Collaboration: SPARK 15
A bit back, I introduced Amy Souza, an amazing woman who encourages collaboration between artists and writers through a project she developed called SPARK. SPARK came into being in 2008. Since then, Amy has been bringing artists and writers together four times a year with results that are just inspirational, to say the least!
Personally, I have participated in several such collaborations. This session, though, I took up the challenge to work as an artist, rather than a writer. The results have been wonderful!
Today I will share with you the work that Heidi Mordhorst and I have done together. She sent me a poem she wrote for inspiration and I sent her a photo I had taken and digitally enhanced. The results, I think, were wonderful!
Here are our mutual shares: First, Heidi's inspirational poem with my response picture:
Side by Side in the Outhouse
One night late I’m brushing my teeth
when my dad says, “You know, son,
we’re poor.
“Here we are three bathrooms in the house--
one of them with double sinks--
and nowhere to have
a midnight two-seater talk.
Here, when you have to go in the night,
it’s a lonely affair.”
I have to ask what he’s talking about.
“When I was a boy in New Mexico,
if I had to go in the night,
I’d wake my father up. Together
we’d take our flashlights and
head to the outhouse.
Side by side we’d do our business,
alone in the deep dark of the desert.
“And then, since we were there, and up,
my father and I would sit for a while,
side by side in the outhouse,
in the cactus-flower glow of the flashlights,
with the Sears catalog handy for
paper and inspiration, and have
a midnight two-seater talk.
Yessiree, we’re poor these days.”
I hang up my toothbrush; Dad turns out the light,
and we sit down
side by side on the edge of the tub.
~Heidi Mordhorst ~all rights reserved
"Tub" by Linda M. Rhinehart Neas
This next collaboration is my inspiration piece and Heidi's response to it.
"Window Pains" by Linda M. Rhinehart Neas
WINDOW PAINS
To ash the hands who built the frame
to dust the hands who hung the drape
which taking pains to hammer nails
and taking pains to stitch and so
Painstaking made a house and home
to hold the combs and loaves and soap
that close and fill all cracks and holes
but open doors just out of sight
Blew the weather in and out
wore the boards and warped the house
how time and climate tore it down
the cloth to rags uncovering
Glass the last to fall holds in
panes taking gray gone finger prints
pressing through the house’s skin
a spirit of the hands intact
~Heidi Mordhorst ~all rights reserved
Later, I will post the other collaboration I did for SPARK 15. In the meantime, I encourage my readers to visit the SPARK site and enjoy the wealth of creative work found there.
Thanks to my collaborators, Heidi and Anthony for this experience and of course to Amy Souza, for bringing us all together!
Namasté!
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Comments
Hi, Madeline! Thanks for visiting and your thoughtful post. SPARK is so much fun!
Blessings to you both! Linda