The idea of the Black Arts movement, poetry that was relatable in every day, but also had

a level of creativity with the use of language that I can't say I had never heard because a lot of

it was vernacular, African-American vernacular, which I knew very distinctly, but to see it and

hear it on page, it was just a different type of experience and opened up the idea what art was

and could be. And I think that was the first fissure for me to start to understand what the

potential of art was. That was Lamont Hamilton. He's an interdisciplinary artist who's interested

in exploring the things beyond our sensorial understanding. When he was young, he drew portraits

of figures that he admired, Jimmy Hendrix, Che Guevara, Malcolm X. He called it scribble art,

a term he invented to describe abstract art that the longer you look at it, the more it reveals.

Then, as he got older, he became interested in photography. But he says that his first love,

the one that he considers to be the foundation of his work, is poetry. He says that a lot of what he

does cannot easily be translated to words. It needs to be experienced and understood through our

senses. To sit with it and to meditate on it opens us up to its energies and allows ideas to gravitate

toward us. When this happens, we create a situation that nurtures a deeper conversation with the world

around us. Right now, he's in residence at the Anchorage Museum working with poets, artists,

and musicians, and developing a light and sound installation called to hear the earth before

the end of the world. It features sounds of elements, air, earth, fire, water, and ether,

and field recordings from Europe and North and South America, sounds of our changing earth.

He says that, unlike a painting, this exhibition is an experience that encounters you,

you don't encounter it, because it's going to be playing whether you're there or not.

So here he is, Lamont Hamilton.

Welcome to Chattermarks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska and

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