Beside me, there are two moons, a balcony view and a flood of words.
La Dolce Vita / love the time / RISE / break through / POSITIVE ATTITUDE / I Feel / Feel / FEEL / LOVE / fearlessly / good / Explore / GET UP AND GO MAKE / possibilities / stories / poetry
via Lombe Kapaya / unsplash
This week, in one of my favorite writing groups, (we call ourselves Horticulture), we discussed the language and function of our aesthetics. Specifically, how making vision boards (a goal-oriented collage by another name) can support our writing. The lines above are excerpts from one I made a couple of weeks ago. They were clipped from a stack of old magazines and free periodicals, then taped together to form my own world. The last time I did this, in 2018, it took me months to finish. The final product literally was ”THE BIG PICTURE,” (one of the phrases I plastered in big, block letters). I had the poster placed prominently in my bedroom, until recently, when I put it in storage and started fresh.
My current compilation (photo below) isn’t meant to be a big picture, but rather, a short-term map of 2022 and what I want to experience. It’s supposed to be a token reminder, as I prepare to travel. The only problem is that this small window into my immediate future is presently the size of a bulletin board. So, then, the task becomes portability; to lighten my load, while still packing as much as I can carry. To quote poet Tracy K. Smith, I’m trying to gather the qualities of every person and thing “I want to wake up and bring with me places.”
A PERFECT BALANCE OF FIRE, WATER, AIR & EARTH / QUEST / SPARKED / Golden / imagery and lyricism / YOUR BOOK / Your Turn / OPEN / garden / Lab / GENIUS everywhere Black women are
Women occupy every corner of space here. Women, real and imagined. Black women, especially. They are spread out, like butterflies, across the board, leaning back in natural repose, bare-breasted, alone, open-mouthed, shoulder-to-shoulder. They wear red lipstick and pumps, they have slides or sunglasses on, and around them is a lush dreamscape. There’s a placid blue lake view framed by palm leaves; a yellow country house behind a white picket fence; a flourishing garden; a field of wildflowers; and a vase of freshly-cut, blood orange tulips, in front of a striped wall full of art and adventure. I arrange the women like paper dolls on my tableau and adorn them with captions to affirm myself. Below them, I plant swatches of print, spices, and abundant seeds. At the center, a typewriter is seated al fresco.
Enjoy the sunshine / AT PLAY / THE WRITER / Flourishing / QUEERING / personal narrative / words / a traveling life / grounded me, kept me steady / I like who I am. / I have my place
Fellow writer Laura August, who facilitated our vision board session, proposed that we think of them as springboards, instead of sign posts. “Perhaps, the thing that it suggests,” she said, “is not what you expected.” I find that to be true when I’m assembling any collage. I’m somehow able to reveal and inform myself, to and about myself. In an earlier post, I described how intuitive (and intimidating) the process can feel. My eyes surrender to my fingers and I go on autopilot. In this last instance, the composition came together in days. I noticed how I, subconsciously, gravitate to certain words and images, ones that are vibrant and sensual, floral and pastoral. Looking over at what I’ve done, admiring all the words and the women in this world, I wonder how they‘ll go on to live in my mind; how they might conspire in my writing.
The other day, my Dictionary app offered up a sweet term for my visual language: disjecta membra or scattered parts. It seems that every body of work I create is full of them, disparate text and imagery pulled together to compose something whole, but wholly different from their origins.
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