Feb 4 Visual Poetry

Sunday, February 4, 11 – 2pm
Location: 2313 Beatrice St. Suite #100
Instructor: Lisa Huffaker
# of Students: 4 - 10

In this class we will explore the fusion of language, drawing, and collage, to create a hybrid that transcends the sum of its parts. Visual poetry works beyond mere illustration, to harness the viewer’s capacity to read both word and image, inseparably joined to deliver meaning. We will work with book pages, using found text to build our own poetry through techniques ranging from erasure to collage-poetics, and anything else we see fit to invent. We will look at foreign languages we don’t know how to read, and invent asemic (meaningless) non-languages of our own, in order to free our minds temporarily from the structure of literacy. The visual poetry we create will be enlivened by this cultivated sense of surprise, as we learn to look at a page of text, not for the meaning it holds, but for the many potential meanings it might be made to release.

We will explore the work of contemporary artists working in visual poetry, including Mary Ruefle, Tom Phillips, Sarah J. Sloat, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth, Kylie Gellatly, Austin Kleon, and Katrina Roberts. Our materials will include carefully selected book pages, collage papers, vintage photographs, postage stamps, and other ephemera.

This class is perfect for anyone with an interest in poetry, collage, or both – and possibly also for those who’ve never explored either! Participants will go home with original works of visual poetry, a helpful and exciting wish-list of books to read and artists to follow, and new techniques to carry them well beyond this workshop. 

INSTRUCTOR BIO:
Lisa Huffaker creates poetry, collage, assemblage, artist’s books, and many combinations of these. Her poetry appears in Pleiades, Diode, 32 Poems, Michigan Quarterly Review, CTRL+V, DIAGRAM, Cincinnati Review, THRUSH, Phoebe, and other journals. She was recently a finalist for Dallas Poet Laureate, and leads community writing projects as Teaching Artist in Residence at the Writer’s Garret. Her work as a teaching artist brings her to the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, and The Dallas Contemporary. Her assemblages have recently been exhibited at Ro2 Art and Bath House Cultural Center. She is currently working on a book of visual poetry, transforming a women’s "self help" book from 1963 through collage and poetic erasure. 65 pieces from the project have been published so far, and the manuscript-in-progress was exhibited internationally as part of TU Delft and Cornell Tech’s 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation. She comes from a background of classical singing; she holds a Master’s degree in vocal performance from the New England Conservatory, and sings with The Dallas Opera.

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*Enter code BUDDY at checkout to receive 10% off when you register with a friend. If you'd like to book a private workshop for a group of 6 or more please call or email for scheduling.