Collaborators’ Q&A What surprises you about Laura’s poem in conversation with your art? Artist Gabe Travis: This piece was one in a series I did trying to evoke a sense of mythical or allegorical memory. I used the “trickster” raven as the central figure, since when he is present things aren’t always as they appear. And I tried, through layering the images, to create a sense of compressed narrative, as we have in memories, where some …
Collaborators’ Q&A What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Poet Dawn McGuire: In Wu Wei—doing by “not doing”—I imagined a visual artist might be led to abstract images, introverted ones. Also, in terms of a representational piece, I could imagine a simple stone structure at some precarious “angle of repose.” The poem asks questions about wanting to relinquish a worldly agenda—to be enlightened of it—yet the (?) necessary relationship we …
Collaborators’ Q&A What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Poet Jane Hirshfield: The goat. But this is better. I love the foregrounding of the water/stone idea. What inspires you in this poem? Artist Gabriel Travis: I am really interested in the relationship between “rational thought” and intuition—different ways of knowing and which ones we trust. I love how this poem embodies that tension, in that it is in dialogue with the …
Collaborators Q&A What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Poet Suzanne Helfman: I had no idea what to expect; it was a complete mystery to me. What inspires you in this poem? Artist Gabe Travis: During a Vermont Studio Center residency last winter, I started a series of mixed media collage work with “Field Guide” as a springboard. So I was immediately drawn to the poem because of this connection. As I …