“[& when the bees look upon us]”

Posted on November 3, 2025 • Words by Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes • Art by MJ Levy Dickson

Collaborators’ Q&A:Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I just really adore broadsides as a medium for public circulation of literature, ideas, and knowledges. Artist MJ Levy Dickson: I wanted to use poppy seeds and make a collage. We have bee hives at home so this was not a distant concept. Then I decided to simplify and combine the yellow tone and black lines to elicit a visual recognition.

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes is a queer, non-binary, crip/disabled, brown, writer, artist, scholar, educator, cultural worker and creature of the Colombian diaspora. The dynamic artistry of M.J. Levy Dickson is inspired by the beauty she experiences every day. She is an artist and educator who has created an extensive body of work spanning oil paints, acrylics, watercolor, charcoal, pencil, pen and ink, glass, and repurposed materials.

Tagged: Animals, Digital Art, Ecopoetry, Gratitude, Illness, LGBTIQ+ Writer, Pastoral / Anti-Pastoral, Relationships

“Tádídíín Bizaad” / “The Language of Corn Pollen”

Posted on November 1, 2020 • Words by Manny Loley • Art by MJ Levy Dickson

Collaborators’s Q&A: Poet Manny Loley: The process was truly a conversation between the artist and poet, between the visual image and language. While both are contained within the white space of the page, which can be a constricting space at times and one that is full of historical and sociopolitical trauma for many BIPOC writers/artists, allowing the two to converse with each other, to change with each other, was refreshing and liberating. Artist MJ Levy Dickson: I drive by fields of corn whenever I go to town. When I read his poem I wanted to stop in the cornfields and sketch each stalk and tassel.

Tagged: Ecopoetry, Food / Meals, Indigenous Language, LGBTIQ+ Writer, Painting: Acrylic, Philosophical Meditation, Rural, Translation

“IV”

Posted on November 1, 2020 • Words by Janil Uc Tun & Don Cellini • Art by MJ Levy Dickson

Collaborators’s Q&A: Artist MJ Levy Dickson:  This project has been a joyful and thoughtful experience during a time of uncertainty.  Translator Don Cellini: I am seduced by the wavy grey lines that form the background. Are they ridges to a mountain? The soggy paper bag in the poem? Poet Janil Uc Tun: [I am surprised by] the ability to build networks and bridges between different views of different geographies, which are empowered by the same starting point.

Translator Don Cellini is a teacher, poet, translator, and photographer. Poet Janil Uc Tun, of the Yucatán, won the XIX José Díaz Bolio Peninsular Prize in Poetry. His chapbook, from Ofi Press, is Colección de insectos que volaron sobre mi cabeza / Collection of Insects that Flew Around My Head. Artist MJ Levy Dickson’s work explores global interconnectedness through common denominators in nature.

Tagged: Animals, Dream, Ecopoetry, Multilingual, Painting: Watercolor, Spanish (language), Translation

“Moonlight as Liason” (Vizsolyi & Dickson)

Posted on October 1, 2019 • Words by M. A. Vizsolyi • Art by MJ Levy Dickson

Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet M. A. Vizsolyi: It wasn’t until I saw it so clearly with my own poem that I really felt just how much a particular piece of visual art can influence the piece from the start. It’s akin to the way a piece of background music can influence the way we interpret a scene in a movie. Artist MJ Levy Dickson: I felt the rhythm of the walk and thoughts; a bird with a human looking eye in the wing, the sclera exposed,  reflecting an almost human face, then gone in a moment.

Artist MJ Levy Dickson has taught at MIT, the Boston Architectural Center, and Wenzhou-Kean University in China. Working with people with limited vision, mental health issues, and others, she offers a bridge by which diverse audiences can experience the unexpressed.

Tagged: Escape, Existential Crisis, Painting: Watercolor