Thank You, Suminagashi

Miriam Sagan

Isabel Winson-Sagan

My own tiny Jackson Pollock by Miriam Sagan

green dripped
down the page
my own tiny
Jackson Pollock,
I threw acrylic
on water
in the dusk and incipient
rain storm,
pink startled me
on the surface
of vision
hollyhock, polka dot, a shade of color
born in the 1960’s
when I emerged
from a girl
dressed in my mother’s plaids and navy
into purple paisley and magenta madras.

to print
is to know
I’ve lived,
my body
leaves an indent
in the bed
and will the grave,
I drop gobs of yellow
drizzle argentine
spotted red and orange
pull pages
of color
from the water’s surface
capture
Venus on the horizon,
your salt and pepper hair,
my best
my worst
impulse,
there are no words
on this speechless paper,
red finches, and gray clouds
rising out of the mountain
to disturb the suminagashi basin
with rain.

Backyard Suminagashi

Finally got set up to print at home!

Homage to the day:

Gathering some intensity by floating leaves on the water and using them to launch inkdrops on to the surface so they sink less:

Final ghost print:

Drying on the door of my writing studio:

Collaboration of Text and Suminagashi by Miriam Sagan and Isabel Winson-Sagan

Click on image to enlarge.

To see more: http://www.rogueagentjournal.com/miwsagan

From the Sagans’ artist statement:
Poet Miriam Sagan and multi-media artist Isabel Winson-Sagan are a mother/daughter artistic collaborative team, working in text and suminagashi (marbled paper). Their long term project is “Maternal Mitochondria” which attempts to map their shared history but different perspectives. The section “What If” was created as a free write in which both women responded to the prompt. The overlap was uncanny, and the text was then broken up, paired, and re-arranged. It was then collaged on marbled paper. The effect is to have two voices echo each other and function as one piece.