TAWA Presents Trenton Making

Several prominent artists linked to the City of Trenton will share new work and reflect on what can enhance the region’s cultural life on Saturday, March 27, 2010, at Ellarlsie, The Trenton City Museum in Cadwalader Park in Trenton, NJ.


The event, entitled “Trenton Making,” is part of the annual Spring Forward activities, presented by the Trenton Artists Workshop Association in association with Co/Works.


Participating in the event scheduled between 11 AM and 3 PM are playwright and screenplay writer William Mastrosimone, poet Yusef Komunyakaa, and visual artist Mel Leipzig.


Trenton native William Mastrosimone is the author of the plays “Extremities,” “The Woolgatherer,” “Afghan Women,” and “Bang Bang You’re Dead”; the films “With Honors” and “The Beast”; and the several television mini series, including “Into the West” and a biography of Frank Sinatra. He will be led in a discussion by Trenton based professional theater director and past artistic director of George Street Playhouse Maureen Heffernan.


Trenton resident Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of several books of poems, including “Warhorses; Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part 1”; “Pleasure Dome: New & Collected Poems, 1975-1999”; “Talking Dirty to the Gods” ; “Thieves of Paradise”; and “Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989,” for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; and “Magic City.” The writer will be joined by other regionally based poets representing regional publications such as “Ragged Sky Press” and “The Trenton Review,’ including nationally known poet Doc Long, poet and editor Ellen Foos, poet and acclaimed translator Jean Hollander, Carlos Hernández Peña, and others.


Trenton based visual artist Mel Leipzig’s work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Jersey City Museum; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick; The University of Pennsylvania, Architecture Archives; Springville Museum of Art, Springville, UT; The New Jersey State Museum, Trenton; The Cooper - Hewitt Museum for Decorative Arts, New York; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair; Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; The White House Collection, Washington, DC. On this day the artist will give the area unveiling of his five panel painting of celebrated Princeton based architect Michael Graves. The artist will be interviewed by museum curator and Trenton resident Helen Shannon.

The event is designed to focus attention to Trenton’s role of being an ongoing home for artists and a place for creativity.

Programs are free and held at Ellarslie, The Trenton City Museum in Cadwalader Park, Trenton, NJ.

More info will be posted on the TAWA Web site.