Wall at WAM, Worcester Art Museum Commission, "Correspondence (for Elizabeth Bishop)
In 2024 I was commissioned by the Worcester Art Museum to create an original 67' x 17' wall work for the grand central atrium space called the Renaissance Court. The work opens on 9/18/24. The piece titled "Correspondence (For Elizabeth Bishop) is an homage to Elizabeth Bishop, the famous American poet, who was born and is buried in Worcester, MA. She was also an artist who made watercolors and assemblage works throughout her life, and I surmise, might have visited the museum.
I incorporated shapes inspired by works throughout the museum that were relevant to Bishop's oeuvre; a wave border from a 2,000 year old Antioch mosaic, rosette decorations from gowns in 15th century gold punch work devotional paintings, as well as a spiral form that is a graphic representation of the sestina, a complex poetry form that consists of six six line stanzas in changing order followed by one three line stanza. Her well known biographical poem, "Sestina", follows this format.
The star form at the center of the work is also from an Antioch mosaic but here it represents a compass and Bishop's obsession with geography, navigation, and looking out, through poetic observation, across skies and water towards the life and people who were far away from her. She traveled extensively and lived in Brazil for almost 30 years.
Around the perimeter of the piece there is a coded message transcribing a mash up of Bishop lines from two famous poems - "In the Waiting Room" and "The Bight (On My Birthday)". The lines together read: "In Worcester, MA... All the untidy activity continues, awful but cheerful". The second line is the epitaph on her gravestone in Hope Cemetery, five miles from the museum.
