Poetry/Writing - Typography Installation
One week August 2021, and returned for another week Feb. 2022
Susie traveled from California for the residency time, but a previous travel experience inspired her project. Once she arrived, she expressed a deep yearning to create an installation in the forest with a poem she had written on that former trip.
In her application, Susie wanted to plant creative seeds with one or both of two project goals:
I have two projects in mind that I may work on in parallel, or somehow combine:
~ A letters project: writing letters that I may never send, because the person was a passing stranger, or has passed, or I no longer know how to find them, or there\'s a reason not to send it. Integrating sketches, audio, video into the letters. Goals for this residency are to write at least two dozen letters, and explore different mediums for the letters to take form.
~ Conversations with Nature: connecting with the land and listening for messages, and capturing these messages in written form (eg, poems on watercolor, words of wisdom). Goals are to slow way, way down, be technology free, collect wisdom from nature, and produce at least three pieces.
A Forest Therapy walk and design consultation during the residency were helpful in the thinking and planning phases of the project. This was also an introduction to the land and an assessment of the area to create the installation(s). With only a week to work, Susie was very focused spending time in the forest. We gathered materials that could be utilized as form and also the ladder.
There was a plethora of very long stalks of mint so creating letterforms was also a sensory experience. Susie hung wires between trees in order to hand the letterforms to create the poem.
Here are a few images of various angles and times of day.
In addition, Susie used floral wire to make smaller letters on nearby trees.
It was a delight to hear from Susie a few months later in the new year. She was working on an application for an MFA in creative writing and had a portion of time while traveling for work to have a second residency. Sometimes one needs the quiet space and the opportunity to walk in nature to balance all of life's demands from paid work to the creative pursuits of our dreams. Due to the internal type of project in February 2022, there are no visual images to document. Planting seeds is a valiant pursuit for a residency term. What would you create?
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