Fellow interfaith practitioner, island neighbor, spiritual poet extraordinaire, and – best of all – friend, Emily decided last spring to write a few poems that she paired with my visual creative work. We’re thrilled to be collaborating in this way, and we’ve continued into 2024. We want to share our work with you again.
This is our fifth pairing. What’s different about this one is that I based my creative piece on Emily’s poem. (Last year’s collaborations began with Emily selecting my collages and using them as inspiration for herpoetry.)
Wonderfully, our pairing will be shown as part of “Ars Poetica” 2024. This annual, regional juried art show hosts selected poets whose pieces are then “visually interpreted” by local artists. The resultant poems and art pieces are hung in local galleries with which the artists are affiliated. I chose Emily’s poem.
This is my first time having a creative work hung in a show. (I think my artist mama would’ve been proud.) The opening is on April 5th (4:30-6:00 PM) and our particular collaboration will be hung at Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN) where I am a longtime member, and once- or twice-yearly instructor in two of their studios: Writing and Book Arts.
If you're local, please join us at the opening next week. We'd love to see you there.
And… by the way, I’m still going strong on the #the100dayproject; today marks Day 61. I’ve worked hard this week with daily edits on my manuscript as well as continued to draft an oil pastel landscape every day.
By EmilyJane Mockett
Who paints the edges of green
Licked with mornings
Marine layer misty white
Who colors the edges of green
Dipped with mornings
Forest penetrating first light
Who washes the centers of green
Cleaned with Summer evenings
Chilled crisp condensing
Who strokes the centers of green
Soaked with Winter evenings
Deepening understanding
With morning tints or evening inks
Who paints the edges of our days?
Who colors the centers of our nights?
With evening hues or morning glaze?
Not for whitewashing,
Who paints for truth & clarity?
Not for greenwashing,
Who colors for the Earth & equanimity?
Please color me clean,
Each day a new start
Please paint my dreams—
Everywhere Life is Art!
Here is the collage I created, inspired by Emily’s poem.
