Ekphrasis IX 2020 Virtual Exhibition
SET 4. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders
K. Backwords (Elizabeth Vrenios), (Claire Fortier)
L. The Child and the Crow (Norma Watkins), Raven Angel (Debra Beck Lennox)
M. Six Feet Over or Six Feet Under (Naty Osa)), Struggle Ends when Gratitude Begins
(Lynne Whiting)
N. On My Way West (Ginny Rorby), Field after Wyeth (Kathy Carl)
SET 4. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders
K. Backwords (Elizabeth Vrenios), (Claire Fortier)
L. The Child and the Crow (Norma Watkins), Raven Angel (Debra Beck Lennox)
M. Six Feet Over or Six Feet Under (Naty Osa)), Struggle Ends when Gratitude Begins
(Lynne Whiting)
N. On My Way West (Ginny Rorby), Field after Wyeth (Kathy Carl)
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Backwords by Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios
I've always been backwards
My 7's and 9's turned their back to the wall when I was small I learned the alphabet from Z down - you know - ZYXWVUTSR etc or as I wrote cte. I read books backwards - Lovely knowing who done it and then thread my way back. The ends of the songs were where I wanted to dwell not in the oomp oompa of beginnings. Now that I am here, I should like to start living my life backwards. Next decade will be my 60s, the one after that 50s until I disappear into earth's womb. |
Backwards by artist Claire Fortier.
Oil painting, 9x12 in. $75. 
Artist's Reflection: Creating art from a piece of writing is challenging. It takes time to digest the writing and think of an image to best convey it simply. Sometimes it's an overall concept and sometimes it's one small portion of the writing. It always makes me work outside my comfort zone. CF |
The Child and the Crow by Norma Watkins
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Images lingered: a long ride in a car with windows too high to see more than the tops of buildings. The car smelled old and the upholstery scratched. She did not know the man driving. She remembered a dusty coat, a hat pulled low, and a white star on his neck. She was to sit, not stand, and to stay silent.
She sat in the back. Along the top of the front seat, a large black bird paced, peering at her, clacking its long beak. C is for Crow in her alphabet book. When she grew hungry, she remembered the cookie in her pocket. The crow took an interest and she gave it a piece. In a building, she climbed stairs behind the man, the bird now riding his shoulder. She whined at yet another flight and the man turned upon her such a terrible gaze she went silent. When there were no more stairs, he pushed her into a big room and locked the door. Dust motes drifted in light from high, dirty windows. There was little furniture. The sky turned dark. She peed in a corner and cried herself to sleep. She woke to rain and the sound of tapping. The crow sat on a window ledge. She pushed a table against the wall, then a chair, and climbed. The bird nudged a crust of bread under the barely open window. The roof leaked. A pot had been left to catch the water. The girl drank from this. |
The next day, the crow brought her half a roll, and on the third, the crust from a pie. On the fourth day, he did not come. Nor the fifth.
A woman in the building across the way noticed the bird and saw a small hand reaching for its offerings. She watched the hand search the empty ledge when the bird did not come and called the police. No one knew the girl. No one in this country had reported her missing, and when her picture was shared with Interpol, no one came forward. She was adopted by a couple who named her Eloise and raised her with love. When she was grown and educated, they died. Eloise, now twenty-five and quite beautiful, became a teacher in another country. At a party for new students, she heard a voice. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned. The man was gray-haired and finely dressed. She circled him. Behind his right ear, above the collar, the white scar. She smiled and introduced herself. Did he have a child at the school? No, sadly, but he had been fortunate and supported the school financially. She watched his eyes move over her. Seduction would not be difficult. What had she been to him twenty years before? Someone in the way. Time enough to find out after they married, before she killed him. When he lay at her mercy, begging not to die, she would tell him the story of the child and the crow. |
Raven Angel by Debra Beck Lennox. Watercolor, 9x12 matted, $225.
Artist's Reflection: Raven Angel stuck with me as a metaphor for hope. In terrible situations, there is always hope. The face of the girl changed into a woman as I was painting it so was it happening in real time or in her memory? That's up to the viewer's imagination.
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Six Feet Over or Six Feet Under
by Naty Osa |
Struggle Ends When Gratitude Begins,
Response by Lynne Whiting 11x14. Collage reproduction. Framed and matted, $140. |
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Lost in inner space
Tangled in the frayed outer fringes Of a Covid cobwebbed brain Lucid moments treasured gems Weary handed neighbors Wave their six-foot isolation Immuno-compromised shopper Harvest Market six am Stubbed My masked awareness On a wrong-way arrow Young aisle monitor Points The Way Self-gratification Avid reader of apocalypse Mere disaster a distraction I crave total annihilation To simplify life To return To the essence of things Alone together again Adam and Eve Confined I sit pensive at the window Slithering six-foot snake hawks his wares Luscious apples bargain price I take a bite |
Artist's Response: Lynne decided to present a contrast to the emotional sadness of the poem, by taking another perspective entirely, and to express the belief that gratitude is key to a good life. She cited this quotation by Rumi: “Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.” |
On My Way West by Ginny Rorby
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On my way west, moving toward a new life in a strange, but long-loved town, I became a gatherer. The RV was crowded with my stuff and my traveling companions’ necessities: Hopi, my parrot, and her cage, Rosie, a baby albino red rat snake and her cage, and Lovey, a tame white dove, consigned by her former owners to a dark garage. On the floor of the shower, were a few plants from home: a red mangrove seeding from the Everglades in a container of salty muck, the walking iris my best friend gave me, and a staghorn pup wired to a wooden plank.
All her life Lovey laid eggs, sitting on them for weeks before finally giving up. I’d throw them away, and she’d a lay couple more. I suppose I admired her most for her stick-to-it-ness. She spent the entire journey on her eggs in a basket hanging off the shower head, swaying like a tree branch in the wind around every curve in the road. I started the move west in Miami, so was pretty far into it before I began adding to my collection. The first, a coal black kitten, came crying out of a clump of bushes on the banks of the Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Illinois. “You can take it if you want it,” said a Mormon tour guide, who walked past with her clutch of tourists as I cuddled the purring kitten. “It’s a stray.” ...cont. |
I remember the date. September 29, 1991. Three years to the day since my mother died. Her final cat had been black.
“What does Nauvoo mean?” Someone in the group asked the tour guide. “A beautiful place.” I named the kitten Nauvoo and put him in the RV. Though it was early fall and I was headed north northwest, here and there flowers still bloomed. I began collecting seeds of the ones I admired. I picked up acorns and pine cones. By the time I reached my new home in late October, I’d been on the road for seven weeks and driven nine thousand miles. At the front of the house I’d bought, was a small triangular, weed-choked bit of ground bordered by a concrete walkway. I dug the hole in the center and put all the seeds in, wished them luck, and tamped down the soil. A South Dakota black oak sprouted in the spring and, though still young now, 29 years later, has roots here as deep as my own. I hope whoever comes after me appreciates its determination to survive, surrounded by a redwood forest, hundreds of miles from its next of kin. |
Field after Wyeth by artist Kathy Carl. Watercolor. 6x9 in. $175.
Kathy's Comments.
I decided to use this image to illustrate a story about making a journey. From east to west, new experiences were added to old memories, bringing the author to a beautiful place where new seeds could take hold and roots could grow deep. My choice was to show the fresh start from which a new life sprouted. It is how I like to begin every new work of my own.
I decided to use this image to illustrate a story about making a journey. From east to west, new experiences were added to old memories, bringing the author to a beautiful place where new seeds could take hold and roots could grow deep. My choice was to show the fresh start from which a new life sprouted. It is how I like to begin every new work of my own.
