BART 97A90 - Text and Art/Text as Art: Collage, Erasure, and Bookmaking

In this course, students will explore modes of creative writing that encourage interactions between the visual and the written word. We will examine how these processes can be used to generate new creative work. We will begin with the process of collage, exploring its history rooted in modernist traditions as a visual device. Next, we will look at texts that translate the concept of collage into a literary form and use found material to create new texts. This includes experiments with artists and writers such as Pablo Picasso, Hannah Höch, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, and Rosmarie Waldrop. This exploration will lead us to erasure poetry, another form of textual manipulation. We will investigate the role of found text in creative production and examine ideas about originality and authorship through the works of Tom Phillips, Stephen Ratcliffe, Mary Ruefle, and Vikram Pradhan.

In the final part of the course, students will use the material they have produced to create a digital or physical book that draws from the history of book arts, resulting in a mode of reading in which the visual and the written word are inseparable. We will look at ancient and avant-garde traditions of book-making to create a book that is also a work of art.

Discussion of assigned texts each week will be followed by opportunities for new writing and peer workshops. Students will learn how to work collaboratively and provide constructive feedback and will be encouraged to transform their hand made books into digital formats. Students will also learn how to contextualize their creative work through self-reflective and critical writing.

Academic expectations

Students are expected to attend every class session as well as any make-up sessions the professor might have to schedule. Students should come to class prepared, having done the necessary readings and assigned homework. Students should understand that they are expected to gain a theoretical and contextual understanding of these practices as much as the creative aspects of the artistic processes we will study in class. Students should be prepared to produce creative work each week, share it with their colleagues for feedback, and present their final portfolio to the class at the end of the semester.

Session 1 : Erasures : an introduction

Humument, Tom Phillips

Assignments : Reading essays by Tom Phillips + create an erasure

Séance 2 : Erasures as Visual Art

Discussion of essays by Tom Phillips

Looking at Jen Bervin and Stephen Ratcliffe

Assignment : Self-reflective essay + erasures

Session 3 : STUDENT WORKSHOP

Assignment One : 7 Erasures

Assignment : Writing poems out of a textbook

Reading essays about collage

Session 4 : The History of Collage

History of collage in the avant-garde : Pablo Picasso, Hannah Hoch

The Russian Avant-Garde book

Assignment : Creating a visual collage

Reading Sonnets by Ted Berrigan

Session 5 : The Sonnet as Collage

Discussion of Sonnets by Ted Berrigan

Assignment : Writing Sonnets out of news headlines

Reading Alice Notley and Bernadette Mayer

Session 6 : Collage and Autobiography

Discussion of Notley and Mayer

Discussion of Experiments by Mayer and Bernstein

Assignment Two : 3 Collages (Workshop)

Assignment : Creating a list of experiments

Reading Rosmarie Waldrop and Mei-mei berssenbrugge

Session 7 : Collage and the Sciences

Discussion of Rosmarie Waldrop and Mei-mei berssenbrugge

Discussion of Books at the Eclipse Archives

Assignments : Creating a collage prose poem

Session 8 : STUDENT WORKSHOP

Assignment Three : Three Prose Poems

Assignments : Reading Cole Swensen

Session 9 : Ekphrastic Writing

MUSEUM VISIT WITH COLE SWENSEN

Assignments : Put together a draft of your book

Session 10 : STUDENT WORKSHOP

Discussion of Cole Swensen

Assignment Four : Two Ekphrastic Poems

Late work policy

Students are expected to submit their work the day before class each week. Failure to do so might mean that their work will not be discussed in the next session. No late portfolios will be accepted.

Late arrival policy

Students should come to class on time and prepared. Anyone who is more than 15 minutes late will not be allowed into the classroom and will be marked absent. Students who are late more than twice will lose a grade point with each subsequent tardiness.