NW’s Departments of Music, English and Art are presenting a collaborative exhibit to campus and the community. On Feb. 22, a reception will be held in the Te Paske Gallery featuring visual art displays and musical performance. The exhibit will be an opportunity to observe the creative work of faculty and students.
Dr. Samuel Martin, professor of English, wrote the sonnet the exhibit expands upon. Titled “Leah’s Longing,” Martin’s sonnet, first drafted when he was an undergraduate student, is inspired by the biblical character Leah, wife of Jacob.
“Our assignment was to use a set poetic form, like the sonnet, and to re-imagine a fairly well known Biblical story,” said Martin. “I’d always been intrigued by the fact that though Leah was the unloved wife, she and not Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, was buried in the tomb with Jacob. Rachel was buried along the road Bethlehem. So, the jilted wife wins, but only in death. So, what would Leah think of this preferential treatment after death? What would her ghost’s thoughts be?” Martin’s sonnet imagines Leah’s thoughts from the grave.
The reception for the collaborative exhibit will feature a reading by Dr. Martin of “Leah’s Longing,” supplemented by the creative interpretations of “Leah’s Longing” by students and other faculty.
Lydia Steenhoek contributed to the exhibit through visual arts.
“My main work is a pencil drawing of Leah and her six sons (pregnant with her daughter Dinah) re-imagined in a depression-era setting,” said Steenhoek.
Martin’s poem was a building block for Steenhoek.
“Dr. Martin’s poem is a stark look at Leah’s imagined feelings of loneliness and abandonment,” Steenhoek said. However, she also saw redemptive qualities in “Leah’s Longing.”
“I chose to build off Dr. Martin’s poem a bit and created a piece that addresses the hopeful part of Leah’s story as well, when she praises God for the birth of Judah instead of using her children to win Jacob’s affection,” Steenhoek said.
Other contributors include students and faculty from the music department. Mike Sandmeyer is contributing to the collaborative exhibit as a musician and composer. Sandmeyer builds on melancholy themes in “Leah’s Longing” as he prepares his vocal solo for the exhibit.
“Throughout the piece I use a lot of dissonance, mainly through the two notes of D flat and C,” Sandmeyer said, describing his artistic process. “Another idea I used is a recurrence of a descending F minor scale to keep on bringing up this idea of descent into death.”
Sandmeyer connected with the deep emotions conveyed in “Leah’s Longing,” and hopes his audience will have a similar experience.
“As a person can physically see emotions through the work of an artist, I hope my piece will audibly portray the pain and heartbreak that Leah is feeling,” said Sandmeyer.
Many of the contributions to the exhibit remain undisclosed.
“I won’t see or hear any of the creative responses until the night of the performance and exhibition,” said Martin. “I will be as shocked and surprised and, I’m sure, pleased as everyone else.”
