I got to do a fun thing today...

I was interviewed at the local National Public Radio station for 

"Lenny's Place with Lenny Lambert"  

It is always fun and challenging to talk about Poetry Art over the radio 

because it is an audio medium 

and my art is SO VISUAL!  For all the northern Arizona listeners, this interview is going to be broadcast this Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. on KJZA 89.5 fm (in partnership with KJazz Phoenix) 

Give it a listen, if you can!

-Launa

Nice article in today's paper:

Prescott Valley Tribune

Poetry Art: Prescott Valley woman's words make up the picture

http://www.pvtrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&subsectionID=404&articleID=50280

+ click to enlarge Launa Stan reads her poem that makes up a replica of the U.S. flag. She presented the print to the student council at Glassford Hill Middle School where she presented her story and artwork earlier this year. Trib Photo/Sue Tone

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Calling her poetry the "soul of her work," Launa Stan wraps her words into intricate pieces of artwork that look like paintings from afar, but need a close-up look to see that words and only words are what make up the figures and landscapes.

Stan brought her paintings and her story to Glassford Hill Middle School this past month where students listened to her presentation, then filed past the stage to intently examine the lettering that makes up the tiniest strand of hair and the larger shadow areas of the pictures.

Stan said she knew from the moment she picked up a crayon as a child that she wanted to create art. What made her early life difficult were the feelings of insignificance that she carried into adulthood.

Stan's father had convinced her as a 5-year-old child, when her parents divorced, that she had no value. 

"If you have supportive, loving parents, you are blessed," she said to the middle-school students.

Stan spent many days and nights with her grandmother, who surrounded the girl with storybooks at night after tucking her into bed. She learned to read herself to sleep.

By the time Stan reached middle school, she was writing stories and poetry in notebooks, and collected "special words" that she wrote in her Word Books. When the library in her small town closed and its books were headed to the dump, Stan's mother brought them all home in boxes.

"They made a 12-foot high mountain of books. It was beyond exciting - I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," the artist said.

In her junior year, a history teacher had the class write a 3-5 page paper based on a small photograph of a man peering out between bars in communist Russia. Stan wrote about a poor, hungry girl who stole some bread, got caught and went to jail. It was 15 pages long and she found she loved the experience of creating the character and story. 

The teacher said she had a gift for writing, and made copies of the story for everyone in the class. 

"Never before had a teacher ever encouraged me or said I was good at something," Stan said.

Coincidentally, years later she received an invitation to speak at a juvenile detention center in Russia, where a 15-year-old girl stood up and told her story - it was identical to the story Stan had written as a teen.

The Prescott Valley artist sells much of her original work and prints to benefit children and families through an organization she co-founded with her husband called Global Impact (www.globalimpactworldrelief.org). The organization aids those who have experienced trauma from war, famine, extreme poverty, disease and natural disasters. 

Through the organization, the couple has helped people in Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, and those in foreign countries including Kosovo, Turkey, Ethiopia, Zambia, India and Afghanistan.

GHMS student council members accepted one of Stan's prints called Red, White and Blue, on behalf of the school. Students said they found Stan's story and her artwork amazing. Language arts teachers later assigned students a similar project using poetry and art.