Poetry and Photographs The Saint John’s Bible and Contemplative Landscape

A photographer and a poet get into a car. No, it’s not the start of a joke. It’s the start of a remarkable collaboration between Teresa Neptune and Miriam Sagan. Together, the pair drove all over New Mexico, checking out places like the Very Large Array, Pie Town, the Valley of Fires, Tent Rocks, Ojo Caliente and more. One of them captured visual memories. The other wrote them down, elegantly, beautifully.

On Friday, July 13, at 6 pm, Neptune (the photographer) and Sagan (the poet) will share some of what happened during their “Road Trips to the Moon” collaboration in the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium. This free event is part of the programming series for Contemplative Landscape and Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible.

Neptune, whose photographs of the Upaya Zen Center are part of Contemplative Landscape, notes that those shots came about during the duo’s final road trip. “The unique thing about the project is that we created the photographs and poems on site, simultaneously, and we will be showing some of the photographs and reading some of the poems,” she said.

How creativity melds with collaboration is just one of the topics the two will explore, said Sagan, the author of more than 20 books, including the recent poetry collection Map of the Lost (University of New Mexico Press).  She has been a writer-in-residence at Everglades National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Lannan Foundation’s Marfa Residence, THE Land/An Art Site, and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. She founded and directs the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. Sagan has been a columnist for New Mexico Magazine, the Albuquerque Journal, The New Mexican, and Writer's Digest. Her blog covers local literary and visual arts, and publishes dozens of writers; check it out by clicking here.

Neptune first picked up a camera as a teenager in Paris learning the basics of black-and-white photography and taking to the streets to capture Paris on film. In 2005 she was awarded the Willard Van Dyke Grant. Her photographs are in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts; New Mexico History Museum; State of New Mexico – Art in Public Places Program; Historic Santa Fe Foundation, and more. Her photography has been praised in Camera Arts, B&W Magazine, The New York Times, the Chicago Sun Times and other publications. She has a studio and gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To see Neptune’s website, click here.

Download high-resolution versions of Neptune's images from Contemplative Landscape by clicking on "Go to related images," below.