July 1, 2010
"Replying to SubPrefect Zhang"

Artist Yuko Adachi is a Tokyo-born artist who was raised in Japan, Paris, London, and the United States of America. She has been painting since she was a little girl and has been showing her works through solo and selected group shows internationally. Her painting was featured for the cover of Artscope, New England's Cultural Magazine (May/June 2007) and Takara Magazine, the Japanese Culture and Information Magazine in New England (2007 issues). In 2007, her work was awarded best in painting for "Healing Power of Art" by Manhattan Art International. Today, she lives and works in Boston. She has just opened an artist studio store, "Planet MOMEKO," in Rockport, MA. www.yukoadachi.com

Poet Wang Wei was the "Poet Buddha" of the extraordinary Tang Dynasty, when poetry was the center of Chinese cultural life. Along with Du Fu and Li Bai, Wang Wei remains a treasured poet, still read and memorized—and translated—1300 years later.

Translator Dawn McGuire was born in Grayson, Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachians. Her latest book, Hands On, was published by ZYZZYVA in 2002. "By day," she is a San Francisco neurologist focusing on complications of HIV/AIDS. McGuire studied Chinese at Princeton University and Middlebury College. McGuire believes there is no such thing as "the" translation of a Tang Dynasty poem. Poetic compression is extreme—a typical Tang poem might have only 20 words in all—and inflectional aspects of English such as tense, person, number are absent. A given word (character) easily may have a dozen meanings, and the poem may be a conversation with a poet of a thousand years before, or a contemporary such as SubPrefect Zhang. Each translation, also, is a conversation, and a bow.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Replying to SubPrefect Zhang"

Translator Dawn McGuire:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Everything! I had no idea what to expect. The reference to Asian landscape paintings of the Tang is very neat, especially sing Wang Wei was also a painter, and founded the Southern school.

Artist Yuko Adachi:
When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed?
I did not want to overshadow the beauty of poem with my image I create, so I try to stay imaginative just like the poem without too much complication yet follow its depth of expression in simplicity.

Read the full responses from McGuire & Adachi.
 

June 1, 2010
"At the Christmas Party for the Infectious Diseases"

Artist Lisa Sette is a biologist who lives on Cape Cod.

Writer Christina Olson's first book of poems, Before I Came Home Naked, will be published by Spire Press. Her work has recently appeared in Brevity, The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 3, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review. She is currently a visiting professor of writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, and lives online at www.thedreflow-olsonshow.com.

Image: untitled, digital photograph manipulated in Photoshop

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Composition 101"

Writer Christina Olson:
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem?
I don't think a poem that imagines infectious diseases getting together for a holiday party should take itself too seriously, and I think that Lisa hit just the right note. It's joyful and a little sinister. I feel grateful (indebted really) to Cheryl Gross; her illustration appears as an act of listening...

Artist Lisa Sette:
What surprised you about this piece, once you saw the artwork and poem together?
The conversation worked. The image and poem had more points of intersection than I thought they would. When I read the poem, I instantly thought of this image, but it surprised to see how often moments in the poem were also in the image.

Read the full responses from Olson & Sette.
 

May 1, 2010
"Composition 101"

Artist Cheryl Gross Artist Cheryl Gross has an MFA in New Forms from Pratt. She writes: "When asked about my work, I always equate it with creating an environment transforming my inner thoughts into reality. Much like an architect or urban planner, that reality and humor becomes the foundation of the work." www.cmgross.com

Writer Nicelle Davis lives in Southern California with her husband James and their son J.J. Her poems are forthcoming in Caesura, FuseLit, Illya's Honey, Moulin, The New York Quarterly, Redcations, and Transcurrent. She runs a free online poetry workshop at http://nicelledavis.wordpress.com/. She'd like to acknowledge her poetry family at the University of California, Riverside and Antelope Valley Community College.

Image: 12"X12", handmade paper from India, archival ballpoint and graphite. Scanned it into Photoshop and modified.

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Composition 101"

Writer Nicelle Davis:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
The students in this poem are strong in ways that are uniquely human; with blood on their hands they are the truest image of purity that I know. I am very grateful (indebted really) to Cheryl Gross; her illustration appears as an act of listening...

Artist Cheryl Gross:
When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed? Did that change?
I have been developing a fairly new style using line, tonal values, and negative space. This lends itself to the creepiness of the poem. To add to the unsettling nature of the piece, I added a few more blood stains using Photoshop which were not in the original illustration.

Read the full responses from Gross & Davis.
 

April 1, 2010
"Ex Ovo Omnia"

Artist Julie Evanoff is a Brooklyn based artist who works in drawing, painting and video animation. She exhibited recently at: Gallery Niklas Belenius, Stories real and vividly imagined, Stockholm, Sweden; Hallways, Brooklyn, NY. Her animations screened in video festivals: 2k5 Video Festivall; City Without Walls, Juried Video Festival. She received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She was awarded the Geraldine Dodge Grant from The Women's Studio Workshop and the Vermont Studio Center. She received the Paul Robeson Emerging Artist Award from Rutgers University. Of her work, she says, "I create environments in which human and animal characters from disparate times and cultures interact socially. Using sources ranging from Jungian philosophy to classical myth to images from popular culture, I question what happens when mismatched archetypes cross paths in disjointed landscapes. Erasure, fragmentation, juxtaposition, and revision are key elements to all forms of my work."

Writer Jennifer Perrine's first book of poetry, The Body Is No Machine, was published by New Issues in 2007 and won the 2008 Devil's Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry. Other recent awards include the U.S. Poets in Mexico Mérida Fellowship and first prize in the Black Warrior Review Fourth-Ever Poetry Contest and the Virginia Arts of the Books Center Taste 'Test. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Connecticut Review, Crab Orchard Review, RATTLE, and Third Coast. Perrine lives in Des Moines, Iowa, and works at Drake University, where she organizes the Writers & Critics Series and teaches courses in creative writing and gender studies.

Image: "Turn," Acrylic on panel, 48" x 24"

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Note: "Ex Ovo Omnia" is the sixth Switcheroo feature from Broadsided. What is The Switcheroo? We'd love to tell you.
 

Collaborators' Q & A for "Ex Ovo Omnia"

Writer Jennifer Perrine:
What leapt out first from Julie's art? A particular image? A mood? A line?
At first, I saw red. I was drawn in by that color, especially by the red-bodied figure on the right, and it wasn't until days later that I realized it had reminded me of the character I'd imagined when I read Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red (which I love!).

Artist Julie Evanoff:
Paired with the poem, do you think the art does something different or has a different tone?
I love the way Jennifer's poem goes directly to speak of the mother of the monster. I love that. My work is always from a woman's perspective, simply because I am a woman, but in addition to a women's perspective, I have a feminist perspective....paired with the poem my painting more explicitly reads with that female perspective.

Read the full responses from Evanoff & Perrine.
 

March 1, 2010
"Dear Body"

Artist Ira Joel Haber is a sculptor, painter, book dealer and teacher who sometimes writes poetry and movie reviews. His work has been seen in numerous solo and group shows both in USA and Europe. His work is in the collections of New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, The Hirshorn Museum & The Albright-Knox Art Gallery. In 2004 he received The Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant. Currently he teaches art at the United Federation of Teachers Retiree Program in Brooklyn.

Writer Dan Rosenberg teaches at Augustana College. His poems have appeared in Conduit, CutBank, 6X6, and elsewhere. His first chapbook, A Thread of Hands, is forthcoming from Tilt Press. This poem was an attempt to exorcise the word "body," which kept cropping up, from his poems. It failed.

Image: "Early October Collage," 2009; 9 1/2" x 12 1/2"; paint, crayon, ink, collage with photoshop additions on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Dear Body"

Writer Dan Rosenberg:
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
I think I'm falling in love with the shimmery figure—which I'm thinking of as a "ghost of a body"—floating on the top. I'm also thrilled by how literally Ira chose to take the word "body"—how he is showing the stuff, the gunk, of the human form, particularly since "body" tends to operate more abstractly in the poem.

Artist Ira Joel Haber:
When you began this piece, was it color, shape, or some other aspect that you followed? Did that change?
I always take an existing piece and play around with it in photoshop, so the original collage is somewhat different than what I submitted. That's the beauty of photoshop it allows me to literally create a new piece while still having the originals which I also like a lot.

Read the full responses from Rosenberg & Haber.
 

February 1, 2010
"Replacing the Window, Downtown Medford"

Artist Lochlann Jain is a professional anthropologist.

Writer Amy MacLennan has been published or has work forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, River Styx, Pearl, Linebreak, Cimarron Review, New Plains Review, Folio, and Rattle. Her poems appear in the anthologies Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems from Ragged Sky Press and Not a Muse: The Inner Lives of Women from Haven Books.

Image: 4x6 inches, ink on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "Replacing the Window, Downtown Medford"

Writer Amy MacLennan:
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
I think it was my perception of interconnectedness from the visual art that made me take a different stand in regards to my own poem.

Artist Lochlann Jain:
Seen any good art lately?
I recently spent a week in Udaipur, India, and spent a lot of time in artists' workshops...I spent time drawing with them and talking to them. Even though the art is for tourists, and mostly reproduces illustrations stroke-for-stroke, some of the work is very fine and beautiful.

Read the full responses from MacLennan & Jain.
 

January 1, 2010
"One Lineage of Ice, Ravened"

Artist Kate Baird looks for the distances and differences between places through drawing and painting. She received an MFA from the University of Chicago in 2005 and currently works as a teaching artist at the Guggenheim Museum and the Kentler International Drawing Space. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter, and her work can be seen at www.katebairdart.com. (full bio).

Writer Jari Thymian's poetry has appeared in Simply Haiku, Ekphrasis, The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal Magazine, The Progenitor, ByLine, and in various anthologies. Her poetry has won many awards including a performance in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Words of Art. Her book, The Meaning of Barns, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2007. Jari has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. To read more of her poetry, visit www.jarithymian.com. "One Lineage of Ice, Ravened," was published in a different form in Wazee Journal.

Image: 9x12 inches, graphite and collage on paper

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Collaborators' Q & A for "One Lineage of Ice, Ravened"

Writer Jari Thymian:
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
First, I had the definite feeling that Kate placed the ravens on the shoulders of every person. I see the shoulders, the glaciers, the ghosts of ravens. Then I saw all the colors and layers of ice. Until then, I don't think I consciously saw that I had layers of ice (numbered stanzas) in the poem.

Artist Kate Baird:
What inspires you in this poem?
I like how it goes from short, personal episode to mythic sweep. And I worry about ice disappearing.

Read the full responses from Thymian & Baird.