As an artist returning to poetry, it was natural for me to compose images with text included. As a professional designer, I had in fact been combining words and images for years, only realizing late in the game that I had been doing so my entire life. I went to a university that had an excellent Graphics Department, and became Managing Editor of their Arts magazine Pleiades.
The initial quest to create a postcard every day as part of an exchange with my sister was an advantageous mindset, leaving me open to many possibilities in illustrating the poems. This anything-goes approach continued over the subsequent years that followed, finding me creating objects as books, mobiles, decorated boxes, and a variety of media beyond paper.
I began exploring painting as an energetic release with exciting results. But my favorite works were those where the spirit of water was expressed such as ink and watercolor painting. There were also random forms described as order from chaos, where ink marks were cropped and “completed” as a recognizable entity.
Works on stone followed, and in ceramic forms such as bowls, plates, platters, and trays. These limited but unbounded forms complement the spirit of the poems, and I feel their weathered, earthen quality has the wabi sabi feel of haiku I call poet bowls.
YouTube Video “Sharing Secrets” featuring haiku and a wide range of artworks including ceramics and works on stone.
