Ekphrasis XI 2023 Online Exhibition
SET 2. Writer Initiators and Their Visual Artist Responders
D. NORMA WATKINS, "Her Barracuda Summer." Response by artist MARY-ELLEN CAMPBELL: The Big Barracuda.
E. KAREN K. LEWIS, "Choose Your Own Adventure," Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Passage.
F. NATY OSA, "The Namesake." Response by artist SEV ICKES: The Flocker Family
SET 2. Writer Initiators and Their Visual Artist Responders
D. NORMA WATKINS, "Her Barracuda Summer." Response by artist MARY-ELLEN CAMPBELL: The Big Barracuda.
E. KAREN K. LEWIS, "Choose Your Own Adventure," Response by artist LYNNE WHITING: Passage.
F. NATY OSA, "The Namesake." Response by artist SEV ICKES: The Flocker Family
D. Her Barracuda Summer by NORMA WATKINS
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Sphyraena barracuda, large, predatory fish known for their fearsome appearance and ferocious behavior. Found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide. Her barracuda were babies, teenagers at most. They swam quietly alongside her, lower jaws protruding comically, tiny, sharp teeth winking through the warm waters of Florida Bay. She should have been afraid—people had warned her about the big ones—but she wasn’t. She spent that summer in Key Largo trying to focus: mornings on her dissertation, afternoons with the barracuda, evenings with Pleasant Pete. She kept the misery walled away. The betraying husband drove down one day. To check on her, he claimed, but actually to say he planned on bringing the other woman to their house, into their loft bed, between their sheets. Here was the big barracuda. Why hadn’t she noticed the teeth in that wide smile? Why hadn’t she suspected before he gobbled her heart and spit out the rest? She was beyond running or fighting. She said, “Why not?” The husband drove north toward Miami, and she went for a swim. The baby barracuda appeared. A dozen or more, slim, green, and almost as transparent as the water, they kept company with her head. The single eyes watched her in a not unfriendly way. She felt glad for the companionship, swimming back and forth in front of the dock, adding salty tears to the sea. D. Artist's Response by MARY-ELLEN CAMPBELL: The Big Barracuda |
Watercolor, 8 x 10 x 2 in.
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E. "Choose Your Own Adventure"
KAREN K. LEWIS |
E. Passage
by responding artist LYNNE WHITING |
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Will you journey alone, or together? If together, who picks the route? If alone, will you explore ocean or forest or sky or heart? If you explore ocean, will you sink or will you swim? How far? If you enter forest, will you rest in ferns or climb sequoias? Will your trail lead into a Jurassic past or towards an intergalactic future? If you search sky, will you soar with birds or float between clouds and moon? On a path of heart, will you travel alone, or together? What borders will you cross? How will you find home? |
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F. "Namesake"
For Nicasia We are the keepers, a charm bracelet of family names, a generational link in the chain of treasured memories not yet our own, a bond of love a fetter of responsibility. ¿De quién eres? Whose are you? A great-great grandmother memorialized in one fading photograph walks hand in hand with you, her namesake: Nicasia Naty Osa December 2, 2020 |
F. The Flocker Family, in response by SEV ICKES
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