Wheylona and I go back a decade (gosh). We first met when she worked in Sweden and was heading with friends to Denmark for a concert. I remember us walking through the streets of Copenhagen singing History Never repeats (youtube link) about twenty minutes after meeting for the first time. Ten years on, the American lives in the Basque country (Spain) and the Dane lives in the UK. History may never repeat, but time does move swiftly.
W. has written a fantastic entry about Will Ashford's recycled/re-contextualising word-art:
The artist, Will Ashford, takes pages from books and finds words and (near-)collocations that call to him, then designs his artwork around them. For me it's an amazingly engaging combination of art forms, resulting in layered, textured, juicy pieces that need to be savored and digested slowly. I find them very visually appealing--I love the the swirls, arcs, lines and dots, the touches of color on occasion, the contrast between sharp and blurred. I also totally dig the idea of taking words--things that seem so stable and static and fundamental--and highlighting the fact that they are not at all what they seem, or rather that they are more than what they seem.
Gorgeous stuff. And W. was lovely enough to say that experiencing Ashford's work brought me to mind. That means a lot to me, W.
Ashford's work brought another friend to mind. Bonnie MacAllister also works with the intersection of visual art and words. She's a performance poet, a visual artist and a feminist educator. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of her latest collection, Some Words Are No Longer Words about a month ago.
Sometimes I wish I could bring all my friends and acquaintances together in one room - all the writers, poets, thinkers, photographers, painters, crafters and performers - and just feed off the synergy. Whilst the internet does allow for easier interaction, having them all in that one room would be absolutely amazing.
