Sun Strokes began as an art project centered around the summer solstice. The idea was to fill 24 pages of a homemade journal with art related to summer. Being a collage artist, I immediately began pulling images that spoke “summer” to me. I pulled exclusively from that pile (except for small embellishments) to create my art journal entries. Having filled my book I didn’t want to stop working with the connections I had created in assembling the collages. The idea of a pastiche surfaced, and I decided to use the pictures as inspiration for experimenting with different forms and configurations of writing.  Naturally, it ended up nothing like the way I first imagined it.

The word pastiche comes with two differing definitions.  This work refers to the second definition, which also applies to collage, thus adding even more layers to the mix… 

1. An artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.

2. An artistic work consisting of a medley of pieces taken from various sources.

I’ve never really understood how my pieces resolve themselves into a whole – some of it is visceral, a collaboration between hands, gut, and someplace behind the yes that isn’t exactly seeing.  Partly it’s intellectual, though the resulting endorphins are certainly physical.  Some parts are intuitive- the unconscious mind perceiving indescribable archetypal connections and nodding a shadowy agreement? and that too translates as feeling.  In the end it all comes back to and from the body.  If you consider the remarkable totality of the hundreds of thousands working parts that make up a being, it’s hardly surprising that our bodies become the expert appraiser and arbitrator of the art we make.

Over time, I have learned the value of boundaries.  There is something about setting an outer limit, which keeps unchosen possibilities at bay and allows one total freedom to explore the object at hand.  I started with three constraints- I wanted a pastiche of poetry and art.  I wanted a formula that I could apply to each collage.  I wanted that formulation to manifest on one printed 81/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper (dimensions refer to size of artwork).  Eventually, I arrived at three parts – a haibun (short factual statement with a relevant haiku to follow), a very brief bit of flash fiction, and a short free verse poem.  As soon as I thought myself finished, the idea came to me of drafting a personal essay to complete each piece. My aim was to figure out at least one way in which something in each composite image connected to my life.

I’d used this way of deliberately digging into my life to establish connection with an idea, once before, to inspire new work.  In writing Sitting on the Hag Seat: A Celtic Knot of Poems, I wanted to include a section on sacred Irish trees.  However, I knew very little about them and had never leaned on their trunks, smelled their bark or studied the shape of their leaves.  I spent hours researching their physiognomy, medicinal use, and lore until I found an end of a thread I could follow back to something meaningful in my own life.  Once that living connection was established it acted as a kind of umbilical cord through which the muse sent inspiration.

I worked the essays in the same way, going on faith in my own belief that all things are connected and I need only find the connection to find the words..