Now that my digital poems have finished their run at MIMA, I’m bringing you all four of them with some info on my process.

This first poem was written for a “leaning-neck vase” by Betty Blandino (1927-2011). As the poem states, the piece is made of coiled stoneware and is unexpectedly light when picked up – the rough finish makes it look like a natural stone, so the expectation of weight was there, and I did literally start talking to this pot when I held it.

My first step was to handle the pot, feel my responses, write notes, draw the vase to get its shape into my muscles…(and later use it for some gelli plate experiments, like you do)

Next step was to go away and write a poem from it. After a few edits, this poem then became a short film using a Canva video template (specifically, the Black White Minimalist the End template). I chose it because it features moving, soft focus lights with reddish-orange hues that made me think of the vase’s rusty-orange surface.

It also seemed to fit with an atmosphere of fairy stories/origin stories/when you were just a twinkle in my eye – the feelings of the poem, if not the specific details of the words. I changed the Canva template’s typefaces and text positioning, and played with how and where the text should arrive on each slide, changed the tempo to suit, and downloaded.

So far, everything I’ve used has been free and easily accessible. This was the result.

Now, that is not the final version of the digital poem – all four poems had soundtracks added before they were shown at MIMA, but you’ll have to wait because I’m going to talk about that, and show you the final looped installation, in a few blogs’ time! You could subscribe, if you like, then you won’t mis any of them?

But I will show you the last iteration of the poem right now, which is as a concrete poem. This was printed in the programme that accompanied the screening, with the following artist’s statement:

Origin Story was written for a coiled stoneware vase with a ‘leaning neck’ made by Betty Blandino (1927-2011). Handling this pot was a sensory overload for me, as it looks like a stone, feels like weathered rust, and is unexpectedly weightless. The shape is reminiscent of an amphora, a pot made specifically to store foodstuffs like wine or oil, but it is kept hollow, and sonorous.  I found myself speaking to it like a sentient creature, and continued that conversation into the poem, imagining myself telling the vase myths about itself like bedtime stories for a child. Little pitchers have big ears.

The observant among you may notice that there are some differences between the texts of the two versions, which just goes to show that poems are never quite finished.

Watch out for the next digital poem, which will be 79AD, written in response to an earthenware tazza by Annette Fuchs.