Etchings Made at IMRC Center Featured in New Documentary “Close Apart”

Lasers in the Electronics Lab of the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center at the University of Maine help link poetry by Beatrix Gates of Brooksville, Maine, with etchings by intaglio printmaker Tim Seabrook and painter Leslie Cummins of Blue Hill, Maine. These etchings are featured in the new documentary film “Close Apart” commissioned from Blue Hill filmmaker Matt Shaw and underwritten by the Anahata Foundation.

Close Apart: Beatrix Gates, poetry, and Tim Seabrook, etchings
A suite of seven etchings by Seabrook spanning Gates’ poems
from 1973 to the present with color washes by Leslie Cummins

Prints featured in the documentary film can be purchased at https://backlightgrafika.com/

Tim Seabrook Bio
Tim Seabrook has been working in fine art intaglio printmaking for 45 years. His early exhibits began with Images 69 at Ohio’s Baldwin-Wallace College followed by The Biennial at The Cincinnati Art Museum and juried exhibits at The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Seabrook won the George Sherman Medal Award from the Society of American Graphic Artists in New York City. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at Fairfield Hall in London; Cape Split Place in Addison, Maine; and his work has been in juried shows at Maine Coast Artists in Rockport and the Barrett Art Center National Printmaking Exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY. Seabrook was selected for “Maine Printmakers 1980-2006,” curated by Bruce Brown, and the Maine Arts Commission’s “Maine Printmakers 1980-2006,” curated by Donna McNeil. In Maine, he has exhibited at The Leighton Gallery, The Turtle Gallery, and The Laughing Lion Gallery. Seabrook’s drawing and printmaking have stayed with him as a dedicated focus next to the long-term work of farming and creating 5 Star Nursery and Orchard with Leslie Cummins.

Leslie Cummins Bio
Leslie Cummins, an accomplished painter who has exhibited at Colby College and the University of Maine at Orono, has added her own color thought through the deft and sensitive touch of chromologist to CLOSE APART=Beatrix Gates, poetry, and Tim Seabrook, etchings. Cummins attended the Art Students League, Boston Museum School, Montreal Museum School, and Syracuse Art School. She helped found The Laughing Lion Gallery at Rowantrees Pottery in 1977. Cummins’ drawings and paintings have stayed with her as a dedicated focus next to the long-term work of farming and creating 5 Star Nursery and Orchard with Tim Seabrook.

Beatrix Gates Bio
Beatrix Gates has been writing and publishing for over 45 years, and her six poetry collections include Dos and Lambda Poetry Award finalist, In the Open. In 2020, Artifact Press published desire lines, a map of migration, forced and chosen. Gates’ has been a fellow at MacDowell, Monson Arts, Ucross, and the Huntington Library’s Jutzi Non-Traditional Scholar. The Poetry Northwest Interview details her path to poetry, politics, and publishing: https://www.poetrynw.org/interview-not-some-side-trip-a-conversation-with-beatrix-gates/. She shared an NEA, as librettist for The Singing Bridge, with composer Anna Dembska, premiered at the Stonington Opera House, and Witter Bynner Translation Award with Electa Arenal for Jesús Aguado’s The Poems of Vikram Babu. Widely anthologized, her poetry has appeared in bateau, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kenyon Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. Gates’ hybrid work appears in Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention (Michigan) and “For Orlando: Make Beautiful in Maine” in Scotland’s MAP. A long-time member of Goddard’s MFA faculty, she has taught literature and writing at Colby, NYU, CCNY, Maine Maritime Academy, libraries, and community centers. She serves on the Board of The Cannery (www.cannerysouthpenobscot.org) where she founded SIDELINES/ In Translation Series. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts with roots in Hancock, Maine, and lives in Brooksville, Maine. Her website is beatrixgates.org.

Acknowledgment for permission to reprint the poetry goes to the publishers:
“The Balloonist,” Shooting at Night, Granite Press East, Penobscot, Maine, 1980.
“native tongue,” native tongue, hoplaong press, 1973.
“Conversation with the Body,” IN THE OPEN, Painted Leaf Press, New York City, NY, 1998.
“23rd Street Cineplex,” IN THE OPEN, Painted Leaf Press, New York City, NY, 1998.
“Nothing to Hide,” Ten Minutes, Firm Ground Press, Old Lyme, Ct, 2006; reprint, 2014.
“Your grief my grief,” Dos, Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky, 2016.
“The Verge” published in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Windham, Maine, 2017.