Keep Your Muse Slender
Visual Response
Visual Response
In my design, I have developed a style based upon imagery's dependence on elemental juxtaposition. By combining the realistic in an unrealistic manner and capitalizing on contrasts of colour and form, I visually mirrored the concept behind Harryette Mullen’s collection of poems, Muse & Drudge, which soulfully contrasts inspiration with struggle. My artwork entitled Keep Your Muse Slender, inspired by Muse & Drudge, connects with the poetry through its aesthetic style and figurative imagery: a black dove, (a messenger, and the anthropomorphic form of blues music) held within the grasp of a discriminatory white hand, compelled to release an effervescent mass of floral imagery. The black dove can do none else but sing its songs of sorrow.
The art is symbolic of not only Mullen’s societal critiques in Muse & Drudge, but the development of blues music, and Mullen’s poetry itself – which puts in to practice intertextuality of language, conceptually communicating her discourse in a universally understood manner – similar to how music operates, which is why I found it most appropriate to interpret Muse &Drudge as an album of songs when I designed my piece of art as a 12" vinyl LP sleeve.
The art is symbolic of not only Mullen’s societal critiques in Muse & Drudge, but the development of blues music, and Mullen’s poetry itself – which puts in to practice intertextuality of language, conceptually communicating her discourse in a universally understood manner – similar to how music operates, which is why I found it most appropriate to interpret Muse &Drudge as an album of songs when I designed my piece of art as a 12" vinyl LP sleeve.
“Fatten your animal for sacrifice, poet, but keep your muse slender.”
-Callimachus
-Callimachus
