February 2018 Art-Poetry Pairing – How it Works

These instructions are for the artists and poets participating in the February 2018 Art and Poetry Pairing being showcased at the Worcester Public Library. Here’s how it works! This is our second annual show – most of us now have experience with the process.

Each artist is paired with a poet. They form a team for the duration of this project.

Sometime before December 1, 2017, the poet provides the artist with a poem. The poem can be custom-written for this project or it can be a favorite the artist already has written. The poem will be hung in the show on a maximum size of 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper so it should be short enough to fit on that paper at a reasonably sized font. With that being said, the poem can otherwise be as short or as long as the poet desires. It can be a short haiku or a long sonnet. The artist now has until January 31, 2018 to create a work of art that represents that poem. The art can be a literal interpretation. It can convey the emotion of the poem. It can focus on one aspect of the poem. It is up to the artist to choose how to present their interpretation. That pairing of poem-plus-artwork will be hung side by side at the show.

In parallel:

Sometime before December 1, 2017, the artist provides the poet with a piece of art (a JPG photo of it is fine). Again, the artwork can be custom-created for this project or it can be an existing favorite. The artwork will be hung in a locked glass case at the library so the art has to fit inside one of those cases :). There are both horizontal “lay items flat” style cases as well as vertical wall cases. You can see photos of the cases here:

Worcester Library Cases

We have 17 artist-poet pairs so that is 34 finished works of art plus poems. We have 10 total cases. So artists should aim for the art to be about 1/4 of a case as a maximum size.

The poet now has until January 31, 2018 to write a poem based on that piece of art. Again, the poem does not need to literally describe the artwork. It can convey an emotion. It can create a story based on the scene. It can be whatever the poet wishes.

When each poem and artwork is complete (both in the first and second round), please also send a copy to Lisa so she can work on the Tetris-like logistics of seeing what will fit where. For art, let her know the dimensions of the piece when you send the JPG.

If anybody has any questions or comments, please let Lisa know.

Enjoy!

Here are the pairings from 2017 to see how this works:

2017 Art-Poetry Pairing

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