Harley Elliott, Hanging Loose Press author of Darkness at Each Elbow, Animals That Stand in Dreams, and The Mercy of Distance is exhibiting his Allies series at the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Salina, Kansas.
Harley Elliott began creating the series after a serious health crisis in 2014 and writes, “It’s a matter of recognizing allies more so than wanting allies. Creating some is also good because art is a process of discovery. I might discover an ally within myself that I didn’t know I had.” Elliott uses basic materials for creating each work: a 16 by 20 inch illustration board, acrylic paint, Conte crayon, inks, colored pencil, and every once in a while a non-traditional medium.
Harley Elliott with his Allies at the Salina Art Center 2016 (Photo credit: Tom Dorsey)
Elliott received his bachelor’s degree from Kansas Wesleyan University in art and English, then earned a master’s degree in painting from Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Early in his career, he worked as a book designer at Syracuse University Press from 1968-1970 and later went on to teach art as an assistant professor at Salina’s Marymount College for 13 years. After Marymount, he served as the education coordinator at the Salina Art Center for over a decade. Today he is an established Kansas visual artist and the author of 13 books.
Hanging Loose Press is still going, and hoping to do so for many years to come with your support. And so, we’re coming to you with an end of year appeal for donations. As we approach this 60th birthday, we’re mindful of our history, which is also the history of the small press movement that began in the mid-’60s.
Our mission remains steadfast: to seek out and support exciting new writers and artists, as well as the acclaimed and established. One of our achievements in recent years has been the establishment of the Founders Award, our commitment to publish a first poetry collection. We are grateful to the Russell Freedman Foundation, among other donors, for support of this prize. The next award winner is Starr Davis for her book, Affidavit.
Finally, a new (and ironic) development in the world of funding for the arts. The Literary Arts Fund, a coalition of seven charitable foundations has just announced a total of $50 million to be donated in “an unprecedented effort to dramatically boost the essential yet critically underfunded nonprofit literary arts field in the United States.” Good news, except for the ironic twist: to qualify for a grant, your “critically underfunded” operation must have an annual revenue of at least $50,000. That handily leaves out Hanging Loose Press, and so many others of our small press colleagues. Oh, well.
So here we are again, coming to you, our community, in the hope that we can continue to count on your interest and generosity.