall off ferry boats and have sex in on-call rooms.
When their soundtrack was mine on a Sunday drive that didn’t require white knuckles and a prayer.
When the woods were lush and fertile, the promise of the butterfly born from the Chrysalis, color and light and HOPE.
It makes you want to lie down, wrap covers around your tired body, and sleep a deep and dreamless sleep,
because these days even the dreams are pockmarked and ravaged
and you wake gasping for breath, the bile of it all burning your throat,
a burn that nothing will assuage…except the last Jiffy corn muffin dripping with butter and drizzled with honey,
a final gift from the bees, who swoop and swarm en masse, before leaving for good.
If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif
A Gift Subscription to MANIFEST (zine) is a one-of-a-kind gift idea for the holidays!
It’s like sending a mini art installation that features interesting images and creative rabbit holes, quotes, poetry, a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies to discover along the way. Gift subscriptions cost $25.00 include a custom holiday greeting/gift acknowledgement and four printed issues of MANIFEST (zine) starting with our upcoming winter issue, Great & Small.
Visit our Etsy Shop to order individual issues as gifts or stocking stuffers. Each costs $8.00, which includes some cool extras and shipping. (Each Etsy listing includes a sneak preview video.)
Perfect for the book lover in your life, consider giving a book from Three Chairs Publishing. Each comes signed by the author with a few creative extras.
Looking for a festive shopping experience? Then be sure to visit the Holiday Expo at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford). You’ll find many of our Three Chairs Publishing creations on display, along with ceramics, pottery, glass, jewelry, homewares, fiber art, ornaments, accessories, toys, specialty foods, stationery, leather goods and more. More than 200 American artists, makers and designers are featured in this year’s event. Click here for more information.
Thank you for your support!
Just like shopping local during the holidays, shopping at Three Chairs Publishing’s online shop has ripple effects. Your purchases help to support the women-owned printing company that prints our books, the locally-owned print shops that print our marketing materials, and the U.S. Postal Service which reliably delivers our products to your doorstep. You also help the self-employed editors, proofreaders, typesetters, artists, and tech support folks who help turn my ideas into things I can put into your hands to enjoy.
For all of that, and your continued support of my creative work, thank you. Happy Holidays! — JEN PAYNE
It’s definitely BIGGER ON THE INSIDE, but you’ll have to see Sarah Zar’s solo exhibit Guilford Art Center for yourself. This awesome photo is just a hint at what you’ll find. (Photo by Ashley Seneco, GAC Programs Assistant and Visitor Services)
Jen Payne, friend Laura Noe, and Maureen Belden, Executive Director of Guilford Art Center. (Photo by SeaneenThorpe)
Guilford Art Center (Guilford, CT) is currently hosting a tale of two stories about connections made across the world wide web, and together they weave a story of lost histories and creative bravery.
On Valentine’s weekend, Guilford Art Center hosted a fun and electric book signing for local author Jen Payne’s new book Water Under the Bridge. Told through a series of emails, it’s about two former loves who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts and futures. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story…sort of.
And while premise itself is intriguing, it’s the stunning cover design that first captures your imagination. The image, called Hurricane Woman, was painted by Sarah Zar, a New York-based multi-disciplinary artist. Jen and Sarah connected through their Etsy shops back in 2019.
But the story doesn’t end there.
When the time came to launch the book, Jen saw a great opportunity to weave the common threads — cover art and artist, artist and art center. And so it was that the salon-style exhibit BIGGER ON THE INSIDE found a home in the Center’s lobby gallery.
Sarah’s paintings, often executed in low-lit, moody colors, are filled with bizarre figures, interacting or inhabiting solitary scenes with other unnatural presences, absences, and transpositions. She paints on old book pages and found remnants, preferring the polished texture of things with lost histories. In any medium — painted or three-dimensional — Sarah’s works are often figurative and a bit fabulist. She thinks of her objects as love letters to the unconscious minds of strangers.
On view through April 16, all of the work is for sale and outlined in a full-color price list available in The Shop at Guilford Art Center. Also for sale are copies of Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story, signed artist prints of the Hurricane Woman cover art, joy bottles, lover’s eye necklaces, postcards, and signed copies of Sarah’s art book, Riddled With Spots, a popular item at the MoMA gift shop.
A steady stream of guests filled the Art Center with enthusiasm on Saturday, February 12, including Victoria Ferrell of the Guilford Courier who featured her photographs in this Meet the Author feature.
SCENES FROM THE DAY
Sarah Zar’s solo exhibit BIGGER ON THE INSIDE, on view at Guilford Art Center through April 16.
Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story is on sale at The Shop at Guilford Art Center.
The book signing event on February 12 was full of joy…so are Sarah Zar’s “Joy Bottles” on sale at The Shop.
Book Signing guests enjoyed gift bags filled with goodies including La Colombe coffee and donuts from Pastry Fusion in North Branford.
The Shop at Guilford Art Center has a wide selection of contemporary handcrafted work by American artisans…
…including books, zines, and postcards created by Jen Payne…
…and a featured selection of work by artist Sarah Zar.
SPECIAL THANKS…
This event could not have happened if it weren’t for the enthusiasm, good work, and warm welcome from the staff at Guilford Art Center: Elena Albergo, Maureen Belden, John Bohannan, Ashley Seneco, Suzanne Hens-Kaplan, DeeDee Hakun, Lisa Ste. Marie, and Lisa Wolkow.
With special thanks to Sue Singleton, GAC Programs Assistant and Visitor Services, who greeted and assisted the many visitors in The Shop during the event.
And to Shoreline Times editor Sue Braden for her excellent feature article about the book and the event! Click on the photo read it now.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) is available at The Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
Saturday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. BOOK SIGNING & ART EXHIBIT at Guilford Art Center 411 Church Street, Guilford, CT
• Book Signing with writer Jen Payne • “Bigger on the Inside,” exhibit by artist Sarah Zar • Free and open to the community
Connecticut writer Jen Payne has long been inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points — and her new book WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY tells of such a moment. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Told through a series of emails, WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is the story of two people who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts…and futures.
She thought about him often over the years. Looked him up online occasionally to see where he was and if he was all right. It wasn’t until last fall that she found his email address, and several months more before she got up the courage to write.
Influenced by the work of Brené Brown and a proponent of the bravery of storytelling, Payne says WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is “about having the courage to speak our truths; it’s about trust and vulnerability, and about the true blessings found when we open our hearts — come what may.”
What followed surprised her even more…
Please note, masks are required, regardless of vaccination status, please see current COVID protocols. Snow date: Saturday, February 19.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) will be available at the Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
Her specially curated exhibit will be on view in the GAC lobby throughout February.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer… If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! come in!
— Shel Silverstein
Indeed, if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a magic bean buyer…then you must visit THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center. It’s truly one of the most unique shopping destinations, offering a selection of contemporary American crafts and jewelry handmade by local artists and others from across the country. You’ll find works in glass, metal, ceramics, wood, fiber, paper, toys and much more.
Much more…like copies of MANIFEST (zine)!
I’m excited to say that MANIFEST (zine) can now be purchased at THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center, along with copies of my books and postcards. Check it out!
No matter what we think
or how it feels,
we don’t really break break,
even our break downs
imply eventual turn ups.
Oh sure, we bend a little,
(bend over backwards, too)
fold under pressure sometimes
lean into the pain
collapse with exhaustion
appear to come apart at the seams
and yet…
And yet.
Upon this holy ground of spirit
there is still room to breathe,
we are not damaged, we are flexible
we are not falling apart, we are rebuilding
we are not broken or undone.
By the very fibers of our being,
we are strength and grace
unyielding.
randomactsofwriting.net 