NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, this month’s reading will take place over Zoom. Email christopherjluna@gmail.com by no later than 3 pm on October 8 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting. Open mic readers are invited to share one poem for three minutes or less.
If you are willing to donate to support the series, please use Christopher Luna’s PayPal account (christopherjluna@gmail.com) or contact him to make other arrangements. Include a memo stating that the money is for Ghost Town Poetry. The suggested donation is five dollars.
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Morgan Paige
Featuring Wil Gibson
7 pm
Thursday, October 8
On Zoom
$5 Suggested donation
LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST,
ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for us since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com
Wil Gibson currently lives in Humboldt County, California where the trees are big. He has had 5 collections published by kind people, and has been included in a number of anthologies and lit mags both online and in print, such as Marsh Hawk Review, Button Poetry, Midwestern Gothic, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Cascadia Rising, Collective Unrest, Yellow Chair Review and many more. He has twice been nominated for both a Pushcart and Best of the Net, and currently spearheads the Redwood Poetry Project. You can find links to books and more info at wilgibson.com
The Esther Building Art Space is located at610 Esther Street, Vancouver, WA
Open Monday through Friday 10am-3p
Two exhibitions opened at Esther Building Art Space in March: bit’s by Noah Matteucci and Luna Luna featuring the art of Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna. The expectation was that the show would open to the public for a couple months and close in May. Of course the universe had other plans. Shortly after the show opened, everything shut down. The Esther Building is now open M-F 10am to 3pm. They are open to visitors in small groups, with masks, and appropriate social distancing.
For more information about this exhibit please contact: Erin Dengerink, erincdm@gmail.com, 360-566-7808
Noah Matteucci’s colorful woodblock prints fill the first floor spaces of the Esther Building. Matteucci’s pieces are created with small interchangeable blocks of wood, carefully arranged, inked, and printed multiple times to create a rich layered image. The squares are laid out in a grid pattern, the colors appear to be gently vibrating and the shimmering. Matteucci’s art references pixels and glitches. By taking those mundane aspects of our digital life and framing them large and lovely, Matteucci draws our attention to the beauty in the intricacy of the images we consume everyday.
Luna Luna
Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna are poets, artists, partners and collaborators. At the Esther Building they are showing their mixed media photo collages of photography depicting street art. The images show chalk drawings and graffiti taken during the couple’s travels. They speak to the very human need to leave our mark in the world. Mounted on found wood, the photos have a feeling of being aged and worn. Devoid of information about where the images were taken, the photos become universal.
Exhibited alongside the photos are a selection of colleges by Chritsopher Luna that are artfully arranged and include bits of text that allude to his poetry.
Artist Bios:
Noah Matteucci is an artist and printmaker currently working in the Pacific Northwest. He makes traditional prints using algorithms that loop pixels, lines, and dots. You can find him working at WSU Vancouver as the Fine Arts Technician.
Christopher Luna is a collage artist, poet, editor, and teacher, whose visual art has been featured at Angst Gallery, North Bank Artists Gallery, and Multnomah Arts Center. His collage work can be seen on book covers for several poetry books and anthologies. Luna served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Clark County from 2013-2017. Luna has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and is the co-founder, with Toni Lumbrazo Luna, of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press for Northwest writers. He and Toni co-host the LGBTQ+ friendly, all ages and uncensored Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA, founded by Christopher in 2004. Christopher Luna’s books include Message from the Vessel in a Dream (Flowstone Press, 2018), Brutal Glints of Moonlight, and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978.
Toni Lumbrazo Luna is a poet, editor, visual artist and the author of three poetry books: Driven By Hope (Printed Matter Vancouver, 2019) Jesus Is A Gas, and Wind Wing. She is the co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, a small press which provides editing and writing coaching. Although originally from central New York, she’s made the Pacific Northwest her home for 30 years. She co-hosts the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA and serves on the Clark County Arts Commission.
The Esther Building Art Space
610 Esther Street, Vancouver Washington
The Esther Building Art Space is open to the public Monday through Friday 10am-3pm
For more information about this exhibit please contact: Erin Dengerink, erincdm@gmail.com, 360-566-7808
As you have certainly heard by now, Angst Gallery has closed. One of the best places to see art in downtown Vancouver is no more. While you may assume that the pandemic is to blame, the decision to close the gallery was made much earlier. Since Leah Jackson founded the gallery in 2009, it was an essential space for community activism, music, private events, art classes, writing workshops, and (since 2015) home to Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. In addition, she forged significant partnerships with local arts organizations including Mosaic Arts Alliance (which she helped found), Southwest Washington Watercolor Society, Inner Light Photographic Arts Society, and Dengerink Arts Supply.
Leah Jackson and Christopher Luna by Morgan Paige
While we will find another home for Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic when it becomes safe to gather in person again, we will miss Angst Gallery terribly.
Images from our final reading at Angst Gallery on March 12, 2020
featuring Mindy Nettifee
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic began at Ice Cream Renaissance in 2004, moved to Cover to Cover Books in 2007, and followed bookstore owner Mel Sanders from her original location to a new spot on St. James after the first store was damaged by fire. My wife Toni Lumbrazo Luna has co-hosted the event with me since 2007, and we recently added Ghost Town regular Morgan Paige as a co-host. We had eight great years with Cover to Cover; when the bookstore closed, there was only one place I could imagine as a suitable substitute: Angst Gallery.
There was something great about holding our monthly poetry reading in a big beautiful space that had new art every time we gathered. In fact, many of the Ghost Town Poetry regulars were among the more than 350 local artists whose work appeared in Angst Gallery shows over the years. Whenever Printed Matter Vancouver, the publishing imprint, writing coaching, and editing service Toni and I co-founded, needed a place to host an event or workshop, Leah always happily agreed.
Toni Lumbrazo Luna and LaRae Zawodny at the Book Launch for Toni’s Driven by Hope
When I first met Leah Jackson, she was the director of the Sixth Street Gallery. She was (and remains) an art dynamo and a straight talker, a quality this New Yorker has found sorely lacking in the Northwest. We became friends, and she provided me with a space for literary events including a Gertrude Stein reading, a 50th Anniversary Reading of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, and trans author Aaron Raz. She was also the first person to accept my visual art for exhibition in Vancouver.
Later, when Leah opened Angst Gallery and Niche Wine Bar, she allowed us to use both spaces for poetry and music performances, a bilingual poetry reading series, a regular poetry and jazz jam session, and poetry workshops with writers including John Sibley Williams, Dan Raphael, David Meltzer, and myself. She also suggested a coaster poetry contest. Many of the poets who won the contest had their first publication on a Niche coaster.
Leah is so active behind the scenes that many do not realize what we owe her. For example, we would not have a Vancouver Arts District without her tireless advocacy, her willingness to attend city council meetings, and her dedication to showcasing local artists in her gallery.
After 17 years of fighting to make our streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, Leah succeeded in persuading the City Council to create protected bike lanes along Columbia Street:
I was deeply honored when she proclaimed me to be the poet laureate of her two businesses as a way to acknowledge my contribution to nurturing local poets and writers. Later, when Clark County named me its first poet laureate, I felt that Leah had paved the way, and she jokingly told me that I would always be “her” poet laureate.
Vancouver’s Downtown Association honored Leah Jackson and Angst Gallery with its 2019 Van-Tastic Award
Of course, Leah isn’t going anywhere. We strongly encourage you to continue supporting her by buying food and wine from Niche Wine Bar (https://nichewinebar.com), which is open for takeout and dine-in service. In fact, Leah continues to curate art shows at the Loo-vre, Niche’s art gallery, and the bar continues to display work by several local artists.
We have no doubt that Leah will continue to contribute to our vibrant arts community in ways big and small. Nevertheless, I speak for many when I tell you that the closing of Angst Gallery is an immeasurable loss. There will be no replacing this magical and nurturing public space which has meant so much to so many in our community.
Thank you, Leah. Christopher Luna & Toni Lumbrazo Luna Co-founders of Printed Matter Vancouver Co-hosts (with Morgan Paige) of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Dave Corio removes the Angst Gallery sign he Jennifer Corio created for the business. He kindly re-installed the sign inside Niche Wine Bar next door.
For Immediate Release: Leah Jackson closes Angst Gallery after 12 years in downtown Vancouver
Contact: Leah Jackson leah.angstgallery@gmail.com nichewine@gmail.com
After 12 years of art shows, poetry readings, live music, and community events, Leah Jackson has made the decision to close Angst Gallery. The gallery has been home to the popular Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic since 2015. It has also provided a space for weddings, bike activism, private parties, writing workshops, and postcard-writing campaigns to support progressive causes. Jackson has served as a mentor to countless local artists and provided many of them an opportunity to display their work in public for the first time at Angst Gallery. The gallery has exhibited the artwork of hundreds of artists and became an essential gathering-place for the community in the Vancouver Arts District.
In a manifesto released in 2018, Leah Jackson laid out her vision for the space: “Since its opening in 2008, Angst Gallery has hosted solo and group shows featuring more than 300 local and national artists and cultural events including art shows, musical performances, book launch parties, art talks, classes, workshops, and the monthly Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. Every January we exhibit a Celebration of the Male Form. We also put out open calls for special shows such as the Door Show, The Chair Show, Petals, Myth-o-Logical, and Family Corvidae. We have partnered with local arts organizations including Dengerink Art Supply, Printed Matter Vancouver, Inner Light, Southwest Washington Watercolor Society, and Art at the Cave. Angst Gallery has also participated in downtown mainstays such as Art in the Heart, Cruise the ‘Couve, and Sip and Stroll. More than just a place to show art, Angst Gallery is also a safe space for community discussion, where all people are respected for who they are. We donate the use of the space to organizations that work for human rights and progressive social change.” Other shows of note include Women Warriors, Questionable World Leaders, and a Black History Month showcase co-curated with local artist Claudia Carter.
Jackson made the decision to close Angst Gallery before the coronavirus pandemic. She is ready to move on to a new phase of her life and focus on her second business, Niche Wine Bar, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in October.
Niche has remained open during the stay-at-home order and continues to prepare meals for takeout. On June 9, as Clark County began the slow process of reopening, Niche began taking reservations for dine-in service. Niche Wine Bar has always displayed local art. Jackson dubbed the restroom The Loo-vre, which will continue to function as a gallery with a rotating roster of local artists throughout the year. Recent shows featured the work of Toni Luimbrazo Luna and Christopher Luna, co-hosts of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and co-founders of Printed Matter Vancouver. In August and September, The Loo-vre will feature the work of Serena Van Vranken. Jackson reminds artists that everyone who comes to Niche enters The Loo-vre eventually.
Leah Jackson would like to express her deepest appreciation to the community for all the support she received from them over the past 12 years.
Here is what the Columbian had to say about Leah Jackson’s service to the art community:
NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, this month’s reading will take place over Zoom. Email christopherjluna@gmail.com by no later than 3 pm on September 10 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting. Open mic readers are invited to share one poem for three minutes or less.
The Loranger family, who have been loyal regulars since our very first reading in November 2004, recently lost their home in a fire. In lieu of a five-dollar suggested donation, we request that you donate to the Loranger’s GoFundMe page. Let’s come together as a community to help our friends in need: https://www.gofundme.com/f/jack-and-lori-loranger-fire-fund
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Morgan Paige
Featuring Brad Garber and Gina Williams
7 pm
Thursday, September 10
On Zoom
LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST,
ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for us since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com
Note: Gina Williams and Christopher Luna will also be reading with Dan Raphael for Annie Bloom’s books on September 14:
Brad Garber has degrees in biology, chemistry and law. He writes, paints, draws, photographs, hunts for mushrooms and snakes in the Great Northwest. Since 1991, he has published poetry, magazine articles, essays and weird stuff in publications including Edge Literary Journal, Pure Slush, On the Rusk Literary Journal, Sugar Mule, Third Wednesday, Barrow Street, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Five:2:One, Ginosko Journal, Vine Leaves Press, Riverfeet Press, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, and Aji Magazine. Brad was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011, 2013 & 2018.
Gina Williams is a journalist, photographer, former firefighter, and gardener. She’s a Pacific Northwest native and can often be found rambling in the Oregon Outback, volunteering at the community garden, or on assignment in a far-flung location. She lives and creates near Portland, Oregon. Her full-length collection of poetry, An Unwavering Horizon, was published by Finishing Line Press this year. Williams is a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and founder of Plein Air Poetry Northwest, a nonprofit organization supporting literary arts and environmental activism. Learn more at GinaMarieWilliams.com.
An Unwavering Horizon is available through Finishing Line Press as well as other outlets, including Portland’s Powell’s Books.
PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER 