Students were given an hour to create a response to the first artist-writer pair we studied this semester: Joseph Cornell & Marianne Moore. Visual artists were encouraged to favor Moore in what they made, while writers were encouraged to favor Cornell, though all were free to incorporate responses to both during their quick, first-thought-best-thought productions. Below are the results.
Aasia Albers:
In response to The Steeple-Jack by Marianne Moore and Toward the Blue Peninsula by Joseph Cornell.
Written and edited between 11:02 PM and 12:02 AM 2/14-15
I stare through the bars out at the blue peninsula. Sometimes I imagine the smell of salt. I see the bay. A quaint seaside village decorates my horizon. All day long I stand at this window. The white walls seem to disappear around me. What a view I had from my little cell. A source for wonder, a source for entertainment, and it's all to myself. When I sleep at night I dream of the people, the animals, and the plants that live on my peninsula.
When I’m lucky, eight (I've counted them each time) whales breach the surface of the bay, and I picture the children on the far shore jumping and pointing in wonder. The sweet sea air must rest in the children's nostrils as they dance on the beach. The waves, full of fish, their scales formal and fine, were a mirror of excitement for the kids of the sand.
Far and above and away I see the gulls fly. They roost and they squawk from the church tower to the lighthouse. They glide and then peck at the kids who get too close. Do seagulls ever flap their wings after touching the sky? One day they might cross the bay, fly over my cell, and into the clouds, but why should they? What a sight that would be! But the blue peninsula and the bay is where they will stay.
Little boats float on the bay, sentinels between me and my peninsula. The greenish azure water is full of fish in the nets. I’ve seen the red of the caught lobsters from here, and I wonder if their claws could cut the bars of my window. Toward the blue peninsula I stared, praying for a red lobster claw to get me over there.
A storm came through once. The whirlwind tossed the salt from the sea onto the blue land. Wind whirls the waves and startles the star in the steeple of the white washed church. The grass becomes marshy, a cloud of reflected gray, but luckily, not today.
No, there is no fog today, though the plants may favor it, there is no fog today. Seaside flowers bloom with the wind. I’ve never learned their names. The gray skies and sunny clouds must help the plants grow. Some are natural, some hang from fishing lines to decorate a backdoor. If I added a plant to my cell, would I bloom in the fog too?
This is a sunny day, and the flowers and plants are brilliant and alive. The climate is not right for all of these plants, but the plants are not alone.
No, the animals enjoy the sun and fear the storms just the same. I am the observer, and from so far away, I must dream of what might stay. On the blue peninsula there must be some cats, or lizards, or snakes. These will keep the rats away from my peninsula. Sometimes I picture a newt who lives under the star in the steeple. Maybe from his window he can see me from mine.
Perhaps there are people aside from the children on the shore on my peninsula. I’ve thought of a student, a college student. I’ve named him Ambrose. Maybe he sits on the hillside with wind in his hair. I see books around him but his attention on the boats.
He grew up in this town. He’s memorized the lay, perhaps better than I. For I am the observer, he walked the streets. He must know by heart the shapes of the buildings, the colors they’ve painted. From my view all I see are the roofs. Yet Ambrose can see what kind of roofs! Oh, how lucky to know if a roof is thatched or slatted!
He must know the church and the bishop who rings the bell. I wonder if that church would have me? What a wonderful novel that would be. Ambrose could write it. A writer he must be. A writer to tell of me, the prisoner with a view of the sea. On my blue peninsula is a church with a bishop and a writer, only they could tell me the story of the church.
How many columns does it have? Six? Four? Are they fluted and made of single stone? Is the inside painted as white as the exterior? Why did they white wash its exterior? The church must be a haven for the children on my beach. A haven for the gulls, the cats, and the snakes. Would they welcome me? A far away prisoner?
If my blue peninsula boasts a church, surely it must have more to its streets. I stare at the coastal village through the eyes of Ambrose in its depths. There is a school-house and a post-office in a store. Fish-houses, hen-houses, and a shipwright with a schooner decorate the docks.
This is a town I’d like to live in and visit. The town on my blue peninsula. I would dance with the children, make friends with the newt. I would learn the names of the plants, and help Ambrose write. I would speak to the bishop and shop in the stores. I would take a fishing boat and count the eight whales all over again. Perhaps they need a prisoner like me. I would like that. I stare at the star in the steeple.I push my face into the bars of my cell. For a moment, I am brought back. The white walls of my room remind me where I really am but that won’t stop me. I look toward the blue peninsula. I think I'd like to be their steeple-jack.
SCRAPS:
Durer would have liked this view. Perhaps he’d paint it, though I doubt it. He seemed much more interested in portraits. This window is a portrait. A portrait of all I have and can wonder about. All I see is blue. I look at the blue peninsula. Toward that blue peninsula. Behind these bars, my empty white cell. A small seaside
