One reading of a bookie from Cheryl Penn

[Rebecca Guyver]

Some time ago I sent Cheryl some automatic writing that was my version of automatic writing - what I mean is It didn't really conform to what I think automatic writing should be, but it was intuitive and it was honest.  What I received a few days ago declared on the back of the envelope: This was supposed to be automatic writing But...' Everything about Cheryl's work feels thoughtful, down to the diagonals on the stamps!

I don't know what Cheryl's process was but I imagine she is working intuitively here. I wonder if she is working back into images she already has? I imagine there is a bit of everything here.I feel the intentionality of the bird's feet...and at first try to make sense of the text.

New to asemics, responding to text as a pictorial element takes some adjustment, for me but I begin to see pairs of pages and their dialogue.

I love the way Cheryl juxtaposes text that is printed backwards with text that can be deciphered. Her transfers are beautiful - nothing clunky or saccharin about them.

I recognise motifs and feel I am looking in at Cheryl's world, what interests her, and feel grateful.

I sense the artist's frenetic energy and the quiet, thoughtful spaces.  This rhythm of making is familiar.

And I applaud the last line, but doubt it on some level at the same time! Thank you Cheryl, enchanting!

[De Villo Sloan]

Rebecca, there is not nearly enough written about visual poetry (or maybe that's a good thing). One thing that can be very helpful is the new visual poetry anthology that Crag Hill & Nico Vassilakis (?) just released. It covers 1998-2009 on a global scale & includes a lot of IUOMA folks (like John Bennett & Litsa Spathi) who are in reality (IMHO) some of the best visual poets working today. It also has "how to read vispo" supporting material.

http://www.thelastvispo.com/about/

Cheryl - I am going to write a blog on Automatic Writing (like you when I can get a few moments).

Don't scoop me! but the original source for a definition and "how to" guide for Automatic Writing is a chapter in "Principles of Psychology" by William James (psychologist and brother of author Henry James). William James  was of professor of Gertrude Stein's & his ideas seemed to have influenced modernism & surrealism via that route. William James also coined the term "stream of consciousness." "Principles of Psychology" is a foundational text to Modernism in the same way Henry Adams' "Virgin & the Dynamo" essay-chapter is.

If you want to do an Automatic Writing experiment - follow the process described by William James.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

"...but it's nice to play,
quite like it!"

Reading Cheryl's "automatic writing" or asemics, has "never been easier" :-)
This is a beauty, like Rebecca says...it has energy, but Cheryl's
"quiet thoughtful spaces"...Beautiful blog, too!

[cheryl penn]

O - Rebecca - I have been reading further about automatic writing - its NOT all the things I thought it was... - so thank you for the reminder and re-introduction :-)XX

[cheryl penn]

Rebecca - thank you for such a thoughtful blog - I know these efforts take time - and you gave me that :-) - I REGRET the time pressure I am under as I cannot do the same attentively written  blogs for all the wonderful work I receive.  I appreciate ALL the work I receive and it comes to a GOOD home. Nightmarish - I'm smiling De Villo - sometimes life is like that - odd that it comes though even in work like this.  Nancy - nice to 'see' you XX

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Exceptionally perceptive blog, Rebecca --

[De Villo Sloan]

Rebecca, this is a GREAT Cheryl Penn piece, and very unusual. A LOT of asemic writing here using a range of methods. You have structures - the circles made with stamps - that are derived from concrete poetry (which is often geometric) and visual poetry with word/text integration. I see it as a kind of alternative text that manages to be very expressive, but not something you can read in any conventional way. That is probably too obscure to be of much help. After you have been exposed to vispo, you actually get so you can "read" it. 

People will often say: OMG, look at all those chopped up words, scribbles & pictures thrown together! What a mess!" But I can see the horror of Kafka & Poe in David Chirot, or the play of language in James Joyce in John Bennett's work, and it goes on. Cheryl has a very distinctive style that can range from lyricism to the nightmarish.