Last week I was part of an art show/performance that was the end result of an 11-day collaborative challenge. The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design selected 11 artists (a combination of writers, crafters and visual artists) to team up and create work based on the CCCD’s exhibition, The Good Making of Good Things: Craft Horizon’s Magazine, 1941-1979.

I was paired with weaver Danielle Burke who’s focus in Appalachian coverlets. We were both inspired by a February, 1974 issue of Craft Horizons in which writers were tasked with creating prose around the art of long-dead makers whose works had outlived any knowledge of the ancient artists who made the work.

We were also inspired by the story of Dani’s loom, which came with writings and samples from three women who’d used it the 1950s and 60s. I wrote poetry around those makers — also more or less lost to time — and Dani created woven collage with photo copied images of the weaving samples. Our final result for the exhibition/experiment/happening Object as Poet, which we presented on April 29, was a chapbook. The cover — Dani’s woven collage — us at the top of this post. Here are some of the pages: