I used Sommer Browning's Backup Singers for my fourth immersive/intensive experience. I titled my reading, simply, Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version.
The illuminated version of Backup Singers differs from the immersive/intensive experiences that proceeded it, mainly, in that my reading of Browning's book and my engagement with the artifact focused more on the production of visual images than on the creation of textual objects. Specifically, I illustrated many of the poems, a technique that I only used sparingly in previous readings. When not illustrating her poems, I would resort, primarily, to collage practices. In fact, on the few occasions that text does appear in this immersive/intensive reading, it is of a handwritten, cartoon variety.
While there were several reasons for this shift, the main reason for illustrating the collection was Browning's own penchant for cartooning. I felt that by engaging her text through images, I might speak directly to the original author's own proclivities.
A few familiar elements do appear in this immersive/intensive reading, though. For example, Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version contains an "Homage to Soda / Explanatory Notes" and an "Homage to Homage to Homage to Homage to Creely [e] / Explanatorory [sic] Notes." Likewise, I illuminated parts of Browning's poem "Rue Daguerre" with material I found on and along the city streets of Cleveland, Ohio during my spring walking tours.
Finally, two external sources exerted great influence upon the direction of Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version. Browning's 41-section poem "Multifarious Array" became an homage of sorts to Sol LeWitt's "All Ands Ifs or Buts Connected by a Green Line," an image of which I first viewed in the poet Jennifer Pilch's Instragram feed. Likewise, I transformed the final section of Browning's book, subtitled "Deep Cuts," into "Pus: 13 Portraits with Inscriptions." In this section, I created epigrammatic erasures of her poems, supplementing each one with a collage portrait. I based these images, loosely, on collage "portraits" I viewed in the Instagram feed of Andrew Lundwall, a collagist and former editor of the now-defunct Scantily Clad Press.
Chapter 05: The Book of Joshua Ware
The illuminated version of Backup Singers differs from the immersive/intensive experiences that proceeded it, mainly, in that my reading of Browning's book and my engagement with the artifact focused more on the production of visual images than on the creation of textual objects. Specifically, I illustrated many of the poems, a technique that I only used sparingly in previous readings. When not illustrating her poems, I would resort, primarily, to collage practices. In fact, on the few occasions that text does appear in this immersive/intensive reading, it is of a handwritten, cartoon variety.
While there were several reasons for this shift, the main reason for illustrating the collection was Browning's own penchant for cartooning. I felt that by engaging her text through images, I might speak directly to the original author's own proclivities.
A few familiar elements do appear in this immersive/intensive reading, though. For example, Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version contains an "Homage to Soda / Explanatory Notes" and an "Homage to Homage to Homage to Homage to Creely [e] / Explanatorory [sic] Notes." Likewise, I illuminated parts of Browning's poem "Rue Daguerre" with material I found on and along the city streets of Cleveland, Ohio during my spring walking tours.
Finally, two external sources exerted great influence upon the direction of Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version. Browning's 41-section poem "Multifarious Array" became an homage of sorts to Sol LeWitt's "All Ands Ifs or Buts Connected by a Green Line," an image of which I first viewed in the poet Jennifer Pilch's Instragram feed. Likewise, I transformed the final section of Browning's book, subtitled "Deep Cuts," into "Pus: 13 Portraits with Inscriptions." In this section, I created epigrammatic erasures of her poems, supplementing each one with a collage portrait. I based these images, loosely, on collage "portraits" I viewed in the Instagram feed of Andrew Lundwall, a collagist and former editor of the now-defunct Scantily Clad Press.
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