Glacial Mementos
More of a kind...
This month, I continued an exploration of images from a 1977 text, Alpine Country of the West by Don Lowe and David Summer (see “Lift Your Feet” of the previous post). I’ve been looking into the glaciers mentioned in the book and discovering that some of them no longer exist as glaciers— they are not large enough— or they are rapidly shrinking. In the way that analog collage depends on what you have on hand, I’ve been pairing the alpine images with interiors from a book I picked up at the same time called Great Family Collections (edited by Douglas Cooper, 1965)— a European bonanza of stolen and hoarded wealth— and some vintage home interiors from McCall’s Magazine. In ‘The Way We Were,’ I also included a family photo from the 70s— something that I haven’t done before.
The exploration feels very much in progress and I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I find the process of making analog collage is so different from making poems. I can’t change the image once I’ve made it (ie glued it down) and it feels both frustrating and liberating that I am revealing my thoughts in process rather than in some final edited form. It may have less to do with the medium and more with how I came to it— I learned poetry by studying literature and collage by messing around with magazines. I used to think my anxiety and perfectionism around poetry was a personality defect— making collages now, I’m pretty sure it is how I was trained.
As I think about this, I would love to hear from you. Are you a writer who has taken up a visual art practice or vice versa? How does it change the way you approach or think about your process? Let me know by DM or in the comment section.
And happy almost April— the best month of the year!
xoxo
Alison
Reading
On April 1st, I am reading with Brian Braganza and Joanna Lilley at Lahave River Books from 4-5 pm.
Poets Welcome
A new episode lands on the Poets Welcome podcast on April 4th.
