Ekphrasis.

What is it and why should you care?

Simply put, ekphrasis is a written response (poem, short story, short short story, haiku, novel, etc.) to a work of art (painting, sculpture, photograph, fiberwork, etc.).  It may be written from the perspective of the viewer, a figure in the painting, any object/item in a painting, a landscape, the artist, the sculpture itself, etc.  It’s a sort of sky’s-the-limit kind of exercise.

For example, I participated in a show called, “Ekphrasis: Face & Figure,” and wrote a poem from the point of view of a young woman in a painting.  I sat with the painting, spent time really seeing it.  I jotted words and phrases as they came to me.  Then, over the course of a month, the poem emerged in her words.  It began, “If it’s true, what they say about men and girls who wear glasses …”

I also wrote a short story in response to a painting by Maine artist Leslie Anderson.  (Shanti Arts Publishing and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance invited Maine writers to submit stories and mine was one of the ten selected to be included in the resulting book, Summer Stories.)

More than 20 of Leslie’s paintings were presented.  One entitled, Last Night At the Lake, featured lawn chairs on a dock facing a setting sun across the water.  This immediately sent me into a story.  The painting chose me!

Interestingly, in both cases (poem & short story), other writers chose the same painting as I did.  The resulting poems and stories were, of course, very different from one another.  This fascinated me and inspired this post.

Below, I am offering photographs of some of my works.  I invite you to “respond” with a written piece of your own. (It may just be a line.)  It may arrive full blown.  It may require lots of time and space.  Whatever your process, I suspect it will prove interesting.

I’d appreciate you letting me know your first impressions: words, phrases, images, thoughts,   …   But, that’s not necessary.

Please consider sharing the “end” result at some time.  [Comment on this post, email me or send a message through Facebook.]

You are welcome, of course, to keep it to yourself and simply enjoy the ride.

Below you will find a series of faces and a figure:

(All photos copyrighted materials, Mary Lou Bagley)

Let one or more choose you.  Then,  … write!

As you look out upon this new year, dear ones, I extend an invitation.

I invite you to take a moment and revisit these Time To Write postings from 2013. (There are 9 of them and most are short.) I’ve offered them in friendship as encouragement, inspiration and support.  Though we may be solitary creatives, we are a community — interconnected beings.  We keep each other going.

Give yourself this gift of time: reflect and be reminded of who you are.

What words of encouragement do you have to offer in exchange?

Blessings on this next trip around the sun!

  ~ Mary Lou

Our need for communion …  our wish to be heard …  our song to the other …  ?

What is it that has us scribbling or tapping or chiseling away?

We are relational beings, yes?  What happens when the sky suddenly bursts into startling patterns of color and light at sunset? What happens when we catch an unexpected glimpse of a full white moon rising above the treeline?  After we gasp in awe, don’t we want to share it with someone else?  Don’t we want to point and say, “Look!” and feel the visceral response of a companion and then the inner flood of warmth at having been the one to point?

Yes, we are relational beings. We point.  We paint. We write, … hoping to touch and be touched in return.  Exchange.  We thrive on it, flourish because of it, enrich each others’ lives by being in relation to …  .

There has to be another being on the other side of that ellipsis.  Yes?

And so, dear friends, I remind you once again.  Stop with this keeping it to yourself.  Stop saying you have no time to write while the words pile up inside you. Find your favorite pen. Find your fingers on the keyboard. Find an empty space on the canyon wall. Put what you have to share out there so the other can find it, … read it, … be touched by it.

What you have to say matters.  We other relational beings out here need your words, your thoughts, your paintings, your poems, your pieces of truth …

Seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

Not some day.

Now.