For Our Hunger: A Collaboration

Tarah Trueblood, one of my dearest friends, has interpreted my poem "For Our Hunger" as a 36" x 48" oil painting for her fine arts studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It's a privilege to have a talented artist and thoughtful human engage so deeply with my poetry. Reading about the creative process Tarah engaged in as she visually represented her meditation on the words and structure of the poem enriched my understanding of my own work. It's also nice to know that visual artists, like writers, compose in drafts, returning to the work and changing it. 

Enjoy the poem as well as Tarah's painting "For Our Hunger" (above), and her artist statement below,  which provides a fascinating a glimpse into the role of creativity in her life, as well as detailing the creative choices she made for this painting.

For Our Hunger
 
a chicken
a guitar
a vase
me

We each
in turn
will be taken
by the neck
and

plucked
strummed
filled
wrung
 
And (sadly)
in the end
broken
 
but not before
we offer
(I hope)
our little morsel
to this world
 
a meal
a melody
a bouquet
a poem

–Cathy Warner


Tarah Trueblood’s Artist’s Statement
 
About three years into my decade of practicing law in Sacramento, California, I realized I had cut myself off from the act of creating—of giving birth. I needed a creative outlet. One autumn I signed up for training to become a docent of the Crocker Art Museum. Every Monday morning for an entire academic year I slipped out of the law office and into the magic of the Crocker. There I was immersed in color, texture, landscapes, portraits, sculptures, abstractions, history, culture, artists, and meaning-making. My favorite room became the modern art gallery where I would sit for long periods of time--entering a canvas, dialoguing with the artist, creating meaning and story.

Then, my sister was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease that destroyed her liver. While she was on the liver transplant waiting list, I created my first watercolor painting—more like a meditation really. Today, that is one of my favorite paintings and I named it after the name of the blood disease, Polysythemia—meaning too many red blood cells. The painting is dominated by chaotic forms and bloody shades of red. Yet, in its chaos, there is a large form that strongly resembles a fetus. My sister is still living and so is her daughter who was born shortly after Polysythemia was painted.
 
My sister’s illness inspired me to quit the practice of law in pursuit of something more meaningful. I chose to attend seminary in Berkeley to study theology, social justice, the arts, and meaning-making. That led to a career in higher education working with students to engage in the existential questions of life. Therefore, it is probably no surprise that for my painting class at Miami University, I chose to make a work that creates an experience of beyond, transcendence of the psychological consciousness of Same.
 
The content is drawn from the poem “For Our Hunger.” My first draft attempted to preserve the short lines and stanzas of the poem which resulted in a rigid visual grid. I began to eliminate the stanzas and line breaks to shift the focus to the visual content.
 
Ultimately, the goal was to communicate through content the poem’s meaning: life is full of hardship and yet we may discover ways to forge our suffering into beauty that nourishes our souls. Here are the choices I made to that end: 

• A neutral palate: day-to-day life can seem mundane, like natural/neutral colors. It is up to us to make something extraordinary of them. Most of the painting is done in neutral colors, the only exceptions being the bowl and “morsels.”
• To the natural/neutral hues, I added a large ratio of cold wax to provide a rich, creamy texture suggesting ethereal, other-worldly content.
• After reading, re-reading, and meditating on the poem, the image of round, golden “morsels” emerged.
• One can be so filled with gratitude for the morsels of everyday life that we might say “our cup (or bowl) runs over.” A bowl can imply neediness (empty, begging) or abundance (overflowing, offering). In the poem the morsels are “offered” so I depicted an overflowing bowl.
• I like to incorporate texts in my paintings and rendered a few key words from one stanza in type that seemed indicative of meaning: “plucked” is uneven; “strummed” is script; “filled” is tall; and “wrung” is tight.
• The poem refers to various "necks" (chicken, guitar, vase, human) which took the form of long pairs of vertical lines across the top.
• Content is also suggested by the title of the work, the same as the poem, “For Our Hunger.” Humans hunger not only for the nourishment of food but also of meaning and purpose in life. The warmest tones in the painting are the bowl and “morsels”—our nourishment. These warm tones were added after the painting had been critiqued in class.
•  I left open areas on the canvas to give a sense of openness.
• The poem refers to a song which is rendered in a musical score.
• Most of the text of the poem is written in a “bubble” suggesting an inner dialogue or reflection.
• The passage of time is represented by the suggestion of a clock.
• The hand of the artist is suggested by the form of a painter's palate.
• The "remains" of all the prior drafts of the painting are evidenced in underpaintings and crevices made in the wax. These represent the development of wisdom over one's lifetime and the erosion of ego in favor of a more holistic understanding of one's place in the universe.

See more of Tarah's art at her Facebook page Trueblood Art Studio.