“Self Check-Out”
Collaborators’ Q&A
What inspired you to bring your work to Broadsided?
Poet Diane Raptosh: I love the concept of poetry being brought to public spaces, particularly in the form of a broadside. Very innovative and timely.
What drew you to create a visual response to this poem, in particular?
Artist Lauren Woods: The subject is so relatable, it captured a feeling of fragmentation and disconnection many of us presently feel with the contrast of daily life and constant digital information available to consume.
How did this poem come to be?
Poet Diane Raptosh: I had been thinking about all the ways in which the self is compelled to become better, more aware, more conscious, and somehow all the best responses–religious, philosophical, moral–kept pointing paradoxically toward less identification with the self. As usual, nature had a terrific model of how the self might conceive itself in a larger sense–the orca’s sense of self as “distributed across the pod.”
How did this image come to be?
Artist Lauren Woods: This image is originally from a sketchbook series of automatic marker drawings I make when I don’t have the time or energy to paint more developed work, but want to keep moving forward. I don’t have a clear picture in mind, and begin with a general gesture, and then a figure appears. After I establish a sense of a body, I begin creating repetitive lines and patterns around it to suggest an energy field, thoughts, and emotions.
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Does the artist’s response make you see the poem differently?
Poet Diane Raptosh: The artist’s response resonated nicely with the poem–I like how it suggests the nonstop reverberations and inclusionary lines of self.
What question would you like to ask your collaborator?
Poet to Artist: How do you arrive at the color scheme for this piece? I admire the brightness.
Artist Lauren Woods: The color scheme originally came from a random marker grab while working in sketchbook. I decided to enhance it with a yellow “aura” once I began editing digitally. This overall atmosphere adds a sense of vibrancy/illumination while simultaneously muting the lines behind it.
Artist to Poet: How do you shape your writing to carry the weight of complex ideas?
Poet Diane Raptosh: That is a brilliant question that cuts to the core of what I hope to do in all of my written work. I’m drawn to complexity. I tend to be a slow writer, and I revise a lot. I tend to begin a piece with an image or rhythm, a line or an idea. And then I sit with it, work with it, and give the language time to show me how the piece should unfold. Sure, I might have my own ideas about that, but when things are going well, very often the piece itself pulsates with its own direction–with a sense of its own terms, and I defer. It is fair to say that each piece is a collaboration between me, the writer, and language’s more knowing landscape.
When you consider the full folio of work from this issue, what questions, observations, or connections arise for you?
Poet Diane Raptosh: How did other writers come to believe in the broadside as the perfect home for their work?
Artist Lauren Woods: The word visceral comes to mind: I notice a strong connection between all the work and the body, and the complicated relationship between the mental and physical self.
Did anything shift for you or come into new light as you began working on your visual response?
Artist Lauren Woods: My response was created from a pre-existing piece. I considered making something new, but I thought it would be closer to the concept that I responded to in the poem of existing in multiple dimensions by digitally modifying the drawing.
Describe your dream “Vectorization”—where, in your wildest dreams, would you most like to see this broadside posted in the world?
Poet Diane Raptosh: I guess I would like to see the broadside posted near the oceanside, where an orca pod might sense its presence.
Artist Lauren Woods: At the Morgan Library and Museum because it is a great place to see art that is often inspired by literature.
If this Broadsided collaboration were a type of weather, what would it be?
Poet Diane Raptosh: It would be a seaside foggy day, all of us sentient creatures blurring into oneness.
Artist Lauren Woods: The thoughts brought up in the poem reminded me of running late to work on a cloudy, hot day after staying up too late, where you simultaneously feel disembodied, yet physically uncomfortable, and then the brain wants to get philosophical.
Do you have a favorite, generative prompt for artists or writers you’d like to share?
Artist Lauren Woods: I don’t have any words I use as prompts but always suggest movement as a way to get thinking more creatively.
Read any good books lately?
Poet Diane Raptosh: Yes, The Braille Encyclopedia by Naomi Cohn. Beautiful book–a hybrid text in the form of an abecedarian.
Artist Lauren Woods: I’ve been slowly moving through Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness by Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson, and recently finished Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly: A Memoir by Dana Tai Soon Burgess. Burgess’s memoir is a compelling example of artistic evolution, tracing his development through lived experience, cross-cultural exchange, and collaborations with people across the world through dance.
Seen any good art lately?
Poet Diane Raptosh: Audubon’s Ivory Billed Woodpecker.
Artist Lauren Woods: Recently this spring we had two wonderful dance companies visit Auburn University for separate performances. The Ragamala Dance Company performed their piece “Children of Dharma” at the Gogue Performing Arts Center and The Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company performed “Sudden Snow” at The Jule Museum. It was like watching living paintings from different eras and cultures paired with beautiful music.