A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get Arts Council DYCP funding to develop the writing side of my practice. Some of my previous installations had included text. Fast forward and I now can't stop writing! This drawer of my morning pages has given birth to many a poem! I hope to feel brave enough to share some of them soon!
Art and Text – a good marriage?
In Wind there is Time, Installation, Rufford Abbey Country Park
As a visual artist and writer, I sometimes get torn between expressing my ideas in visual form or, text form. So, I am constantly exploring ways to bring the two together; to see how words can enhance the meaning of my visual pieces and how images can bring another dimension to my poetry. Part of me wants the two to always be happily married together but, I realise that they can also be sometimes better just living apart. I don’t want their alliance to ever feel forced or arranged.
I’m conscious that I need to let them walk their own paths, side by side, in parallel and only bring them together when it feels that the amalgamation benefits both.
Written language within visual art has the power to block, to channel or to enable thought or emotion. It can be a bridge to be crossed or a barrier. Perhaps though, it can never be simply neutral?
It can seem as if visual interpretations fall within a deeper and wider sensory spectrum than that of words. But then I eat those words as soon as I have said them as I also know that words (woven well) can be incredibly powerful, wide-ranging, and descriptive.
I guess it all comes down to weaving, to matchmaking, to sensing when the two want to live in harmony or when they need to thrive by being independent.
I like the way artist Sol LeWitt put it….
“Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally”.
Sol was a multi-disciplinary artist who produced over 50 artist’s books.
I have returned to working with artist’s books, exploring how the format can provide the platform for my images, concepts, and words to grow happily ever after!
Witnessing Words
My world of words has just grown larger and richer thanks to the insightful and exceptional poetry teachings of poet Sarah Wescott.
This exciting journey with the written word continues and each step seems to be cementing a deeper connection with poetry.
“Poems can bear witness to the deep-soul moments.” Sarah Westcott.
I have learnt to pay more attention to what I hear, that poetry can take on all shapes and sizes and that it really can be as true and as authentic of an expression as visual art.
Language can be connector, facilitator, soother, uniter, conveyor, and transporter.
And ultimately, “all writing is a collaboration with yourself”. Sarah Westcott.
Poetry is giving me the ears to hear myself, to listen out for mother nature.
Between the Words
I have written short poems before and they often play a part in my installations. This week though, I have been reading about Haiku to work out if I need that kind of structure for the words that seem to come out at random, to see if Haiku and me are are a good match!
In Jane Reichold’s fabulous book - Writing and Enjoying Haiku, A Hands-on Guide, she writes . . .
“Poetry is what happens between the words. Words are like signposters or waymarker that allow the reader to follow the steps the author’s mind has taken to come to a poetic idea. Vision is seeing, and in seeing we recognise the thing which is portrayed in a new way…in poetry we do use pictures, but we demand that the reader supply them…….Haiku show the reader the things along the path the author’s mind has travelled.”
“Haiku are written from experience. You are not the author of haiku, they are gifts given to you …. they come through you but are not yours.”
It seems then that creating Haiku has a lot in common with the process of making visual art. I will have a go and see where it takes me!
