Lori Brack to Give Reading for Salina Art Center First Friday

“Post Script” Video & Essay Revisit Family’s Farmstead

Salina, Kan (October 29, 2019). Local writer and poet Lori Brack will read from her essay “Post Script” at the Salina Art Center on November 1, 6 pm as part of First Friday 5-7 pm in downtown Salina. Along with photographs and a temporary film installation by her son Christopher Riley, Brack’s essay marks All Soul’s Day by revisiting the ruins of her family’s Barton County, KS, homestead where her mother was born 94 years ago.

“The reading and projected images seek to give breath and sight to how we are haunted by our forebears.” Brack said

She explained that her essay is not so much remembering as seeking to find and understand her mother and her grandfather, who claimed and farmed the small piece of land early in the 20th century and left a daily farmers journal he wrote for more than a decade on that piece of land.

Excerpt: “The house is a crumpled toy, a giant child’s plaything stomped and cracked open, left in dirt and air. A green pine grows straight up, branches over the rubble of the burned, then fallen house.”

In this part of the country we notice the unoccupied homesteads fading and sagging in farm fields and along country roads and many of us wonder about the families that once lived there, or recall our own family versions that still haunt us. Come share Brack’s journey home with her sister and son on First Friday at the Salina Art Center. The exhibitions Tracing Watersheds and Departures will also be open in the galleries.

First Friday events are always FREE. Everyone is welcome. You do not need to be an Art Center member to attend.