Tell Me What You See

Artist Statements

Alexis Easley Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing Assessment at the University of Alaska Southeast.
"My poetry springs from my interest in magic and memory--how the past and the present are transformed through the act of writing. I am also interested in exploring collaborative processes. Something wonderful happens when artists work together in a synergistic way, shaping ideas and images outside the conventional boundaries of genre and discipline. This project promises to demonstrate this process in action, emphasizing ways that images and memories can be transformed and reinterpreted through different media and individual points of view."

Elise Tomlinson MLIS
Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Alaska Southeast. She also has a BFA in printmaking and oil painting.
"I find that the creative process works much better in an environment where immediate constructive feedback is readily available. When artists can set aside their personal egos to create something with another artist, the results can be surprising and wonderful. My visual work has always had a narrative aspect; who better to experiment with in this area than writers?"

Emily Wall MFA
Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alaska Southeast.
"In my teaching as well as in my own writing lately I've been very curious about mixed genre and mixed media creation. I'm especially interested, in this project, to see how poems that tell stories evolve out of a single image. What might I, as a writer, assume about these images? How would that differ from what the painter assumed? I want to explore the idea that one image, in language or in paint, could spark us into different associations. Above all, I'm hoping to be stretched and surprised by the new work, to see how different mediums compliment, and possibly contradict, each other."

Book Project

The book will include the following:
1. Color reproductions of oil paintings by Elise Tomlinson. Some of these paintings are written in response to poems written by the two poets involved in the project: Alexis Easley and Emily Wall.
2. Poems and short prose pieces written by Easley and Wall in response to Tomlinson's paintings or in response to each other's poems.
The volume will also include an introductory essay discussing the collaborative process, including drafts of poems, thumbnail sketches of paintings, and examples of correspondence. The introduction will share insights about utilizing technology such as web pages and electronic bulletin boards to facilitate creative interchange. In this way, the book as a whole will provide a collaborative model that can be adapted by other communities of women and/or artists who are interested in developing creative projects and networks.
We anticipate there will be approximately 15 paintings and 30 poems. We estimate that at the moment we are roughly one third finished. Our projected audience is women in general, visual artists, poets, universities (could be used in a creative writing workshop, a painting studio, a feminist studies class, a popular culture seminar, etc.).

Exhibit Proposal

The idea behind this project is to expose ourselves to the work processes of other creative individuals who are not from our own immediate disciplines in order to see how written and visual mediums might inform one another. For example, a painting might be based on a poem or short story, a poem might be based on a painting, or a short story might be based on a poem. Through experimentation we plan to see how our combined creative energies re-direct our individual sense of aesthetic value.
The paintings will address some very general themes, as we don't wish to restrict ourselves too narrowly. They will be done in oil paint on panels ranging in sizes from 24" x 36" and smaller. We feel that the process is just as important as the finished pieces. To show this, we intend to frame and hang some examples of what went into the finished products. This includes thumbnail drawings and rough drafts of written works. The finished written works will be hung (when appropriate) with the visual piece that relates to them, along with a caption about which came first or whether they were completed simultaneously.
On opening night, we plan to present a reading and discussion to share the highlights of this collaboration. We also plan to host a workshop on the collaborative process on the weekend of the opening to share what we have learned with interested members of the community.