photo, poem, post with Eliza Bell & Meghan Sterling
photo, poem, post with Eliza Bell & Meghan Sterling
Wednesday, March 20th, at 7 pm ET on Zoom
Photo, poem, post is a creative collaboration between photographer, Eliza Bell, and poet Meghan Sterling. The project began a little over a year ago, as a gift of sorts. Every week, Eliza would mail a photo from North Carolina, to Meghan, in Maine. Meghan would respond with a poem, and then mail both photo + poem to their mutual friend, Ren, in Oregon. While this originally felt like a gift to Ren, it immediately became clear to Eliza, upon receiving the poem response, that it was also a gift to herself.
Like so many artists, Eliza had become accustomed to sharing photographs on social media platforms where you are either quickly applauded with tiny hearts or simply ignored. She hadn't considered how wonderful it would feel to share an image with someone and receive such a genuine response–or how it would feel to begin a conversation without the use of a single word, or spark the creation of art in an entirely different form.
For years, her collaborative partner Meghan has had a daily practice of writing a poem each morning. Receiving the photo each week challenged and sparked her creativity to expand past the familiar, allowing her to explore a new language of the visual.
Do you have a hankering to collaborate with other artists? Join us for a talk about the gift of art as conversation + collaboration.
Read more of Meghan’s award winning poetry - Meghan Sterling
See more of Eliza’s photography - Eliza Bell Photography
Because July Has Been Storm
& song, the fields emptied of their fires
as though God’s own hands have lifted
the sluices: the air scented with potatoes,
thinly sliced & fried in fat: the divisions
between outdoors & indoors crumbling:
the water world and the damp seeping onto
the ceiling and windowsills: peeling paint
in long wet strips: my daughter: quiet beside
the window fan: breathing into blades: her voice
a blurred stutter: my daughter: sliding across the tarp
sprayed by the hose: I didn’t ask my daughter to love it
here: she has come to want the wide planks beneath
her bare feet: she has come to want to lie in wet grass:
beneath the silver sky: still as a garden snake: she has
come like her grandparents to find: harbor in the field:
the boat of her house set sail: across the rest of her life
- Meghan Sterling
