First published 2022. Five, paperback, 2022, pp 143, c.30,000 words + many illustrations.
This book is a collection of short pieces of prose and poetry by five accomplished artists. The five have known each other for quite some time and have been a support group to each other as they worked on their paintings, sculpture, photography and collages. More recently they began to explore writing as a group, choosing themes and each sharing their take on it or not as they felt fit. This book is the result.
Most of the pieces are short – less than a page. They tend to capture a moment, a memory, a snap-shot. Most of the pieces are accompanied by a reproduction of a piece of art by the writer, and this juxtaposition gives the book its interest. Loring-Thomas’s collages go alongside her poems Toxic Memories, Tarnished Bits and Pieces and The Day the Foxtrot Died for example. Cluett’s stories of her South African childhood and the ten years she spent as an artist afloat in sunny spots are accompanies by her paintings in warm colours and full of sea imagery.
There are some little gems here such as Nelissen-Nihart’s Murder in the Kitchen which cleverly uses the language of the kitchen to give a feeling of a terrible, gruesome, gangster scene. The Scent of Lavender by Barry effectively evokes a recalled memory. Vinny by Cohen is the closest we get here to having one artist describe the impact of another on them.
Some of the pieces could well be worked up into longer work as they start to build atmosphere. In the Dark of the Night by Cluett is a stand-out example of this, where a very bizarre and edgy experience is excitingly introduced. Some of the pieces I felt were underdeveloped and the language could have been honed.
The overall effect of these stories and poems is one of elegy. There is much looking back to the world of childhood with all its excitements and enticing possibilities. The vantage point is that of age and there is a degree of foreboding as the artists now find themselves nearer the end than the beginning. This atmosphere helps to unite what is presented here into something coherent in what might otherwise be rather formless.
The quality of the book’s production is excellent. Nealy every page includes both images and words and some of those images are really worth seeing. Sometimes the art considerably outshines the writing.
© William John Graham, August 2022