Artist's Statement

Okay, so I need an artist's statement, both for the Hedgebrook application and MFA program applications.  So I'm going to follow the "How to Write an Artist's Statement" suggestions, free writing it up here.

1. Take five minutes and think about why you do what you do. How did you get into this work? How do you feel when work is going well? What are your favorite things about your work? Jot down short phrases that capture your thoughts. Don't worry about making sense or connections. The more you stir up at this point, the richer the stew.

Writing poetry is the decluttering of the mind.  Without it, thoughts would be so crowded as to begin seeping out the pores.  Words symptomatic of a raging mood would escape the lips at the most inauspicious of times.  "One shot or two?" "The glowing nightlight of her teeth lulling me to wake!"  It is the only science that makes nonsense in such a liberating manner; poetry is not math.  It is the art of conveying a two-thousand page tome thought into a 14-line emotion.

2. Make a list of words and phrases that communicate your feelings about your work and your values. Include words you like, words that make you feel good, words that communicate your values or fascinations. Be loose. Be happy. Be real. Think of these as potential seasonings for your stew. You don't have to choose which ones to use just yet, so get them all out of the cupboard.

• illumination
• freedom
• necessity
• lifeblood
• clearing
• echoes
• clarity
• dreams
• raw emotion
• catharsis
• healing
• conversations with God
• cleaning
• honesty
• reconsidering

3. Answer these questions as simply as you can. Your answers are the meat and potatoes of your stew. Let them be raw and uncut for now.

1. What is your favorite tool? Why? 

NA

1. What is your favorite material? Why? 

NA

1. What do you like best about what you do? 

The feeling of creation and inciting emotion in others, empathy-building. 

1. What do you mean when you say that a piece has turned out really well? 

I mean that someone has read it aloud as I imagined it to flow in my head.  They have demonstrated a true reaction, whether pleasant or unpleasant.

1. What patterns emerge in your work? Is there a pattern in the way you select materials? In the way you use color, texture or light? 

NA

1. What do you do differently from the way you were taught? Why? 

Sometimes, I purposefully choose to crowd my poetry with words, let them run over each other messily, capturing, I hope, the multiple voices in a three-dimensional crowd.

1. What is your favorite color? List three qualities of the color. Consider that these qualities apply to your work. 

NA

4. Look at your word list. Add new words suggested by your answers to the questions above.

•  evocation
• provocation
• voices
• multiple subjectivities
• capturing
• releasing
• empathy
• reaction

TBC!