February 2011

Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC, Features Works by Sean Meyers and Janice Fuller

The Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC, is presenting, This Has Been My Life All My Life, featuring a collaborative exhibition by photojournalist Sean Meyers and poet Janice Fuller, on view in the 2nd floor Delhaize Conference Room, through Mar. 17, 2012.

The display features works which pair photographs and poems based on interviewing and photographing residents at the Lutheran Home in Winston-Salem, NC.

The focus of the Lutheran Home is to provide care to their primarily indigent population, many of whom struggle with severe disabilities. Many of these residents, like many of America’s elderly, seem to feel that time has forgotten them, a sentiment they voice by saying, “This has been my life all my life,” or “I’m fixin’ to go home.”

Since most of these residents will not create art of their own, the goal of the artists for this exhibit is to create art from the residents’ words, their hands, their faces, their memories, and their dreams. Most importantly, the artists seek to remind the world that these human beings had an existence in our midst, and to honor them by naming them, giving them voice, and preserving images of the bodies they have inhabited.

Sean Meyers is a nationally recognized photographer with a talent for “capturing the moment” to convey a message beyond the mere images he presents for our reflection. Since earning his photojournalism degree from the University of Florida’s School of Journalism, he has worked for daily newspapers throughout the country. He has also served as a visiting instructor of basic, intermediate, and photojournalistic photography at Texas Tech University and digital photography at Catawba College in Salisbury.

Benedict Putu

His voice is so distant
we lean our ears
to his lips:

Mechanic. The bodies.
Trucks, yellow machines.

His hand cups a hub
or a wrench.

I ran through the field,
drove the cattle
from eating the rice.

One word we still can’t understand.
Libya? Nigeria?

His eyes go wide.
Liberia.

Meyers’ photographic knowledge and work includes digital, multimedia, and traditional film. His work has won numerous local and regional awards and has been honored by prestigious national organizations including The National Press Photographers Association and The Associated Press. His work has been exhibited at several regional galleries and has appeared in publications including Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, People Magazine, and Newsweek.

Janice Moore Fuller, Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English at Catawba College in Salisbury, is a published poet with several volumes of her own works. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her plays and libretti have been produced locally, regionally, and internationally.

Fuller has been honored for her work by the North Carolina Arts Council, the Arts and Science Council, North Carolina State University, the Southern Women’s Conference, and the Blumenthal Writers and Readers series. She received her BA from Duke University and holds her MA and Ph.D. from UNC-Greensboro. Fuller has read her poetry and taught workshops throughout the United States and Europe.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 704/636-1882 or visit (www.waterworks.org).

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