Snow in Bloom

It's a cliche about Midwesterners that we love to talk about the weather. Although, when it goes from a sunny seventy degrees to a snowstorm in the space of a few hours, I think that is genuinely interesting. So I'm going to fulfill the cliche and talk about the weather. But this isn't a tale of intemperate change; this is a tale of The Spring That Would Not Arrive, and why that non-arrival is also amazing

This year, winter in St. Louis has been unexceptional. It has been cold, but not frigid. Snowfall has been rare, but we have had more than our share of cloudy days. Gloomy is a word that comes to mind. More than a few times in the past months I have found myself wondering if Fenrir The Wolf had finally succeeded in killing the gods.

Midwest Ragnarok with Train Window (2013)

The Spring Equinox came and went in much the same manner. While we waited for daffodils to unfold their golden faces, our consternation grew. We are hardy Midwestern people, but we have been ready to plant our gardens for several weeks now. The undergraduates at my university have been yearning to run barefooted through the quad, tossing frisbees and shouting, "COLLEGE!" But just when we had reached our collective breaking points, when we could wait no more, the weather gods came back to life, and produced a "bloom" of snow ...

... Proving that even the cruelest deities have a sense of humor. I might be in the minority opinion here, but I find this springtime snowfall to be magical. (Full disclosure: I like a cold snowy winter as much as I like a balmy summer.) For a few days, at least, the seasons fight back against the homogeneous empty time of the calendar, letting their frozen freak flag fly, so to speak. Two years ago we were graced with a similar late March snowstorm. It was amazing. I tell everyone about it. It was one of my favorite days of all time.

March Snow with Crab Apple Blossoms (2011)

Snow and ice clinging to those desperate blossoms is a rare sight, one that I dream about. It was such a delight to photograph them Also, and less poetically perhaps, I built a zombie snowman. Which is just plain awesome.

Night of the Living Dead Snowman (2011)

The Utterly Naïve "Artist" Redux: The Re-Artening

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be participating in my second art show this weekend; at the Des Lee Gallery, 1627 Washington Avenue in St. Louis. Another of my collages has been accepted in this year's Washington University graduate student art show, Parabola. The show opens Friday, 11/30 from 6pm-9pm, and can also be viewed on Saturday, 12/1 from 1pm-6pm.

If you're in St. Louis this weekend, please stop by. Parabola is always a fun event and here are some pictures of me and Laura Isaac arting it up at the show last year. (Photos courtesy of Laura Isaac, who is a fabulous artist; follow the link to check out her thoughtful and beautiful work).

If for some reason you can't attend the show--maybe you exist in some incompatible spatio-temporal dimension, or you have been called away on an urgent mission to forge peace in a war-torn land, or you can't walk because your bookie broke your legs (always pay the man on time!)--below you'll find a photographic facsimile of the collage I submitted, along with a description of the piece.

Dissertation Citation, mixed media collage, 9" x 12"

The academic dissertation is the culminating project in any Ph.D. program in the humanities. It must summarize and scrutinize the scholarship to date on the given topic, while also contributing some original and useful knowledge to the field. The writer accumulates knowledge, selects, cites, and interrogates the existing body of scholarship in order to construct this new work. Citations form the intellectual genealogy behind the dissertation; they are the breadcrumbs leading both writer and reader through the forest of research, thought, and literary labor that constitutes the Ph.D. 

Dissertation Citation is a mixed media collage that represents the intellectual work of dissertation writing. As a medium, collage is an act of visual citation. By selecting images and words from printed materials and arranging them in an original way, the collage recontextualizes familiar images and forms, inviting the viewer to scrutinize them with fresh eyes. It is a process of composition done via editing and creative reorganization. 

In Dissertation Citation, pages from magazines, business cards, maps, credit card receipts, museum tickets, advertisements, transit cards, and other ephemera constitute a series of frames within frames. Each layer becomes both an object of inquiry in itself, as well as a contextualizing frame through which to view the subsequent layers. Within the regimented rectangles, randomized bits of color and texture combine in surprising ways, forming unexpected symmetries and patterns. These layers emphasize the analytical rigor, as well as the creative serendipity, that are necessary to write the dissertation.

Recognition! or, The Utterly Naïve "Artist"

Now this is really weird: On December 2, 2011 I will be participating in my first art show at a gallery. One of my collages has been selected for display in a graduate student art show at Washington University in St. Louis. Here is some more information about the show. It is open on December 3 as well.

If you are in St. Louis that weekend, please stop by and see me performing the role of "artist." I am still not sure what this word means, or whether I can be comfortable self-applying it. But I am choosing not to worry about that right now. If you cannot be in St. Louis that weekend (and I can think of no reason why you wouldn't), you can see the piece that will be on display below, along with the explanatory blurb I composed about it for the occasion.

“Your Beautiful Exploding Cerebrum”

            The human cerebrum: home of language, sensory perception, memory and knowledge. As a student and instructor of literature, my work seeks to engage these critical areas as they have been expressed in language across time and culture. My research asks the question: How does literary fiction represent and embody the operations of the human mind, including memory and the imagination? My work analyzes twentieth-century novels written in English and French, which trace a narrative of Transatlantic travels and find the Caribbean as a point of convergence. 

            In “Your Beautiful Exploding Cerebrum,” Caribbean corals mimic the intricate folds of the human brain. Books glow with the illuminating power of the island sun, and also form an arm from which a rebellious hand emerges. A woman expresses her mission: “Freedom Thru Books Not Murder,” an appeal to language, art, and reason over hate and violence.

In a period of history possessed by international terrorism and economic disaster, the study of literature might seem to be a frivolous, academic indulgence. However, the novels I study—primarily written by members of the African diaspora—show us that literature, artistic expression, and the life of the mind each plays a role in the quest for liberty, self-determination, and social harmony. These concerns also lie at the core of the university’s educational mission. I ask my undergraduate students to engage literature as a way to productively “explode” their own cerebrums, in order to better understand the way that we all interact with language and thought on a daily basis.