Immerse yourself: ‘Voices Inside My Head’ combines visual art, poetry, augmented reality

“Voices Inside My Head” is a new exhibit at Create Art & Tea that features artwork and augmented reality by Tad Smith and poetry by mostly local poets headed up by Larry Bourland. (Courtesy)

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“Voices Inside My Head” is a new exhibit at Create Art & Tea that features artwork and augmented reality by Tad Smith and poetry by mostly local poets headed up by Larry Bourland. (Courtesy)

Visual art, poetry and augmented reality collide in a new exhibit at Create Art & Tea.

The exhibit, “Voices Inside My Head” features paintings by artist Tad Smith (who is also manager of creative services for Ballantine Communications, which owns The Durango Herald) and poems by mostly local poets, headed up by Larry Bourland.

The exhibit officially opened last week but kicks off with an opening reception Friday at the gallery, and then is on display through Feb. 28

The two began working together after Smith, whose interests lie in all things artistic, began attending Bourland’s poetry open mics.

“Tad approached me and said, ‘I like what you’re putting together.’ It was an open mic I do once a month at Create Art & Tea, and I’m very possessive about my poets; it’s like a family. He says, ‘Hey I like what you’re putting together here; this is the project that I have, my portraits, would you be interest in wrangling some poets together for some poetry?” Bourland said. “I came across one of his portraits called ‘The Mystic,’ I fell in love with it. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what – I’ll do it.’ He goes, ‘Unfortunately, ‘The Mystic’ is not part of the program.’ So I started to walk away, and he goes, ‘OK, OK.’”

“The Mystic” had sold, and so Smith re-created it.

And, Bourland said, getting poets to participate wasn’t exactly a heavy lift: When he asked his group who would be interested, every hand flew up.

The work on the show began about six months ago, the two said, and features 43 pieces of art, including paintings and three sculptures. The exhibit also uses mirrors.

“The mirrors are very important in this because the mirror introduces the public to the exhibit, giving the public the chance to take a look at themselves and introduce them into Tad’s imagination,” Bourland said. “And then the mirror exiting is, ‘What did you learn about yourself?’”

Poet Larry Bourland, right, and artist Tad Smith have collaborated on a new multimedia exhibit, “Voices Inside My Head,” featuring poetry, augmented reality and visual art by Smith. (Courtesy)

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Poet Larry Bourland, right, and artist Tad Smith have collaborated on a new multimedia exhibit, “Voices Inside My Head,” featuring poetry, augmented reality and visual art by Smith. (Courtesy)

The fun of the show isn’t just the cool paintings and the poetry next to each. Along with those is an augmented-reality component: A QR code accompanies each painting/poem pair, and when scanned, viewers can hear the poem being read by its creator. Also, the image itself comes to life, courtesy of an hourslong process Smith does for each with a handful of Adobe programs.

Smith and Bourland have also turned the exhibit into a book, of which a limited number will be available at tonight’s reception, they said.

“The beauty of this particular project ‘Voices Inside My Head’ coming together is it’s all metaphorical in that Tad has a lot of voices in his head, but we all do. You get up in the morning and think, ‘I gotta go to work, I gotta do shopping ...’ and those are all the voices in your head,” Bourland said. “What Tad has done is he has applied the image of those voices. And what I’ve done is I’ve gathered the voices by way of poets. And what they’ve done is they’ve put their voice to the portraits, which are Tad’s voices inside his head. ... We have world-renowned poets that are involved in this, published poets, and with the book being published, all 27 poets are now published poets. What an opportunity.”

And for Smith, who hopes to take the show on the road after the exhibit closes at the end of the month, “Voices” – and art in general – should get viewers thinking and feeling and maybe even have them leave a show inspired.

“Voices Inside My Head” is a new exhibit at Create Art & Tea that features artwork and augmented reality by Tad Smith and poetry by mostly local poets headed up by Larry Bourland. (Courtesy)

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“Voices Inside My Head” is a new exhibit at Create Art & Tea that features artwork and augmented reality by Tad Smith and poetry by mostly local poets headed up by Larry Bourland. (Courtesy)

“Whenever I do my art, I try to engage the audience. I want interaction; I don’t like art tending to be so passive,” he said. “I like people to engage with the QR code, read the poem – it’s more than just a painting on the wall. ... I think everybody’s a poet; everybody’s an artist, it’s just maybe you’re not a professional or whatever, but just give it a try.”

katie@durangoherald.com