Toward The Wild Edge: An Apprenticeship With Sorrow features the Gyotaku prints of Molly Tenzer hung alongside poetry by JP Howard, Mason Eve, Jiwon Choi, and River Spirit. Curated by Jasmine Pierik and Molly Tenzer.

Molly's prints are made using Gyokatu, the Japanese method of applying ink directly to animals that originated among fisherman to prove the size of the fish they caught, before cameras existed. Molly handprints dead animals and insects that she finds around Brooklyn and wheat-pastes copies of the prints in the spots where she found the animals. When a friend floated the idea of Gyotaku with found animals in late 2020, it intrigued Molly. She soon found the process of putting her face up close to roadkill  was intimate and moving, a way of honoring our typically less appreciated New York inhabitants. As Pema Chodrun observes in When Things Fall Apart, in the chapter “Hopelessness and Death,” something transformative happens when we move toward what typically repels. 

Both collectively and individually, in our culture we tend to shy away from death and grieving, we are told and encouraged to focus on growth. This show asks its viewers to consider: What happens when we move closer to what repels/scares us? When we give ourselves space to feel, to grieve? As Francis Weller asks in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, could it be that when we allow our hearts to break open, we finally allow the “soul of the world” to enter? How can an “apprenticeship with sorrow” deepen our connection to the world and to ourselves?  

Join us for the opening reception and reading on November 1st, 2023 (Day of the Dead)  from 7-9 PM at Polly’s Cafe on Classon Avenue. Coffee, Tea, Hot Cider, and Wine available for donation to support Polly’s for hosting the show.