Stephen Dignazio
About
Bio
As an artist and arts administrator Stephen has worked in literature, dance, visual arts, film and music. A hallmark of his work in the public sphere, both administratively and artistically, has been a commitment to engaging and empowering local communities through the arts. His contribution to arts culture in NH has been recognized many times including in 2008 when NH Magazine designated him one of 33 “It” people in NH and in 2014 with a Governor’s Award in The Arts for Community Impact.
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Based on his experience in arts and arts administration, he was acutely aware of the need for a regional cultural center in rural New Hampshire and spearheaded the drive for a reinvigorated Colonial Theatre in Bethlehem, NH in 2000 where served as the founding Executive Director until 2022. Concurrently he pursued an avocation as a poet and artist, editing, with Stephen Ellis, the award-winning poetry magazine :that:, and collaborating with visual artist and sculptor Evan Haynes in gallery shows throughout New England and internationally.
His work addresses the history and semiotics of written language and the writing space, the interplay of word and image, and writing and context, blended with the experience of living in the North Country of NH. Examples include: writing on natural materials (e.g. leaves and wasp paper), steel and lead sheeting, found art, supermarket display art, water wheels, mail art, rubber stamps, and most recently a series of word and image on lenticular prints.
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In 1998 he was awarded a fellowship in poetry from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and in 2002 he was part of an artist team awarded one of three nationwide Art and Community Landscape Grants to involve communities through art in the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. He has been published in a wide variety of small press magazines and on-line sites and with Evan Hayes, his work was featured in Assembling Alternatives: An International Poetry Conference/Festival at The New England Center in Durham, NH and was included in the anthology Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets. Other publications include the collections For Instance (1998) and Qu At Ra In (1994).
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Education
Franconia College, BA 1975
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Grants & Awards
2002 Art & Community Landscape Grant of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Part of an artist team awarded one of three nationwide grants to involve communities through art.
1998 Fellowship in Poetry, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
Supporting grants for personal work from the NHSCA, National Poetry Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the National Park Service, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Vermont Council on the Arts and the LEF Foundation.
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Exhibitions
2023 Satellite Gallery, Lyndonville, VT
2004 Morehead State University, Morehead, KY Identity Crisis, with artist Evan Haynes
2001 Saco Museum, Saco, ME. Inspired by Saco, with artist Evan Haynes
2000 Rhombus Gallery, Burlington, VT. “Prose and Cons”, with artist Evan Haynes
1999 AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, NH. “Lit.” Writings, drawings and sculpture; Collaborations with artist Evan Haynes
1999 VI International Biennial of Experimental Poetry, University of the Southwest, Chula Vista, CA and Mexico City, Mexico, collaborations with artist Evan Haynes
1996 Assembling Alternatives: An International Poetry Conference/Festival at The New England Center in Durham, NH
Collections, Anthologies, Broadsides, Publications and on-line
Verdure #34, 2001
5 Poems and a Collaboration with Evan Haynes, Originally Vol. 2 #1 Caldron & Net, 2000
From Qu At Ra In, Light & Dust Poets
Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets, Oyster River Press,1999
Syntactics #1, 1997
6ix #5, 1997
Co-Editor with Stephen Ellis :that: 16 issues, 1992-1996
Bullhead #5, 1996
Qu At Ra In, oasii, 1995
Bullhead #3, 1995
Chain #2, 1995
Compound Eye, 1995
Qu At Ra In, oasii Broadside Series, 1994
Bullhead #2, 1994
Smelt Money, 32, 1994
For Instance, Artefact Press, 1992
Grasses/Long Breaths, PIVOT, 1988
PIVOT, 1982