words on the side of the road as in the Shaker “Wayside Pulpit” words found in advertisements as in the work of Corita Kent words about to be printed at Melanie Mowinski’s studio words printed, read, used, perused aptly, just begin
plants as prints as watercolors as thoughts as sky as poetry
.
‘Verbal creation, he [Seamus Heaney] writes,
is an archaeological dig,
“a dig for finds that end up being plants.” ‘
From Elaine Scarry’s book, Dreaming by the Book
and Heaney's book Feeling Into Words: Selected Prose 1968-78Caretaker Farm CSA flowers and summer ‘dahlia series’
plant inks and gouache on dahlia mono print
“Painting is a form of poetry
Colors are words
Their reflections rhythms.
The completed painting,
a completed poem.”
Sonia Delaunay
[from Kunst Please podcast
9.20.2021]
Substitute ‘painting’ for?
stitching
natural dyeing
………..
Images from ‘Sonia Delaunay’ catalogue from Tate exhibition 2015
Postcard from ‘Sonia Delaunay: Living Art’ Bard Graduate Center 2024
is just blue, or azure sky blue?
red or scarlet poppy red?
pink or carnation pink?
In her 1898 book,
“The Use of Color in the Verse of
English Romantic Poets,” Alice Edwards Pratt
delves deep into the poets
“descriptive, discriminative, dramatic, aesthetic”
words of color
such as—
“pinky-silver’
“autumnal leaf like-red”
“purple-hectic”
“rose-ensanquined ivory”
and charts each poet’s color
by terms for--
“mountains and hills”
“sky, cloud and air”
“deep waters”
Happily I found Pratt whilst reading
Nicholas Gaskill’s essay, ‘Language and Psychology’
in the ‘A Cultural History of Color:
In the Age of Industry’
edited by Alexandra Loske.
.
in celebration of
dandelions
dickinson
poetry month
pollinators
…………………………….
The Dandelion’s pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass,
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas—
The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower,—
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o’er.
………………..
Dickinson wrote this poem as a letter to her friend Mrs. Edward Tuckerman and included an additional line, “Vinne told me.”
Celebrating Harvard University Press new edition The Letters of Emily Dickinson edited by Cristianne Miller and Domhnall Miller.
Dickinson’s letter to Tuckerman is in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA)
seeing writing editing
typing cutting sewing
prototyping a chapbook
as a maker, it always helps
to bind a book
hold it in one's hand
consider next steps.
Thanks to Holly Wren Spaulding & Poetry Forge
for the recently completed course,
A Body of Work, where we took snippets
and ponderings and made them into poetry.
this morning’s poetry prompt
from Heather McKay Young
pick a color & I chose
‘purple.violet.iris.mauve.’
on my morning walk,
I found myself on the purple trail
by happenstance
by coincidence
by necessity
by unknown choice
by poetry
March 21 is International Colour day.
March 22 is World Poetry day & World Pigment Day.
I’ll be reading a bit of poetry on 22 March (12:50pm EST) for the Slade School of Arts,
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium VI, 21st - 22nd March 2024.
A cross and inter-disciplinary two-day virtual event held by the Slade School of Fine Art, in celebration of International Colour Day, World Poetry Day and World Pigment Day. T
The symposium hosts a range of speakers representing the arts and humanities, science, and industry, drawing upon knowledge from within and outside of the UCL community.
yesterday’s bright studio light,
catching color out of the corner of my eye.
preparing for DFZ Gartside discussion
reading poetry for the Slade Colour & Poetry symposium
mapping out a poetry manuscript with Poetry Forge
colour or color
no matter how you spell it
connects the dots
Mother Ann Lee
29 February 1736 — 8 September 1784
Cosmic feminist karma
Inspired when first in,
When women invited in.
A broadsheet to marketh the course, to report.
Lace repurposed, given new life, liberties,
infused with psychedelic indigo.
A spectrum instructed with solemnity
Occasionally, light flickers.
Mother Ann Lee embodied cosmic feminist karma
bringing a new religion into the worldf
ounded on principles so radical that they endured persecutions
One could say her broadsheet was verbal;
she being illiterate to written words
yet literate in all realms cosmic
.
The written Testimonies of her contemporary believers
and works of the later visionists-scribes themselves of hearts and leaves
and maps and flowers and trees--
scripted scrolls brought down from spirits’ energies spoke to her cosmic energy.
Stone Prison
How can I but love my dear faithful children
Who’re willing to bear and suffer with me
When I was on earth and in a cold prison, I cry’d
To my God to remember me
I prayed to God to protect my dear children,
To strengthen the weak and comfort the strong
For I was distressed and in a stone prison,
And none but my God to protect me from harm.
—excerpt from ‘meetinghouse’ -- spoken word by Brece Honeycutt & Shaker song/Stone Prison sung by Miriam Cantor Stone. performed at Shaker Heritage Society for Moonbow #6, July 29 2023.
.
