RECEIVED: Visual Poetry Anthology (#1) from Cheryl Penn (South Africa), Reed Altemus & Fluxpo (USA), Nancy Bell Scott (USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Cheryl Penn (Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa)

 

April 14, 2012 - Continuing the documentation of the two visual poetry editions that resulted from the collaborative mail-art book project headquartered here at the IUOMA, I am blogging selected chapters together in what I think of as an anthology format. First is Cheryl Penn's homage to Vincent Van Gogh, which appears in the second edition.

 

Cheryl subdues her organic approach here to focus more on linear and compartmentalized geometric shapes. For me, these reference framing and perspective in painting. This is not a complete surprise because she has created earlier concrete poetry-based work with grids. I see a connection to that here.

 

The left-hand page suggests poetry and in particular it reminds me of Michael McClure's center-justified verse that I recently read is considered concrete poetry by the Sackner Archive. Cheryl also uses many different font styles and sizes to emphasize the visual aspects of poetry.

 

The right-hand page introduces the central concept: A series of altered photos that provide a theme and variation exploration beginning with an iconic Van Gogh image. Of great importance to my understanding of the piece are the language-frames surrounding the images. I think this opens many possibilities for both understanding and questioning traditional boundaries between text-image, artwork-environment, artwork-context, culture-life and other relevant pairings.

 

 

 I like the theme and variations pattern that holds the work together. The approach is a departure for Cheryl from much of her work which is essentially narrative, albeit sometimes non-linear. The collage-like changes to the photos, I think, can summon responses ranging from mild fright to laughter at their playfulness. Yet the changes in the images are only a continuation of the undulating changes in the text that surround and overlay them; it's cohesion that provides an antidote to the dominant compartmentalization.

 

An anti-art sentiment is present, and I think probably thoughtfully related to Cheryl's recent "Desecration of the Innocent Image" work. Any ideas Cheryl has about anti-art and its role in/connection to the desecration of art I expect are likely to be very reasoned and different than the positions we assume someone might hold concerning such matters.

 

 

Between textual framing as well as overlays in relation to the image, I think the piece questions and violates boundaries between word and image - an issue central to visual poetry itself. You can also see the postmodern tendency, often present in Cheryl's work, that relentlessly keeps the reader aware of medium and process, so as not to be lulled into what is considered by some an illusion and ultimately a deception.

 

As many have heard probably in many places more than 10,000x in various phrasing something similar to this: "This is a CONSTRUCT. Best to consider how it was constructed, how it got here, and whose interests does it serve being here?"

 

Cheryl Penn's work does not strike me as being political in the way that postmodernism can be an interrogation of ideologies buried in "the text." Yet her work shows a keen interest in form, material, and process; it seeks to find small tears and contradictions in existing systems that can lead to new and different kinds of expression - both those that we have somehow managed to lose and those not yet known.

 

 

 Personally, I admire this piece most for its structure. Lacking formal elements that can lead to the creation of a crown of sonnets or something similar, Cheryl manages to take the elements available to visual poetry and build a balanced, even classical, structure that enhances content. This seems unique to me, and I deeply appreciate having this chapter.

 

Cheryl Penn has a great blog with mail-art, books, and more:

http://cherylpenn.com/wpb/

 

Reed Altemus - The Vispo Lyric and/or Poetry Cycle in Fluxpo

 

 Mail-art by Reed Altemus (Portland, Maine, USA)

 

Reed Altemus is a Fluxus artist who works in intermedia. His contributions thus far cover an astonishingly wide range, including performance scores, events, and Flux Kits. He is a xerography scholar of sorts and has done fine work in asemics, concrete poetry, and visual poetry.

 

His chapter (from Edition #2) begins with a reference to Alice in Wonderland, suggesting a unifying narrative or theme (to some degree a ruse), but quickly shifts to discrete, page-measured visual poems that work like a sequence of short lyric poems in a chapbook where the relation between poems is, at best, non-linear.

 

 

The pages above is one of my favorites. This extreme play on altered text is, for me, visually striking. Without being minimalist in composition, it supports a minimalist stance - a reduction in signification that arrives at the simplest communication, devoid of metaphor or ambiguity, as much as is possible. 

 

Notice the lack of figurative language, thought to be poetry's lifeblood. The remaining words in this Reed Altemus poem serve as a statement of a Fluxus concept: the re-integration of art (culture) and life. For those seeking to understand Fluxus, this Reed Altemus statement captures the essence, at least based on my understanding. 

 

These two poems rely on collage and cut-up. The work on the left-hand side has the appearance of a lyric poem written in measured lines and is asemic to a high degree - creating new symbols through the decomposition of the familiar. I like the eye in the right-hand poem that suggests the poem looking back at the reader, a reminder of interative process.

 

 

 

 

Here we have a negative space view of the asemic-cut-up lyric. The right-hand, among other things, can be viewed as glyph or ideogram or can be dissected and words extricated.

 

I believe the work of many current Fluxus artists reveals a strong connection to the work of previous generations. In addition to Reed Altemus, I see it in the work of Litsa Spathi (Netherlands and Greece), JF Chapelle (France), Cecil Touchon (USA), and Ginny Lloyd (USA), among other.

 

The lineage and evolution from Emmet Williams and the work of others, especially those associated with Dick Higgins' Something Else Press, appears remarkably intact. (David-Baptiste Chirot (USA) is an exception in this case, IMHO; Chirot is the product of other influences as well as Fluxus or from different roots of that great tree.) Indeed, Fluxus has such a literary presence that I think it is very possible to identify not one but several strains of Fluxus poetry (Fluxpo).

 

The vispo tends to be "clean," relatively devoid of overlaying and often language-centered; exceptions abound but reflect other aspects of the multi-faceted Fluxus. Vispo and concrete poetry have been so inherently connected to Fluxus for so long that it is not surprising that artists working in this area have exposure and an intimate knowledge. It is second-nature to many of them. I think it does make much of the Fluxus work distinctive in the vispo tide. 

 

 

Both Cheryl Penn and I were very pleased to have Reed Altemus in the book project. This chapter will remain a personal favorite in the archives. More about Reed Altemus can be found:

http://www.reedaltemus.org/

 

More Fluxpo via Litsa Spathi:

 

http://fluxusblog.blogspot.com/

 

Nancy Bell Scott - Asemics/Vispo

 

Mail-art by IUOMA member Nancy Bell Scott (Old Orchard Beach, Maine, USA)

 

Nancy Bell Scott joined the IUOMA last year when the Asemics 16 collaborative book project was in full swing. My understanding is that she is an experienced artist but had never explored asemics.The result of her serious interest in asemics and further exposure to visual poetry and similar modes abundant in the mail-art network. This has led, in my view, to the production of consistently stunning work by Nancy that is still evolving in a dynamic way. Her book chapter is a wonderful, extended record of her talents.

 

She is developing a style and innovative composition methods that are making her work highly original and distinctive. Her chapter for the vispo book is dedicated to Hannelore Baron and honors not only an artist who is not well-enough known but also someone who pioneered territory that Nancy continues to explore. Nancy included a statement with the chapter that is very informative and provides context:

 

Here are the second and third pages of Nancy's chapter:

 

 

In a way that appears effortless, Nancy synthesizes a wide range of different genres and methods in her work that might not ordinarily seem compatible. An attempt to list or categorize it all would be futile because I think Nancy has a tremendous ability to transcend the roots from which she draws ideas and inspiration.

 

In the pages above I can see elements that are haptic, found, concrete, abstract, and asemic, along with many other things. Nancy is clearly drawing from a vast knowledge to create beautiful work that I don't think anyone is able yet to fully explain. I do see it as an amazing integration of language and image, making a true visual poetry.

 

Like Cheryl Penn, Nancy Bell Scott tends to use organic forms in her vispo, a true departure from the precise geometry of earlier concrete poetry. Interestingly, like Cheryl Penn, Nancy chose to use square and rectangular shapes (roughly) as a structural device. thus opening many similar possibilities for meaning concerning boundaries between language and image.

 

For me, however, the organic dominates in Nancy's work, whereas in Cheryl's it is more suppressed. Nancy's visual poetry here ( a single, extended poem?) succeeds by its fluidity, textures, and melding of one element into another. All of it is highly, highly individualistic. Even her asemic writing has a unique style that is immediately recognizable after seeing a few pieces.

 

Asemics 16 produced a great deal of what I will call hybrid work. Many of the artists combined visual poetry with asemic writing. I know the experience had a huge impact on the direction of my own work and it appears to me it had a similar impact on Nancy. She continues to integrate asemics with visual poetry, and there is often very little reliance on representational visual images - instead, the tendency is toward abstraction.

 

For more work by Nancy Bell Scott, make sure to visit:

http://nancybellscott.wordpress.com/

 

 

Many thanks to the artist for their hard work and sending these chapters!

MAIL-ART PSYCHIC

Ray says: "The rain in Maine falls mainly on the drain."

 

A flying buttress or tray-tor

 

7-2-6

 

Lucky Strikes

 

Organ grinder

 

Accept no substitute substitute

 

Lamb's mom or postal abbr.

 

JL, try taping your left hand to a table, Mad Max

 

"Picnic at Hanging Rock."

 

A ______ ate my _______.

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi Rebecca, just read your comment. Your chapter helped make the books more interesting. Yes, vispo & these other poetic forms have been linked to the mail-art network for decades. You can discover some wonderful things that are relatively unknown. I'm glad it has sparked your interest. Yes, Reed is a master and as the blog explains, vispo is also very connected to Fluxus.

 

It does sometimes seem a little disorienting. You look at something that your conditioning still tells you is a picture but everyone is talking about it as if it were a poem.

 

David Chirot always insists on calling himself a poet and his work poems, even though it's vispo & asemic writing. And that gave me the discipline to find a new way of reading.

[De Villo Sloan]

Nancy, first I had scanner problems & got worried about your work appearing in the right order and in the right position. Leave me a note somewhere if it isn't right because I plan on keeping these blogs as a permanent record as well as the work.

 

I'm a big fan of your work, that just seemes to get better and more interesting. You did come to IUOMA at a time when a bunch of us were learning together. Just because Cheryl and I launched an asemics project didn't mean we knew what we were doing. So in addition to other ties, there's a group of us who have shared influences and roots in their work. I really believe I can see this.  

 

A theme for the blog was this idea that the eight pages gave people an opportunity to do an extended series of "poems" or a single sustained work. I think I did that clearly w/ Cheryl's chapter and Reed's. The "compartmentalizing" in your work I thought addressed that. It's interesting to see how people built structures. But the closer I looked the more I had to read your work as a single sustained text. All this is subjective, of course. I'm sure other people have different views.

 

And really notable (it got late last night and I didn't explain well) is that you used what some might call abstract art without the benefit of recognizable images to weave in. Not that many people do this - and it makes for a powerful textual quality to the work. I still haven't explained this well, but maybe it helps.

 

You have a very distinctive style. So much has been said in our era about "the death of the author" (artist) and the "death of style," it is really refreshing to see work like yours that is so grounded in individualism. Individualism, you know, in a PC way, has taken a terrible beating. But the power of highly self-realized individualism is a wonder to behold and makes me think back to figures like Emily Dickinson & Walt Whitman who had these incredibly individualistic styles, voices, and ultimately created new forms. And it's just so darned American...

 

Also I'm finding with the sort of new work you find in this blog, old categories like "abstract" and "realism" really don't apply anymore and only muddy the waters.

[Rebecca Guyver]

Fabulous reading. DVS your blogging is a huge help in my VIPSO thinking - Like learning a new language, so exciting. LOVE, love, love seeing Nancy Bell Scott's pages, especially the second and third pages that speak to me by virtue of their colour relationships. I have my very own copy of Cheryl's that is even better to hold than here on my computer.  I'm forwarding a link to Reed's pages to a friend who I know will be grateful. Thank you. Maine! I have a house in Maine that I make a pilgrimage to for a month every summer.  There is a great foundation that selects artists ...perhaps one of you VISPOs should apply! http://www.heliker-lahotan.org/residency.html

[Nancy Bell Scott]

p.s. Implied but I want to say: I learn at least as much from what you say about my work as from your perceptions of others. Very eye-opening. 

[Nancy Bell Scott]

DVS, many thanks for this terrific blog, from which I've learned much. This was true also of your other vispo blogs--you could probably write the book. This is the first I've seen of Cheryl's Van Gogh pages, and they are really wonderful. Reed's definitely interested and impressed me too when they arrived, though explanations/history/context really do help (me) in this territory. Thanks again, and I'm sorry to say I can't recommend Maine taters. 

[De Villo Sloan]

Glad you could make it Cheryl. Sorry about your computer meltdown. Thanks for the endorsement of what I had to say about your chapter. All the things about organic form & then the framing - it gets complicated, but I think there is the kernal of an idea there.

 

I thought you were using Van Gogh quotes. I am grouping chapters together that have some commonalities and/or interesting differences.

 

Thanks, again

[cheryl penn]

De Villo - great Vispo blog as usual - many thanks for your continued dedication to blogging all the chapters - that has in itself been a mammoth task. O - and I am happy to be with the Main Dudes :-), both of whose work I greatly admire. Just by the way - the text is Van Gogh's too:

Dying is hard, but living is harder still

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? 

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi Lisa, I agree. So much good work came out of the editions I'm going to do several "anthologies."

 

A really geographic oddity here - both Reed and Nancy are from Maine, USA. That's a small corner of the huge mail-art globe. I write (joking! joking!): Nancy Bell Scott and Reed Altemus are the first two culturally significant people to come out of Maine since Stephen King. "Back Cujo!" - I said I was kidding! Love them Main taters!