Advent Calendar of Cards Day 17 (2011)

I remember that this was an unusually warm autumn. I felt unsettled by the shifting seasons. Thinking about the tradition of bringing in evergreens made me feel worse. I turned to flowers for comfort. I used a part of an image created from a photograph of a peony for my series of manipulated flower photos with lines from poems by Emily Dickinson. Nine of the thirty images are in my new book.

Summer Solstice 2019

The longest day Treasure the light and Carry it forward

from the series The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Artwork Inspired by Emily Dickinson Manipulated Photograph of a Peony with a line from Poem 1489 Books of the Complete Set of 30 Images Available on Etsy

Flower a Day for May-Perennial Bachelor Button

also from Olana, the estate of Frederick Church, the Hudson School painter.

And a photo from my friend Cathy's garden transformed with a line from poem 650 by Emily Dickinson

The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Artwork Inspired by the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and the Flowers of Massachusetts

Flower a Day for May-Chives

And with Emily:

Line from poem 338

Flower a Day for May-Maple

If I had to pick a color that represents spring to me, it would be the first green of the maple trees—the flowers that precede the leaves. I used a photograph of maple blossoms to create this image from The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Artwork Inspired by the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and the Flowers of Massachusetts. The line is from Poem 184.

Book Arts Tuesday-Emily Dickinson's Herbarium

To start Poetry Month, here is a link to the digitized version of the Herbarium that Emily Dickinson made circa 1839-1846. The original is in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Here's more about the Dickinson collection at Harvard. And here is a post on Poetry.org by Judith Farr, who wrote the excellent book, The Gardens of Emily Dickinson.

You can view The Wondrous Nearer Drew, my "collaboration" with the words of Emily Dickinson here.

Valentine Count Up-Sweetness

To me, there is a Valentine quality to this image which is one of my series The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Artwork Inpired by the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and the Flowers of Massachusetts. The image was created from a photograph of sedum (taken at the Whittier Home in Amesbury, MA so poetry connections abound) that has been duplicated and manipulated in Photoshop with a hand-lettered line from Poem 1717.

I haven't done much publicizing of it but I have created a book the 30 images. It would make a perfect Valentine gift for an Emily Dickinson fan or garden lover. There are copies available through my etsy shop. If you purchase the print copy, I'll also email you a pdf for viewing on a computer, tablet, or phone. And I will ship promptly for delivery in time for Valentine's Day.

The Wondrous Nearer Drew on etsy

New Book-The Wondrous Nearer Drew

Instead of my usual creation of an image for Lammas, one of the cross quarter days in the Celtic calendar—the first day of autumn, I'm celebrating the day by announcing the publication of The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Artwork Inspired by the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and the Flowers of Massachusetts which is available for purchase online through HP MagCloud. The paperback book sells for $20. which includes a free digital version. If you prefer to purchase digital only, the cost is $4.00. It does look beautiful on the ipad. You may be smarter than I am but it took me a bit to figure out that holding the ipad horizontally gives you a double page spread. You can see the pages one at a time when you hold it vertically.

Here are a few of the page spreads:

Preview and purchase the book from MagCloud

Studio Sunday-Last of the Emilys

Here is the last of the series, The Wondrous Nearer Drew: Floral Compositions Inspired by the Poetry of Emily Dickinson. There are 29 in all and I am working on putting them together in a print on demand book. News to follow soon.

Illuminations at Mass General Cancer Care

Twenty of the Emily Dickinson Series will be at part of the Illuminations Program at the Mass General Cancer Care Center from June until September. I am one of thirteen artists (Jeremy Ackman, Catherine Brentani-Stallard, Marian Christy, Roelof Daling, Larry Dunn, Susan Gaylord, Anthony George, David Maroney, Beverly Myers, Linda Ramsden, Edward Rice, Randi Siu, and Katharine "Kim" Thayer) whose work will be on display and so pleased to be there. Here is how they describe the program:

The exhibit is intended to offer enlightenment and encouragement to patients, families, staff and friends of the Cancer Center as they receive care, provide care, or accompany loved ones.

There is a reception on Tuesday, June 18 from 5:30 to 7:00 PM to which all are invited. Parking will be validated for all on the night of the opening reception. When you enter the Mass General Campus, there will be several parking choices. Any will work but the most convenient is the Yawkey Garage.

You are encouraged to sign in and grab a program upon arrival, and then check out the artwork, planning to return to the Opening Reception Space for the comments at 6pm. Each artist will have a chance to make a brief statement about their work. You are welcome to view the artwork following the remarks, keeping in mind that the waiting rooms will be closing at 7pm.

Directions

Thoughtful Thursday-Snow Thyme

I'm usually one for puns but I couldn't resist the title. I'm in the studio watching the snow come down with conflicting feelings. I can't not appreciate the beauty of the falling flakes but I also can't help thinking of the White Flower Farm catalog I looked through last night and the anticipation of bare earth, garden gloves (yes after many years of bare hands I found gloves that fit and have embraced them), and plants. This image from my Emily Dickinson series seemed just the thing to look at—the little white flowers of creeping thyme reminiscent of snow and summer and a quote reminding us that clemency and kindness are all around us.

This is part of my Emily Dickinson Series. This image was created from a photograph of chive blossoms. I was picking herbs earlier this morning. The buds are full and round and just ready to come into flower. Here is the complete poem (number 338):

I know that He exists.
Somewhere -- in Silence --
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

'Tis an instant's play.
'Tis a fond Ambush --
Just to make Bliss
Earn her own surprise!

But -- should the play
Prove piercing earnest --
Should the glee -- glaze --
In Death's -- stiff -- stare --

Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest --
Have crawled too far!

More Emily Dickinson

I just dropped off An Exquisite Reply/ Emily Dickinson 500 to the Newburyport Art Association for the Arts and Letters exhibit which opens tomorrow and runs through July 30. While I think the work stands alone, I appreciated the opportunity to also submit some written explanation. Here is what I wrote:

An Exquisite Reply is part of a series that merges the nineteenth century words of the poet Emily Dickinson with the twenty-first century technology of Photoshop. I was inspired to create these images by the richness and density of Dickinson’s language. She captures the mystery of the physical world with words that are both crystalline and ambiguous. For me her poems demonstrate an acute and empathetic awareness. They contain words to savor and hold and allow the wonder of the language to echo in the mind.

The kaleidoscopic images were created from photographs of flowers found in Dickinson’s home state of Massachusetts. The lines from the poems (collected from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson) were written with a brush pen and scanned into the computer where they were combined with the images. An Exquisite Reply is a line from Poem 500. The flower is Astrantia major which was photographed at the Cotton-Arbo Retum in Winchester, Massachusetts.


I also have three new pieces in the series which will soon go to John Raleigh for printing.

National Poetry Month/And bow to everything

To celebrate the season of rebirth and renewal, a poem from Emily Dickinson and a piece from the series with the flower that heralds spring in our garden—the scilla. In the poem she speaks of the "simple green" of grass. I've been thinking about green lately in regard to my photos of scilla. It's a lesson in the difference between what the eye and the camera see. When I look at the scilla under shrubs and trees, my eye sees predominately blue but the camera shows me blue in a carpet of green.

333

The Grass so little has to do –
A Sphere of simple Green –
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain –

And stir all day to pretty Tunes
The Breezes fetch along –
And hold the Sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything –

And thread the Dews, all night, like Pearls –
And make itself so fine
A Duchess were too common
For such a noticing –

And even when it dies – to pass
In Odors so divine –
Like Lowly spices, lain to sleep –
Or Spikenards, perishing –

And then, in Sovereign Barns to dwell –
And dream the Days away,
The Grass so little has to do
I wish I were a Hay –

National Poetry Month/Emily and I

The poems of Emily Dickinson have been a part of my art life from the beginning. I was drawn to calligraphy by both the letters and the words. I loved the tactile pleasures of pen and ink, the beauty of letter forms and the quest to write them well, and the opportunity to interact in a physical way with the writings I loved.

Emily Dickinson's poems were an inspiration from the beginning. Here are some pieces from those days with apologies for the poor quality of the images.

I returned to Emily for inspiration twenty-six years later when I was just beginning to bring lettering back into my work. I had done an installation at Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay the previous year using lines from local poet John Greenleaf Whittier.

I felt that I had a different relationship with the texts. Instead of being interested in whole poems, I was drawn to individual lines. Part of the reason was the nature of the project and the limited space of the tyvek strips. But a big part of it was what I was looking for from the poetry—not whole poems but short bits, individual lines that reflected the joy and beauty of the park.

A lengthy conversation could follow about what computers are doing to our brains, but I will limit it to saying that I think this interest of mine in lines of poetry is connected to all the time I spend on the internet. I am a grazer online. I love the way I can meander through all kinds of subject matter picking up bits and pieces. While I may not explore as many topics in the depth I used to, I find this approach offers opportunities for synthesis that I may not have noticed before.

I'm also in a different place in my work. One of the things that drew me away from calligraphy was the need to make work that was completely my own. Jenny Hunter Groat talks about the difference between originating and interpretive artists. She uses the examples from dance—the interpretive ballerina Margot Fonteyn and the originating modern dancer Martha Graham. In the way I did calligraphy, I was an interpretive artist and I wanted to be an originating one.

I found my voice through the book arts but I never stopped lettering. I made cards and addressed envelopes for friends and family, occasionally wrote out menus and made yard sale signs. It was a part of everyday life and very casual.

When I took a photo of a pieris in early spring the year after Whittier at Maudslay and manipulated it in photoshop, I had one of those wonderful, mysterious moments when I instantly knew how to complete the piece—combine it with the line The Wondrous Nearer Drew from Emily Dickinson. I did the lettering with my favorite tool, a pentel brush fountain pen, scanned it into the computer, made it a screen, and added it to the image. Although I was using Emily's words, this did feel very much my own.

More posts about the Emily Dickinson Series

Celebrating Spring

The first image of the Emily Dickinson Series to celebrate the first day of spring. It was in mid-April 2008 that I took the first photograph, of a pieris, and played with it in photoshop. Today, it was that same kind of crisp spring day—bright blue sky and bracing wind.

View the series.

Read about how the images were developed.

Emily Dickinson Cubes

I created the first Emily Dickinson piece in the spring of 2009. I framed and exhibited 32 pieces in the spring of 2010. Now at the end of the year, I have found that my favorite presentation is not the framed work but the plexi cubes I have made as gifts for friends and family. They are about to have their first public launch this weekend at the Exeter (NH) Center for Creative Arts Fine Art and Craft Sale. Each cube contains 6 images, and there are five cubes of different groupings. I'm setting up an shop on etsy to sell the cubes and cards. It will be up and running in early December.

ECCA 4th Annual Fine Art and Craft Sale, Town Hall, Exeter, NH
Saturday and Sunday, November 20-21 and 27-28, 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Sundays
Reception: Friday, November 19, 6-9 PM

Lammas

August 1, Lammas, Lughnasa, the first day of Celtic Autumn, a celebration of the first fruits, the beginning of the harvest, a day of fulfillment and joy.

Image created from a photograph of goldenrod with a line from Emily Dickinson's poem 593.

Celebrating the Solstice with Emily Dickinson

Pdfs of the now 35 piece series and a description of my inspiration and process can be found here

Handmade Book Project To Celebrate Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson has been on my mind since I just installed a set of digital compositions combining hand-lettered lines by the poet with kaleidoscopic flower imagery at the Newton Free Library in Newton, MA.

This month's project is small book in celebration of Emily Dickinson. You can put one poem in the book, or a collection. I was inspired by Emily Dickinson's fascicles, small booklets into which she copied more than 800 of her poems. While Dickinson made the small volumes from folded sheets of paper that she bound with string, this book is a simple fold and cut book that I call the Hot Dog Booklet with papers from the collage box and lines from the poet.

Written directions

in Spanish

Video

A sheet of Emily Dickinson poems for your book

My Emily Dickinson Book on flickr

My Artwork: The Emily Dickinson Series

LINKS AND BOOKS
The Emily Dickinson Museum
A wonderful site with information about visiting the Homestead in Amherst, MA (a wonderful experience) and lots of information about Emily Dickinson and her poetry.


Jeannette Winter frames a short collection of Emily's poems with the story of her sister Lavinia finding the poems after Emily's death.


Jane Yolen tells a beautiful story of poetry, love, and truth-telling based on a poem and dead bee that Emily Dickisnon gave to her six-year-old nephew, Gib.


Michael Bedard tells another story of Emily's connection with children is told here by a girl who lives across the street.


Elizabeth Spires wrote this delightful small chapter book about a mouse who lives in Emily's house and is inspired to write poetry. As the white mouse Emmaline describes herself: "Before I met Emily, the great poet of Amherst, I was nothing more than a crumb-gatherer, a cheese nibbler, a mouse-of-little-purpose.