Art exhibition provides poetic fuel

The Dalhousie Art Gallery recently conducted a small-scale experiment in mixed media. As a special send-off to the recent exhibit of Betty Goodwin’s work, “Darkness and Memory”, Dal writer-in-residence Anne Simpson showed a group of aspiring writers around the gallery, using Goodwin’s thought-provoking work as poetic fuel.

In so doing, Ms. Simpson introduced local writers to a process of creation that has worked for her firsthand. Just recently, she was approached by the National Gallery of Canada to write a poem inspired by an artwork in the gallery’s collection. She chose Betty Goodwin’s work.

“I think it had to do with the fact that she was interested in many of the issues that come up for me as a writer: memory, loss, the body, absence and presence,” she says. “Or, more simply, what it means to be human.”

'Sense of mourning'

Workshop participants—myself included—were first taken on a short tour of the gallery by Wes Johnstone, whose informative running commentary framed Goodwin’s work against the larger context of her life. Betty Goodwin’s parents were Romanian immigrants, and her father (who died young) a vest-maker: much later, Goodwin’s marriage was threatened by her husband’s near-drowning. “There’s a sense of mourning about everything she produces,” Mr. Johnstone noted during the talk, adding that Goodwin drew her inspiration not only from her own life, but from the work of such literary luminaries as Samuel Beckett. “Everything in the show relates to the body in some way… it’s all about a transitory experience.”

With this gods-eye view of Goodwin’s work still fresh in the minds of attendees, Ms. Simpson suggested that workshop participants warm up their pens by writing a mock police interrogation inspired by any piece in the gallery. Participants then paired off to share their pieces with each other before Ms. Simpson sent them off into the gallery for a second time, now to write at more length about a period of change in their own lives. A few participants shared their pieces: some wrote about transitory friendship, some personal loss, with differing levels of fictionality. Ms. Goodwin’s work proved an ideal backdrop for listening as well as for writing.

'Another way of seeing'

Ms. Simpson, now months into her residency at Dalhousie, was extremely pleased with how the workshop turned out. “I offered a similar workshop last year at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon when Ed Pien's exhibit was on there,” she explains. “I could see how invigorating it was for writers to work with art.  It didn't take too long to set up, and Wes Johnstone, who does education work at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, helped a good deal… the size of the group was exactly right -- anywhere from a dozen people to about 15 people is perfect for something like this.”

Part of Ms. Simpson’s comfort level with the “gallery workshop” no doubt lies in the fact that her creative background is in visual art as well as wordsmithing. She studied fine art in Toronto before moving to Nova Scotia. “Art is another way of seeing, of coming to terms with the world.  For writers to be in conversation with art is for them to be in conversation with the larger community… if art is another way of seeing, then it can help writers to re-frame something they want to express, and in this sense it can be very generative,” she says. “I feel strongly that one form of art (music, for instance) can help to enliven another form of art; creative work is interdisciplinary in this sense.  It invites and encourages an ecological approach, which is, I think, deeply generative.”

Those aspiring writers who missed this workshop will be pleased to hear that Anne Simpson has more community events planned before bidding farewell to Dalhousie, including a possible “writing and meditation” workshop in collaboration with the Buddhist Chaplain at the Multifaith Centre on Tuesday, March 15. Those interested in participating should contact Ms. Simpson at asimpson@stfx.ca. Other planned events include readings on Monday, March 21, in which writers Ms. Simpson has guided will share their work, and Thursday, March 24, when Ms. Simpson will treat us to a reading of her own writings.