For Immediate Release
ART AND SCIENCE CONVERGE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
The Hermitage Artist Retreat is pleased to present a special program on Friday, December 4, in the Palm House at the Hermitage, an extension of their beach front campus, just south of the historic buildings at 6630 Manasota Key Road in Englewood. The program begins at 4:30 PM and features Essayist and Poet Alison Hawthorne Deming. The program is entitled Creating The Future: Art & Science In The Era Of Climate Change. Free parking is across from the Hermitage campus. Look for signs to the Palm House, just south of the Hermitage. Following the program, visitors are invited to stay and enjoy Mother Nature’s sunset on the Hermitage beach.
“Alison has a sensitivity and interest in environmental subjects,” remarked Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage. “We are excited about sharing those ideas and this articulate, inspiring speaker with you. This is sure to be another great night at the Hermitage Artist Retreat.”
During the program, Alison Hawthorne Deming, whose newest book is Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit, will discuss new relationships between art and science that are emerging in response to the challenge of climate change. She describes it as “how we must join the sensual texture, discernment and formal experimentation of poetry with the empiricism, particularity and analysis of science to fully elucidate a rapidly changing world.”
In addition to her most recent book is Zoologies, she is the author of three additional nonfiction books and five poetry books, most including Rope (Penguin, 2009) with Stairway to Heaven due out in 2016. She is Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in Environment and Social Justice and Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Arizona. Deming is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow.
According to Hermitage Program Director Patricia Caswell, “Writer Alison Hawthorne Deming joined me for lunch at Gerri Aaron’s home last year and riveted us with her ideas on art, science and conservation. She was a leader of The Language of Conservation, a national program created to incorporate poetry with parks and zoos and inspire transformative understandings of environmental conservation. Hearing her talk about this passionate subject through her poetry will be an event to remember.”
The Hermitage is a not-for-profit artist retreat located at 6660 Manasota Key Road in Englewood, FL. It invites accomplished painters, sculptors, writers, playwrights, poets, composers and other artists from all over the world for residencies on its beachfront historic campus. Artists are asked to contribute two services to the community during their stay and as a result, Hermitage artists touch thousands of Gulf Coast community residents with unique and inspiring programs each year. All Hermitage community programs are partially sponsored by the Women’s Exchange and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. In addition, the Hermitage awards and administers the prestigious Greenfield Prize, an annual $30,000 commission for a new work of art, rotating among three disciplines: visual art, music and drama. The Hermitage also partners with the Aspen Music Festival and School to award the annual Hermitage Prize to a composition student during the Festival. For more information about The Hermitage Artist Retreat, call 941-475-2098 or visit the website at www.HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
