“Lighthouse”
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Rosalynde Vas Dias: I realized that there’s a confusion of interiority/exteriority or a kind of lack of boundaries with my lighthouse. The two images of the lighthouse balancing each other at the ends of the broadside really made that leap out at me. Artist Elizabeth Terhune: I was probably focused initially on the rock foot and the fire running through cracks—so I think I verged on misinterpreting the poem, or actually did misinterpret it—opting for an almost volcanic scenario. But the poem really is more complex and lovely—there is softness, the whelk, and the ensuing paradox of her polished absence; there is the spiral staircase and cracked walls. So many images involving circle and cracks, emptiness and darkness with light thrown around.
Poet Rosalynde Vas Dias earned an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College’s Low Residency Program for Writers. Her first book, Only Blue Body, was winner of the 2011 Robert Dana Award offered by Anhinga Press. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Artist Elizabeth Terhune has exhibited widely throughout the United States. She teaches painting and drawing at the 92nd Street Y and at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies in New York City.