Keeping Company: A Painter and Three Poets

  • A black and white abstract work of art. White stripes are stained with black splashes—it is unclear if this is an intentionally blurred photograph or a painting.

    Patrick Surgalski, The One Coming Closer (from the Series "The Hudson Valley Painters"), 2000; Etching, 4 1/2" x 6". 

    Patrick Surgalski, associate professor of printmaking and drawing in the School of Art and Design at San Jose State University, has collaborated, and kept company, with a number of distinguished poets—including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Nils Peterson, and Robert Bly over the last several years. The lithographs and etchings that Surgalski creates juxtapose a poem with the artist’s own images on a single sheet on paper.

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