2021 is the first year that Artisan Gallery and Broome County Arts Council participated in the International Slow Art Day. Hosted on April 12, the gallery’s exhibition, 2nd Annual Spring Flower Show, and mini-show by Scott Yurko, The Fierce and Fantastic Flower, provided opportunities for visitors to spend minutes looking at their favorite pieces.

The average person spends about 15 seconds looking at an artwork before moving onto the next one in an exhibition. Slow Art Day is designed to have visitors slow down and sit with the piece, for minutes and up to an hour or two at a time. This is to grow a deeper understanding and connection with the piece that may have not been there with just a polite glance during the walkthrough of an exhibition.

Artisan Gallery visitors were encouraged to write a piece of creative writing based on the work(s) that they slowly looked at. Below are some submissions from visitors to the show in the spirit of Slow Art Day:

Solitude
by Anonymous

Growing here alone,
Hoping someone will find me.
What is my purpose?

Source of Inspiration: Dylan Cooper’s piece (yellow flower by rusted wheel)
On Cape
by Laura Sacco

Swallowed by Falmouth, enveloped in the choppy low tide.
Inhaling the clean breeze, the cornflower- colored
hydrangeas in plenty, gobbling up the front
of houses and walks.
The peaks of the shingled and weather- worn
houses pierce the cotton candy skies as the sun says good night
and kisses the ripples in the slow water.
Consumed by the fresh, the slow pace, the sticky sea air.
Hungry for the unique, the homemade, the can’t find
it anywhere else so you have to get it at the elbow, on the island.
Until next summer.

Source of Inspiration: Pam Foley’s piece
Mangold’s Irises
by Anonymous

I think its all about the blues,
at first:
The comfort and lure of soft twilights
The drag down to earth
Damp, teaming soil –
Noisy lines of unseen ecosystems
Churning beneath the obvious.
But I lie in sun now
Stretch my breath across the meadow
Vault into wide ocean sky
Settle back in the wind
Returning to the whisper of trees.
I separate from all, powering
forth with the energy of a
lone, ethereal moth.
Choosing,
My Path,
With curiosity and intent.

Source of inspiration: Mangold’s Irises by Scott Yurko