The Heavy Lifting Listening Tour aspires to offer opportunities for healing, and dreaming, through dialogue. An introduction to the project opens with a display of the artists’ book and of the experimental film, On Heavy Lifting. This is followed by a conversation between poet Theresa Whitehill and the audience in which she alternates reading her poems with an invitation for audience members to read their own work or share brief stories in response to the themes and material. These gatherings consider what might lie beyond these difficult times by creating space to name the darkness in the belief that the first stage of recovery from grief is acknowledgement.
The tour kicked off in February 2023 in Ukiah and has occurred monthly in communities impacted by the wildfires throughout northern California as far north as Seattle.
• SNOWED OUT Feb 23 7:00 Writers Read, Grace Hudson Museum Community Room, 431 S Main St, Ukiah with guest, Georgina Marie Guardado, Lake Co. Poet Laureate
• Mar 12, 2023 2:00 Caspar Shul, 15071 Caspar Rd, Caspar
• Apr 15, 2023 2:00 Coast Community Library Community Room, 225 Main St, Point Arena with guest, Sidney Regelbrugge, Mendocino Co. Youth Poet Laureate
• May 13, 2023 7:00 Starlight Lounge, Willits Community Theatre, 37 W. Van Lane, Willits
• DATE CHANGE July 8 1:00 Schoolhouse Museum, 16435 Main St, Lower Lake with guest, Georgina Marie Guardado, Lake Co. Poet Laureate
• CANCELLED Jul 16 3:00 Indexical, 1050 River St #119, Santa Cruz
• Aug 5, 2023 10:00 Pacific Textile Arts, 450 Alger St, Fort Bragg + exhibit Aug 4-31 (opening Aug 4, 5-8pm)
• Sep 10, 2023 4:00 CODEX Foundation, 1331 Seventh St, Berkeley
• Oct 8, 2023 Cascadia Poetry Festival, Spring Street Center, Seattle
• Oct 26, 2023 7:00 Writers Read, Grace Hudson Museum Community Room, 431 S Main St, Ukiah with guest, Georgina Marie Guardado, Lake Co. Poet Laureate + exhibit Oct 26-Nov 5
• Nov 11, 2023 2:00 North Bay Letterpress Arts, 925-D Gravenstein Hwy South, Sebastopol
• March 3, 2024 3:00 IAS (Institute for Arts and Sciences), 100 Panetta Ave. Santa Cruz
• March 28, 2024 2:00 EST zoom Art Libraries Society of North America POP! Conference, Pittsburgh PA (passcode WGHbg=4%)
• April 21, 2024 4:00 The White Barn, 2727 Sulphur Springs Ave, St Helena
• CANCELLED May 19, 2024 3:00 1078 Gallery, 1710 Park Ave, Chico
• Aug 24, 2024 2:00 Santa Cruz Public Library, 6121 Gushee St, Felton
For more on the entire Heavy Lifting Project, return to HEAVY LIFTING main page here.
