X Silence: In this work, I collaborated with the poem, A Silence, by Amy Clampitt, for the text I used in the work. I was exploring issues of censorship with the typography, redaction, and the content of the poem. I was looking to create a dialogue between the poet and images that are meaningful to me visually and metaphorically. I left out the literal structure, and there is a silence in the voice of nature and the poet.
What intrigued me about the poem was the ideas around humans and nature, religion and silence, artificial inventions, and the meaning of silence. I collaged words from the poem and the images. I was also drawn to the poet’s personal story and her navigation in the world as a woman. I have been musing about nature, gardens, history, and the language we use. The imagery was from letterpress prints and found images from books on English Roses. The final form of the work is inkjet on soft paper. The soft paper was important to me because of the feel.