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About "Selections from Reciprocity: Paintings and Poems"
During March and April 2004, I was pleased to have a very special
exhibition at the Emmanuel d'Alzon Library at Assumption College
in Worcester, Massachusetts: twenty-one reciprocally inspired painting/poem
sets from a larger group of thirty-five that make up my manuscript,
Reciprocity: Selected Paintings and Poems. It was thrilling for
me to see poster-sized copies of my poems displayed next to their
reciprocal partners.
What sets these works apart from the hundreds of other paintings
and poems that I make? There are times when a phenomenon which I
call "reciprocity" occurs---I finish a painting, but experience
a lack of emotional resolution and satisfaction. The painting itself
feels resolved, but I need to write in order to quiet my muse. If
the poem should come first, it gives meaning and substance to a
subsequent painting. In their mutual relationship, they eventually
become a singular and reciprocal way of expressing myself. I understand
that reciprocity will happen when it needs to, when the urge to
continue becomes insistent. So I listen to the work and let it lead
me. I trust that something might be waiting for me on the other
side of the process, as it has thirty-five times over the past six
years.
I believe I am working within a tradition because there are many
renowned poet/artists, such as Jean Arp, William Blake, Marc Chagall,
Leonardo da Vinci, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Marsden Hartley, Michelangelo,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Dorothea Tanning. Edgar Degas composed
a sonnet to his "Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen." However,
if they experienced a sort of reciprocity, they did not write about
it. My manuscript contains a preface and endnotes, in which I explain
my experience.
I was honored to receive a fellowship in support of this project
from the Worcester Cultural Commission/Massachusetts Cultural Council.
And, as happy as I was to design the Assumption exhibition and see
the manuscript "come to life" on the walls, now it is
over, and I continue my search for a publisher who will transform
the manuscript into a book.
View Judy's work here
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