The Porcupine's Quill
Celebrating forty years on the Main Street
of Erin Village, Wellington County
WELCOME
A project that asks what happens when you take
the traditional artistic process and turn it on its head …
The book sculpture that houses Fabulous Fictions.
The Fabulous Fictions is a multifaceted artistic and literary project that began when poet Leon Rooke wrote poetic text to accompany a series of paintings by artist Tony Calzetta. The collaboration was turned into an elaborate and complex artist’s book, strikingly rendered in bold, bright colours and three dimensions. The next step is turning the narrative poems into a script for theatrical performance, along with sets based on Calzetta’s artwork and correspondingly creative sound and light design. As well, the poems and paintings will be reconfigured into an affordable trade book.
Political satire, economics, sex and marriage, aging, art and artists.
They include Cézanne, an Italian aristocrat, a vulgar Scotswoman, a bank manager, an art critic, a fairy godfather … and God himself.
Satirical, irreverent, playful, provocative. Unlike anything you’ve ever seen or heard before.
‘What a fabulous vision: dystopic, generative, monstrous and mutable. Leon Rooke and Tony Calzetta have made something unique inside the frame of their combined word pictures. They are at once director, actor, set designer, writer and painter. They have made the stage, and have given it form and language. As I say it, the whole enterprise sounds godly.’
—Robert Enright
Want to see how we took the original drawings from the page to the stage? Read about the Genealogy of Snoop's Skiff »
Read on: About the Project »
The Porcupine's Quill would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) is also gratefully acknowledged.
