An Image (collage) to Text (poem) to Image (sharing) Event with Poet Laureate Natalie Nickerson
It is easy to forget that our experiences are complex and encountered through the various lenses filtering our perception. By diving into the realm of the imaginative and expressing our selves through a series of images, texts, and shared interpretations we can come to expand our perspectives thus gaining insight and a richer depth of feeling to our experiences.
In this fun and inspiring workshop we will explore our selves through the creation of a collage that is followed by the guided writing of a poem. We will then share the work in pairs in a way that helps broaden our relationship to the complexity of our experiences.
Everyone is welcome to join Poet Laureate, Natalie Nickerson, at the Comox Valley Art Gallery for this free event.
NATALIE NICKERSON:
Raised in an Ontario swamp, Natalie Nickerson feels fortunate she wasn’t consumed by a swarm of mosquitos before she was big enough to fend them off herself. She has great respect for amphibians since those creatures worked hard to keep her alive in those early springs by eating as many of those blood-suckers as they could. Now, in her forties with those near-death experiences far behind her, Natalie finds her inner landscape reflective of the one she grew up in: beeswax calm, tigerlily quiet, free as a blue sky and wild as a thunderclap. Raising her daughter on blackberries and wonder in the Comox Valley has been the cherished focus of Natalie’s adult life. She relishes the beauty around her and writes about it often.
Having recently graduated from Vancouver Island University with a teaching degree, Natalie is now excited to further artistically explore the concepts that she found most inspiring during her education: ambiguity, for instance; what benefits can we glean from cultivating a tolerance for ambiguity? She feels that in exploring inquiries of this nature she will discover fruits capable of enriching anyone who encounters their expression in whatever form that may take, be it a poem, a sculpture or a carefully prepared meal. She looks forward to her role as Poet Laureate and the platform it offers for engaging the public in deep inquiry and poetic expression. She believes that everyone is a poet since poems are the expression of the vital force that courses through us all. Call it soul, call it spirit, call it what you will, though the quiet and cracked voice may not have spoken since childhood, it is never too late to speak, to be heard.