I wish every book I read had this consideration for surface

and if I have my own press someday, my books will have it.

Someone posted a link to this interview with Anne Carson. It's a few years old but it parts of it refer to what I assume is Nox.


Photo by Tony Cenicola

In surfaces, perfection is less interesting. For instance, a page with a poem on it is less attractive than a page with a poem on it and some tea stains. Because the tea stains add a bit of history. It’s a historical attitude. After all, texts of ancient Greeks come to us in wreckage and I admire that, the combination of layers of time that you have when looking at a papyrus that was produced in the third century BC and then copied and then wrapped around a mummy for a couple hundred years and then discovered and put in a museum and pieced together by nine different gentlemen and put back in the museum and brought out again and photographed and put in a book. All those layers add up to more and more life. You can approximate that in your own life. Stains on clothing.

Thinking a lot about texture lately--both on surfaces and in text.

workin

Minor home improvments, summer projects

As the semester picks up speed, I say goodbye to Summer--trips to the quarry, gsw placement, little fun projects. With my final few days, I learned to use my friend's sewing machine and made some throw pillows. I stretched extra fabric in embroidery hoops and filled the long empty frame on my wall. I think Winnie shows off my efforts well, no?





Some glimpses of a few things I've been working on for my forthcoming shop...




Summer, you were lovely (if a bit hasty in your departure).

Overlap

The semester has already started. The wind talks like it is the only voice with answers and it promises that fall is coming. I go through old sketchbooks and notebooks and attempt to stir up new ideas. I etch images too deep and learn to appreciate the bite they retain after scraping, sanding. There are new daily rituals (they are often disregarded--I am not tough enough on myself): gluing cutouts onto paper, tracing lines that reach, taping my progress on the walls, for now not worrying about answers. The poems I have written here stack up; I try to trace connections, feel for gaps. I say yes, yes, yes, and occasionally no. Over-think. Admire patterns. Fill in calendar squares, and always lists.

Tonight, collecting artists, cataloging their marks, thinking about my own.

Betsy Walton:


High Five In the Rain

Jessica Bell:




Assembly Objects, 1-9

Diana Behl:



better than weather

There are more too. I'm still trying to find my way back into working visually again--trying to regain the momentum that usually overtook me a few weeks into the semester during undergrad, but this time trying to hold that outside the constraints school offers. Searching for bridges between text and image. Wondering what it could or should look like for me.

souvenirs

This summer has been quick and busy with friends moving, reading essays, and making crafts. But I'm thankful for the visits Ian and I made to Northern Michigan. I'm preparing to open an online shop soon (hopefully within the next month or so--some pics later) and in just a week I'm excited to return to the print studio and see what happens. I'm already having trouble sleeping at night, my mind moving too fast to settle down quickly. This week is all about finishing projects, reading, and relaxing. You've been good, Summer!

Art Without Compromise*

I'm only about 30 pages in to Wendy Richmond's book Art Without Compromise*, but just as a friend promised, I've found something on every page which I find myself nodding to, wanting to underline, or even tack on my wall. On page three in the chapter "Cultivating Creativity" Richmond writes:

Here's how I define a successful day in the studio. I arrive with some vague concept of what I want to create. I begin to work and find that the materials have a different plan for me, and I take my cues from them. each step evolves from the previous one, and I am surprised as I work. By the time I leave, I have made something very different from what I had expected.

Isn't this art at its best?

Richmond portrays a sensitivity and awareness of her own process, as well as habits she's cultivated that might benefit others. Comprised of short essays, AWC* encourages the reader to rededicate herself to her craft and process, to allow it to present new opportunities and shirk rigidity.

My artist friends will find her suggestion to create a visual reflection notebook very useful. Many of us do some form of this already in our sketchbooks, but what she recommends is taking photocopies of a span of your work (say over years or even decades) and recompiling it in a book without an intentional order, letting new juxtapositions surprise you. She often leaves pages for commenting and allows new connections to form, and recognizes ones there that she might have overlooked. This would be useful for any type of creative process, not just visual. As much as we like to think we change, I think it's also helpful for us to see the ways we don't change so that we can strengthen those tendencies into something more useful and powerful.

Richmond also emphasizes an awareness of one's own time and the need to track our cultural and historical lineage in relation to our own work. This is something I tend to shy away from, but perhaps we can't help respond to what we see and what's going on around us, even if we think we aren't doing so. I'd like to be able to do this more intentionally, though I'm not sure what that might look like.

Reading this book has me itching to get back into the printmaking studio, where my process is much more intuitive and successful. I can take in a few sketches and they will be transformed by the etching of copper or the blocking of a stencil. The printmaking studio moves me beyond my own vision of things into something more. Sometimes it is a big failure, but when it's not, it's that much more rewarding.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about what I can do in my studio (i.e. second bedroom/storage space). It's been difficult for me to think CONCEPT since finishing art school, and the nice thing about collage is that it can offer up meaning to the maker as much as the viewer. Helping my sister a couple weeks ago with an installation, I was able to allow my intuition to guide my hand much more than I do in my own work. I might allow intuition more into my visual work and see where it takes me. (I find I am able to do this more with my writing--perhaps because it is still new to me and I have no choice but to discover as I go.) Sometimes, the things I enjoy most are just vessels for another persons ideas--the journals I am making now for example, which just involve selecting recycled paper and a visually interesting cover. Or, I might hang a series of things on the wall in my studio to stir my own imagination, but the arrangement has an art all its own.

New Media

Though this quote pertains to comics, I think it holds true for other mediums as well:

Comics can tell any kind of story. They're infinitely flexible. Comics will never disappear. New media do not replace existing media. "New" forms free up existing forms, allowing them to do more interesting, less commercially driven things (emphasis mine).

Bill Griffith has a great list of tips for comics. It's always interesting to read about craft in any form. You can check it out here (found via the MCA illustration blog, full of great tips and techniques).

We've all heard a lot about the death of print publishing, but I think this is an exciting time. There are a lot of great small presses out there that show us how relevant print can still be. Effing Press prints beautiful books that are as much art objects as they are great literature. I think any press that values its authors and honors the text will still entertain an active readership. People enjoy a break from computer screens sometimes (at least I do!), but especially if they can read something that couldn't be read in the same way in an electronic format. These mediums can and should have distinctions. I'd also love to see more electronic outlets embrace the potential of their publishing format. I'm curious to know of any journals (or presses?) that do this. It seems that when I come across any hypertext poetry, it is often independently hosted (I admit I am not well versed in this area), but this would be a great addition for lit journals looking to do something more.

treasure

Recently, writer Michael Kimball visited BGSU for a Q&A and reading. (I just finished reading Dear Everybody yesterday, which I adored.) During his Q&A, Kimball talked about an ongoing project in which he writes a person's life story on a postcard. He mentioned how the whole project started as a joke, but then took on a life of its own.

Similarly, in an interview on the KR Blog, Lily Hoang talks about her forthcoming collection Unfinished, which began when she and a friend exchanged abandoned/unfinished stories. Hoang desired to expand the idea from something centering around the idea of play, asking writer friends to send her their "trash" that she in turn worked into something more whole.

The idea as a commodity is interesting to me--there are so many ideas of my own I've abandoned, but Hoang mentions how easy it was for her to continue these starts. Perhaps we should all make a habit of passing on some of our trash. As the saying goes...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

P.S. One of my poems is featured in this month's issue of elimae. Please check it out and let me know what you think! My friend Matt Bell was kind enough to post about it on his blog. Thanks, Matt! Be sure to check out all of the goodies available on his website, and read some of his great stories.

During Spring break, I had some time to work on a little art. I bought these three wooden dishes last summer, and have had plans for them that I am only now carrying out. These are just in the beginning stages. You can't tell from the pictures, but these are actually concave. I haven't started on the third, and I'll probably wait until the direction of these two is clearer. I really like the wood grain and don't want to obstruct it too much, so I am still trying to find a good balance. When finished, they will reflect an imagined narrative of the fractal Sierpinski Sieve (I think).



She is a little further along, though she has a ways yet to go.



The graphite I used created a bit of a glare for this one.

A Nod

My friend Hannah has a wonderful blog called Good Books. She recently blogged about one of my artist books "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep." You can check it out here Make sure to check out the rest of her blog too!

She is currently working on a cassette tape package for the band Panther Piss. I love the vintage colouring mixed with an edgier feel.



I'm excited to see what else Hannah churns out with her newly purchased letterpress! Thanks for the post, Hannah!

I love Spring Break

Today I adhered red-paper-circle-punches to wood painted with gouache. I wrote three poems. I read some too. I walked lots, I drank coffee, I played with a puppy and kitties. Today was a good day.

poem project: day 7

One hazard of posting a poem in progress might be the tendency for a writer to feel that once something is "published" even in such a minor space, the poem's direction has become more set, and the prospect of revision somewhat narrowed.

For me, this process has actually heightened my discernment. It is scary putting something out there in which you already know certain words will change, lines will be cut. It's not that these are filler words though; they need to be there to, at the very least, act as scaffolding; their replacement is not always immediately available. The awareness of an audience has tempted me to add notes such as "yes, I know I've used that word" or "that's clunky, but I need it right now..." because it's hard to put your awkward adolescent little poem-things out there without some apology. But I think immediacy is key for projects like this. In fact, it became almost necessary to type the second draft (after the initial scrawl in a notebook) directly into the body of the email I sent to my collaborators. The first day I wrote several options, small revisions of the versions that came before. Then I had to accept that this was a first draft, and I needed to allow for the possibility first impulses can offer. It's too early to be editing or over-thinking.

Each day I relied less on the starting image. I was not writing an ekphrastic poem and the poem told its own way. I'm already looking forward to the changes I will make, what I will cut, hone.

So, the results of the seven-day project (last section freshly written):

1.

The arrow of time does
not run parallel to the ground.
Only the change in our bodies
can mark a trajectory,
and I can't guess at the order or arrangement
of the atoms that composes us:
an inscription that lists all possible expansion.

2.

I will place myself right in the middle,
my body like a hot missile
mottled from the aftermath of violence.
I can't translate the markings
but my fingers can understand
how a pillar might blush
for the horizon.

3.

Today our slow steps pock the ground's incline,
small hieroglyphics that taper as our feet slow.
You kneel and make a tent
with your arms. Let this shelter suffice
as a marker for when the night divides
our flesh,when we sing desert songs
and gather debris for our only possessions.

4.

To fold in brambles close to chests is to trust
the expression of slope written out
in graphite, on cellophane--
to weatherproof a map's certainty.
I have made a diagram of this sharp roadside brush,
created a new taxonomy
for this unlabeled territory.

5.

This is done with an upturn
of palms, the spread of hands.
The names aren't spoken, instead recorded
with a stick in the sand.
The whole journey is written here--

wind erases and it is time again
to move.

6.

Location folds into motion:
remember only variance
in brightness, or some particular
shadow. Keep small bits
of polished wood or
a brightly colored rock. Keep
them to stand in, to--

7.

Just keep record:
proof that defies
time
even as it marks.
Catalog all sentiments
with an ear
for light, for permanence.

Poem Project . . .

So it seems that the evidence of process somewhat diminishes when you are under a time crunch. Ergo, my silence on this blog the last few days. Tomorrow is the last day, so I'll post some notebook scribbles/word banks/indecisions as well as all seven sections typed up.

In the mean time, I discovered this interesting article over on BBC News. In describing the various stages of list making, Jane O'Brien notes "the extraordinary sense of satisfaction from having created a rigid timetable of impossible tasks that has taken a disproportionate amount of time and thought.
It doesn't matter that I will never look at it again." I am happily guilty of list-making, and I too rarely look again after a list has been made. Sometimes, I have to make a list to calm my mind down enough to sleep; if I know that I have written it down for tomorrow, I can stop thinking about it today.

Any other list-makers out there? I know some of you...

Poem Project: Day 2 (Take Two)

I have to admit that despite my interest in the poem as process, I feel quite anxious posting this today. My thought process is made translucent, but so are my lapses in judgment, my misgivings, my uncertainties, my mistakes.

I have 2 sets of 7 lines to write for today. I have five sets written to choose from. I may choose a couple from this set as the first set and write second sets in response to those. Numbering the lines before writing is an interesting way to write, and the following sets gain momentum from what came before them. With the first set, the words in brackets were taken from the first word bank and arbitrarily plopped into the lines before I actually filled them with the rest of the word. It wasn't altogether successful, so I didn't finish the second line, but I did use what I wrote there to guide the writing of the second set.


It's hard to write without a specific idea in mind, so a lot of this was just trying to discover what I wanted to pursue, using the image as a point of departure. I imagine that after writing all 7 sections, I may decide to reorder to allow for new narratives to form and go from there.

I think I will not actually post the typed sections here until the 7th day. I'll probably make another word bank today, and perhaps write another set in response to that. So much in selection.

Text

fig. 1: Response to the beginning of an essay about Caroline Bergvall by Nathan Brown

fig. 2: poem

Poem Project and Marginalia

A few friends and I are participating in a writing challenge. 7 lines per day, 7 days, 1 poem. As a way to focus the poems, we are all choosing an image from which we can cull a word-bank. I've decided to draw new words from the image every day of the challenge, as I learn to see it more clearly. This first day my word bank points to the recording of shapes, marks, images, but not the idea of the thing.



My image is by Matthew Barney, a drawing with vinyl, graphite, and petroleum jelly in a self-lubricating frame (I have seen this in person and I am still not sure what that means or does). The image is titled "TRANSEXUALIS incline (manual)." I love the use of caps, italics, and parenthesis in the title. Though I think it relates more to the installation it would help shape, I like thinking of the text itself and how such an economical title can still incorporate such particular facets of punctuation and (type setting?).

As I start this seven day project, I think I will use this space to record the residuals of the process here: the actual word banks, the bank itself with the words cut out, to see if it amounts to anything. (For the poem or other projects or my own amusement.)

words removed

day 1 word bank

Collaborative writing prompts allow for access to writing that writers scarcely allow. We share the initial writing, the moments before polishing. The raw sketch of it. I have always been interested in the idea that writers are so protective of and private about their process, whereas artists in other fields may not be. It is perfectly acceptable for an artist to include initial sketches as part of a greater exhibition (as Matthew Barney did for the show this drawing appears in, All in the Present Must Be Transformed). If a visual artist can exhibit this vulnerability, and appreciate that the spark of the idea is as noble as the polished and transformed things, can writers do the same? What about a reading that consists of all the various drafts of a piece (get on this, Kenneth Goldsmith), encompassing both minor changes and complete re-visions?

Maybe I ought to share all of it here--not just the residuals as I previously mentioned, but the initial text too, perhaps handwritten with words crossed out or erased, lines struck through and added in--an experiment to see what it can amount to.

So keep the day job...

Enjoyed this post on etsy about being creative in an everyday working environment. Summer Pierre maintains that you can have an everyday job and enjoy it too. I'm not sure what I'll do when I am done here at BGSU, but I know that as long as I can be creative, I will feel content. Though I am not sure if I am made for those 9-5 shifts...

to free up the hand

Today I wanted to hold words, slice them free from their origin, let them act as material. I have a new Moleskine with comic panels that I decided would be perfect for small daily "acts of liberation" (as the artist Nancy Spero describes appropriation in a segment of the Protest episode of Art:21). Collage has a unique immediacy and physicality that makes quick trysts of making so exhilarating. Using limited means such as paper scraps, photo copies, and only scotch tape for adhesion creates constraints that have the ability to surprise. Collage is gritty and oh so satisfying.

lapse-idasical

Next to my desk I keep a printout of Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Today I am especially feeling #11 Harvest ideas, #22 Make your own tools, #25 Don't clean your desk, and #42 Remember. I am trying to make something of my desk space.

I keep accumulating images, patterns, bits of paper--things to make my desk a happier place (so maybe more writing and making will happen here?). I've been admiring Lisa Congdon's new adventure: Collection a Day, 2010.



I especially enjoy samples like these that are drawn, perhaps imagined. Most of my imagined collections are written out: jars, vessels, glances, lists of things to do or build.

School starts in a few days, so I am spending time grounding myself, making simple goals in hopes that I can maintain them once I am busier. I want to return to my visual art--maybe just start with small collages here and there. I am convinced there may be a relationship between writing and walking, and I am going to try to do more of both this year. #33 Take field trips...