Old Papers and New Poems

I’m pretty excited to have finished my new set of ‘Random Poetry’ this week. I started them way back in October last year, so they’ve been a long time in the making. They are a bit of a departure from the first set, with a simpler colour palette – most of the images are black and white – and some incorporate pen and ink wash drawings. All of them use antique papers, postcards or envelopes for backgrounds.

Most of these papers I have bought either here at home in Melbourne, or online at Etsy. The ones I love most are the 1860s and 70s receipts formerly belonging to one James Bell; those were bought in a fantastic secondhand books and curios shop in a Melbourne neighbourhood I once lived in. The copperplate script on these handwritten receipts is beautiful – how long did it take a clerk to fill them out?

There is even one sheet of yellowed foolscap that belonged to me as a child – I found it in one of my books in my parents’ garage. My dad discovered me a few months ago buried in an old storage cupboard and rummaging around. “What on earth are you looking for?” he asked, bemused. “Stuff,” I muttered in reply. I didn’t know what I would find. One of the things I uncovered was a 20-year-old love letter my sister had composed to her husband, then boyfriend. I very politely refrained from reading it and passed it on to her. (Later I asked her what it had contained, and she told me it was horrifyingly soppy.)

I’m really pleased with this new look to my collages that I developed. I find the stark black and white images have much more impact, and the casually scribbled drawings have the freshness of doodles. As a whole they are much more satisfying as pieces of art. One of them even rhymes! I was impressed I was able to create a semblance of meter from word scraps. The poems are about looking back and looking forward, passing through love and loss, transience and hope; some are sweet, some sharp, and some are bittersweet. Some of them are even lighthearted!

I hope you have as much pleasure in reading them as I did in the making. Click here to view Gallery Two of the random poems.