Ekphrasis: Poet to Painter to Poet
Suzanne Edminster, Poetry / Sally Baker, Painting
Yes, I practice Ekphrasis, and I’m proud of it.
Now that I have your attention, I’ll put the definition of Ekphrasis is at the end of the post. I have a Master of Poetics from New College of California in San Francisco. I was lucky to study with Robert Duncan and Diane di Prima, among others. It wasn’t a creative writing course. The poet-teachers had the vision of sharing their vast source materials with students, not to coach them. Rather than giving us fishing poles to catch our own fish, they set us adrift on little paper rafts to encounter whales, and make of it what we could.
It was extreme: Writers Write. Harsh. Unlike most academic programs, the poets supported themselves primarily through writing, publishing, and performing, not teaching in the tenured shelter of a respectable university. They lectured in old morgue rooms on Valencia Street with smudgy green chalkboards and circular drains in the corners of the classroom floors, formerly used to collect embalming fluids.
I remember being terrified to expose my own beginner work to the mastery of the teachers. In hindsight, I wasn’t that bad. But many of us remained writing- paralyzed in the presence of genius, or perhaps it was just romantic depression endemic in the 80′s in the Mission District.
My poem was written in response to Sally Baker’s painting Persimmon with Attitude . My poem invokes Gary Snyder, another poet who wrote about persimmons. Snyder references Mu Ch’i, a 12th century painter of pomegranates. Poet to painter to poet to painter to…. Here is Mu Ch’i's famous painting.
Ekphrasis:Ekphrasis or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, ‘out’ and ‘speak’ respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name.
You can hear me read my persimmon poem at 3:30 on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at Graton Gallery in ”A Picture is Worth 500 words [or less]” with Sally Baker, guest artists Taylor Gutermute, Sandra Speidel, and Martha Wade. There will be a good group of writers as well: the writing was curated by Toni L. Wilkes, GregoryW. Randall, and Colleen Craig. I’ll write publish the poem in a future post, but it really belongs with the painting. Ekphrasis to you, too.
Saltworkstudio Large Painting Class: 5 Clues, and Cool Painting Titles
Cythia Heimowitz' s hands on her painting
What’s a large painting for you? 12 by 12 inches? 6 feet by 6 feet? A mural? Anything on canvas?
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A large painting is not a small painting “blown up.” Start fresh. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.” You are in a new, large, foriegn country. Explore it.
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Composition is critical. Plan a minimal, flexible composition format or idea. It could be “Golden Mean” or “Diagonal.” OR it could be quirkier: “Large X-Ray Animal in the Middle” or “Floaty Fractal Bubble with Connectors” or “One Line High Horizon.” Vary each painting in your series, but stay within one compositional “meme.”
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Texture your surface first, then put on large swathes of color or paint BEFORE “starting” the painting. Keep it very loose at first. You’re getting hold of your surface, getting acquainted with it…developing a relationship. The start is like a first date.
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You need big ideas for large paintings. Work in your notebook. Catch the ideas and desires that hang at the periphery of your conciousness. We’re like Adam naming the animals of our imagination into existence… and some of them are very odd creatures! Don’t be afraid of titling your paintings right at the start. You can always change them later.
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Remember, it’s only paint and canvas. Sure, you might fail. So what?
Enjoy the slideshow! The Mythic News and Studio News are after the slides. Students, please leave some comments about your process and your series concepts and names. I’m amazed by your work.
My Desert Vacation 2: Petroglyphs and Premonitions
Grey Magic, acrylic combined media on paper, 10" x 10", Suzanne Edminster
Premonitions, by definition, come first. But, like ancient oracles, you never know what they really mean until you get there.
In hindsight, this little painting foretold our desert trip. I did this in October as a collage painting demo. Now it strikes me how much it is like the petroglyphs we saw at Painted Rock State Park, just outside of Gila Bend, Arizona, in late November. In fact, there’s a lizard spirit slithering gila-like through it.
Petroglyphs are the abstractions of the ancients. Were they a semi-precise writing or language, like heiroglyphs? Religious spirit encounters: “Hey, the Deer Dancer possessed me here!” Maps?
It’s interesting how there seems no real distinction between realism and abstraction in petroglyphs. The deer with bulging belly seems so obviously pregnant, but the squared-off labyrinth delights in the design-play of geometric abstraction.
Petroglyphs are vigorous and melancholy at once. Here people met, prayed, danced, hunted, ate, and spent days and weeks creating with what they had– stone and imagination.
Boo!
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