Nadine Boughton was a multi-disciplinary artist steeped in the iconography of the feminine, in particular of mothering, the word taken in its broadest possible sense. Mothering, for her, included more than actual birthing, namely nurturing life and self-nurturance. She was a lifelong searcher, asking questions about who she was and was becoming at different stages of her life.
As a poet and writer, Nadine drew from a well of deep wonder and fascination about the world and her own body, its physical transformations across life and its continuous birthing of new life even when not bearing children, fully aware of beauty as well as suffering whose polarity she made a focus of her art making.
As a poet with deep roots in her practice as a healer, teacher, psychotherapist, doula, and coach, as well as an internationally acclaimed collagist working with software as well as scissors, Nadine left behind two collections of poetry: (1) In the Lap of Night and (2) Fifteen Sonnets, as well as nearly 200 unpublished poems written since 1990 that still await editing and publication.
Outside of poetry, Nadine left three unpublished manuscripts (to be published in the future), such as: (a) a thesis entitled Dancing the Stillness, (b) a manuscript entitled Meditations on Birthing and (c) a Memoir entitled Where I Come From, as well as fifty years of diaries.
For Nadine’s visual art, go to www.nadineboughton.com.
Otto Laske is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work comprises poetry, musical compositions, visual art, and scholarly writings.
For him as a bilingual poet born in Central Europe who started a new life in North America at age thirty, a central theme is the forging of identity through the crucible of displacement and loss of home, regardless of whether the home is a cultural or personal one. In his work, this theme is inseparable from a deep connection with nature as a holding force that stands outside of the vicissitudes of history.
As a bilingual poet writing in English and German, Otto fuses in his work the 20th century traditions of European and American poetry, speaking with a voice that is transnational, intergenerational, invested in historical memory as well as philosophical inquiry, often focusing on the limits of language itself.
Laske’s poetry so far comprises six collections:
(1) Soundings (Tönungen in German), (2) Tremblings, (3) Unheard Harmonies, (4) Karman Poems, (5) Prose Poems, and (6) Edge Work: Conversations with Absence.
A selection of poems from titles (1) to (4) appeared under the title Silesian Language Smithy in 2022 at Frieling Verlag, Berlin, Germany (ISBN 9 783828037290)
For a comprehensive look of Otto’s artistic work, go to www.ottolaske.com; for his visual artwork to www.saatchiart.com
