PoArtry is normally a collaboration project between poets and visual artists culminating in an exhibition of art inspired art. It works by randomly pairing willing participants and then letting them loose for 3 months to inspire and create. The only rule is that each pairing must produce two new pieces of work; one new artwork from an existing poem and one new poem from an existing artwork. Outside of this rule, the gloves are off! But in these days of social isolation, PoArtry has taken itself on-line to try and raise money for freelance poets and artists affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.

PoArtry is the brainchild of Rick Sanders, a Stourbridge based poet, artist and maker. He was enthused by working with other artists and poets on various collaborations and wanted to see what would happen when two art forms were bought together with enough time and space to create new works. The results so far have been amazing.

The project is now in its 4th year and Rick was lucky enough to squeeze in this year’s exhibition in February at the Newhampton Arts Centre (NAC) in Wolverhampton, before the country went into lock down. Rick says “It was always my intention for PoArtry to be a pop- up project, appearing in a different location each time, so that the poets and the artists are always new. That said, I do get repeat participants, who seem unable to stop themselves from taking part!”

PoArtry started at the ArtYard in Cradley Heath, a community art space on Reddall Hill Road. At the time, it was a gallery and studio space for local artists and has since become just a gallery and event space. Rick’s friend Warren McCabe Smith was using a studio space there and Rick wanted to write in response to Warren’s work. “At the time,” says Rick, “I was drawn to Warren’s work and as a comic poet, I found a lot of humour in his art. Then I thought, why should I keep this to myself and decided to open up the project to as many poets and artists that wanted to take part. I had about 14 people who wanted to have a go and we exhibited in the ArtYard. The rest is history!”.

Today, PoArtry attracts a great many creatives to the shared project. In Wolverhampton over 50 artists and poets took part, meaning there was a lot of organisation involved in the curation and invigilating of the exhibition.

“I am always lucky to find a great bunch of people to help out” says Rick. “This time around I worked with the Wolverhampton Society of Artists to help me curate the space. One of their members, Jacky Fellows, was the driving force behind bringing PoArtry to Wolves. She came to see the last exhibition I had at General Office in Stourbridge and she was so taken with the idea of the collaboration between artists and poets, that she suggested having one at NAC as soon as I was ready. It is vital to have someone who is very hands-on with the local artists as it really helps bring the show together and Jacky has been just that person”.

If you want to see the what PoArtry on-line looks like, then sign up as a subscriber here: - https://www.patreon.com/PoArtry  You don’t have to stay as a subscriber indefinitely (although that would be great if you did!); if you just want to make a donation then sign up for as long as you like to really make a difference – thank you. Enjoy the art poetry mash ups…