Word & Image from C Albert
Flora the Poet
In Roundling time when
days were young and she
grew younger –
Flora
who dressed in blossoms
of the seasons:
poinsettia, pansy, honeydew and rose,
whose dewy topiary hair was adorned
with watermelon-colored dumplings and her face
painted mountain ochre, berry purple,
aster magenta –
Flora
whose divided selves protected
between layers of bark
the hider, the open eye-
der who saw beyond
what be –
Flora
whose magic ears recorded Roundling
stories, once upon another layers
of relations, loves echoed, baby round
to aged circles with no owners,
all sharing terra –
Flora
who etched day
long hoopy orbs, upside down orations, oval
invocations and endless ooooo’s –
The last of her poems was discovered
inside a mulberry tree dying
in a deserted Tibetan valley.
It was penned in ink onto an Oho tablet:
wndrus think sef wink pink pieces
togeth heven languae
through it all fallen
inta noon gloon
we wheeled way from grids
ta live’n leaf branch’n limb
sleep unda ta wings
de katydid hid neath sleep lids
beams o dusta bendi
gras trunks o
wiz’n branc yond
wisper criks’n
dawners bentwigs
thimpin jus twing
lukin beyon beehind
otherness liftid
ta farness
C Albert is based in Seattle, Washington. She is our resident artist and can be contacted through her blog Runaway Moon.
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C Albert
Goddess Topia,
first of all round trees,
was beloved farther than time flung seeds.
Atop ladders, the master gardeners hand-snipped
and shaped leaves and twigs,
while chit-chatting about
a recipe to make rose petal beads
that won’t turn black,
how to keep melon balls from melting
and whatever else mattered at the moment.
The silence of Goddess Topia
was like blank strips of bark
awaiting to be written on.
Her rotund and buxom bush
swayed in the breeze
while leaves and twigs
entwined orotund.
C Albert is based in Seattle, Washington she is our resident artist and we are pleased to welcome her back after a long break. She can be contacted through her blog Runaway Moon.
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C. Albert's 'Swallow' and 'My Mouth is a Hollwed Apple'
Another word and image pairing from our artist/poet in residence C. Albert.
Swallow mixed media collage, first published in qarrtsiluni
My Mouth is a Hollowed Apple
I swallowed the seeds and core.
Do strawberry men feel vulnerable
wearing their seeds on the outside?
I swept the playground with a tree branch.
Boys chased me; I fell and skinned my knees.
At snack time, we had graham crackers and milk
then took a nap.
I wore a tight slip to flatten the symbols
rising on my chest.
The first boy who grabbed at them
forgot I was his friend.
Blood oranges have blemishes,
other changes no one warned me about.
I wanted the blood to stop.
*C Albert can be contacted through her blog Runaway Moon.
My Mouth is a Hollowed Apple was first published in Soundzine
C. Albert begins Spring and Easter
I am delighted to welcome IS&T artist/poet C Albert in residence to begin our Spring and Easter feature….
In Waiting
They Met on a Telephone Line
He was common brown.
There was no trembling of heart
or wing. She simply accepted
then chose a round kitchen vent
in the second floor corner behind
a redwood's shade.
He brought dried blade of grass,
thin twig, leaf stem,
one after another.
Metal rattled
the frantic weaver's pace.
Together they attacked
a blue bird and stole
mouthfuls of feathers.
She finished just before
the eggs dropped
between a royal bed
and her own delicate blanket.
Flies were divided
among their open mouths.
When the nest became too small,
she waited on a branch
with bits of grasshopper.
They flew to her,
blended into bark.
She did not chirp, Stay.
Not even a Farewell!
Three figures dipped and soared,
erased by sky.
*C Albert can be contacted through her blog Runaway Moon.
C Albert's 'Prayer'
Another word and image pairing from our artist/poet in residence C. Albert.
Prayer
You were bubbles
of wonder when we met
that went pop, pop,
with each blow from life,
each electric shock
making you forget.
You came to my studio
for a drawing class that day,
when out of nowhere,
you changed.
Your mouth matted down
with just enough shape
to blow a single hope,
“Do you pray? Will you
pray for me?”
I said yes, to calm you,
not knowing how,
until I saw your face
in my collage.
For your hair, I can grow
a grass topiary halo, dotted
with a band of pansies,
marigolds and lettuce leaves.
And I can stitch you a dress
of periwinkles, blue cartwheels
to pollinate sky and earth
where snails, the size
of fingernails curl up
and roll over your past.
That day, I said,
“Don't be afraid of sadness.”
Wearing your purse around
your neck, you sunk
into the soft bed, my couch,
where a young male Daoist once
dreamed of nothingness.
collage and poem first printed in Mannequin Envy
* C.Albert is based in Seattle, Washington and we will be featuring more of her work in the coming months.
C. Albert's 'Flora' and 'The Meaning of Roundling'
Another word and image pairing from our artist/poet in residence C. Albert.
With the edges
of our eyes, we catch glimpses
of roundlings peeking through windows.
Gentle creatures, ready to bolt,
fragile with dark traumas
passed onto them.
Best not to talk
in x,y,z. A whisper,
”why didn't you” or “you should”
is an attack of syntax, a barbed construction
that shatters them. They will run
with the thought,
“It is not safe.”
Once they flee,
the void aches with absence
of oval tenderness.
Sometimes they can be enticed
with soft fruits and scents of fresh
lemon, orange or tangerine.
Round stones
will please.
Feed them colors,
speak in fluted ragas,
offer acceptance.
Ink Sweat and Tears welcomes artist/poet in residence C. Albert
Ink Sweat and Tears is very pleased to welcome our new artist/poet in residence, C. Albert. C. Albert is a collage artist and poet based in the United States, and this is what she says about her practice:
Years before discovering collage, I collected images from magazines, gluing favorites into a blank book. It followed naturally that I began to use found imagery when making art: cutting, tearing and gluing orphan pieces back together in strangely appealing new ways. When I started including text from magazines into collages, the words were cryptic but enticing: I wanted to write too.
Poetry was always a vegetable I didn't “get”, like beets, yet that's what I wrote. Now I think poetry and beets are mysterious; steamed beets are especially delicious with feta cheese, walnuts and pomegranate juice.
Working in multimedia is something like cross-training for athletes. Collage is like silent poetry and poems can express narrative embedded in collage more explicitly. The combinations are intended to create expansive experiences. Which comes first, the chicken-poem or the collage-egg? The answer is either or both at the same time!
I catch the muse's seeds from conceptual ideas, observation, memory, and dreams, along with found imagery and found words as prompts. Being in kind with surrealism, I observe the magic of inexplicable coincidence.
Over the coming year, we will be featuring her words and images here. I will start by showing you her art table, the collage which grew from it and the poem which grew from that. The poem Artist Poem was first published in Woman Made Gallery, Her Mark.
Seeds: mixed media collage
Artist Poem
In a quiet room images cascade
as seeds
from my fingertips
Settle through the restless hours
Words, fabrics, papers, lace
compose juxtapose, light dark
golds and silvers
Through dreams remember feeling
Fall away, catch
begin, touch
lines curve into roundness
Glue holding
ripe melons
hands reaching
eyes peeking through petals
Wings
The photograph of C Albert's art table is taken by Matthew Casey.
C Albert can be contacted through her blog Runaway Moon.
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