The Life of a Poet (art event)

Art work by: Patricia Engel LaFata

This event took place at SUCO and Phil was lucky enough to get the artist to talk about her work. It was a nice setting because there were only a few of us and it created intimate communication between the viewer and artist. She considered herself a mixed media sculptor but also a poet of common materials. When she was given the space to work with, she decided that she wanted to show new or recent work. She also took the opportunity to make new sculptures. Her concept was "The Life of a Poet", what it means to creat something, how does creation happen, and the creation of stories.

Her tolerance for repetition astounded me. She stated that repetition allowed dor her mind to wonder and was a type of meditation for her. One of the pieces that I wasn't attracted to so much had a great deal of repetition. This piece was called "Sign and Seal". This consisted of a figure dressed in a wedding dress with a crown atop her head. On the dress was staped "make the bride with sign and seal". Together as a piece I didn't think that it worked. The bird gave me the expression of freedom but the wedding dress had an ominour feeling of signing and sealing one's life away. I also wasn't a fan of the figure that wore the dress. She was made out of wax, fabric, and then burnt. The figure seemed to me like a corpse, maybe a funeral fress would have been more effective for this exhibit.

The piece in the exhibit that I was drawn to most was named "Golem". A golem is a pac e for the poet to work and be inspired. The piece consisted of different found, or made, objects that would inspire the poet during his/her work. It also portrayed the ability to change, form, decay, and then become alice agian, as does poetry and art alike. To Patricia everything was alive. There was also a pillow that the poet sat on with the instrucation to make a Golm written on it backwards and in a different language. Her reasoning for this might have been to creat words into more of and art form and showing the similarities between art and poetry. It could have also ment that an artist or poet doesn't need instructions, just inspiration.

Patricia said that none of her pieces were ever finished. That was interesting to me becuase artist are always struggling with when to walk away. The fact that she just settled on them being done for now but having the ability to