Interview with Sierra Nelson, recent VSC Staff Artist
Sierra, what is your background and how did you come to VSC?
Being at VSC was a pivotal experience for me. Seeing the snow and river outside my Maverick writing studio window (1-8!) was continually inspiring. I loved having a space separate from where I lived and slept where I could go each day to do my work – such a pleasure! (And I’ve come to think this even may be necessity – to create a writing studio space like this wherever I may be.) VSC was the first residency like this that I had experienced, with a dedicated writing studio space and the communal aspect. Besides the wonder of having this time and space set aside to write, the conversations with the other artists and the energizing communal hum in the hive was an unexpected boon, and I think part of what allows for such remarkable productivity for everyone who comes here, even for short spans of time.
When I was here as a resident, I found I could easily imagine myself staying longer at VSC (even with – or maybe especially with – all the snow!) – and I felt like it would be a good shift for my work to be in a new (and beautiful) environment, surrounded by other inspiring artists and writers, and working in a job that supported other artists as well. Beginning in August 2008, I was able to join the VSC staff as Travel Coordinator, working in the office with the Admissions team.
Tell us more about your work, and
how you’ve come to the themes and approaches you presented for your September Reading:
Writing independently and working collaboratively have both been important parts of my creative process for a long time, each feeding the other. I feel that the more I write independently and fuel myself as an artist (with reading, learning, conversations, observations from the natural world), the more I have to offer both the poems I write individually and the work I create collaboratively. Relating with the input of others, my ideas and words are able to go in directions and build in new ways that they would not have otherwise – and I trust that any wild, intuitive leaps I make may make a new (as yet unknown) sense when put in proximity to the work of my collaborator. That process of trust has also helped me to make more intuitive leaps when working independently, too – learning to trust that the wild, small pieces may allow for something greater in the work as a whole.
This year at VSC also gave me the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with visual artists, especially other VSC staff members. The painter and fabric artist Sarah Norsworthy (sknmeep designs) used two poems of mine to inspire a beautiful sewn ribbon piece and a wearable skirt. And Loren Erdrich (www.okloren.com), and I created a book together using her ink and watercolor drawings, some poems of mine, and some poems we wrote collaboratively. Our book – “I Take Back the Sponge Cake” – is designed as a lyrical choose-your-own-adventure, so that readers are encouraged to choose between an evocative pair of homonyms on each page which sends them on different paths through the work. We made a map to be included with the book, in lieu of a Table of Contents, for the reader to be able to retrace their steps and take new directions. It was such a pleasure collaborating with Loren on this project – and what we created feels like more than what either of our minds alone could have come up with.
The Lowe Lecture Hall presentation was the first time I had tried reading this book to a live audience – and having the audience collectively choose the next page by raising their hands to vote on the next step worked well. We projected Loren’s drawings along with the text, as the conversation between the poem and the visual is such a key part of the project
The last part of the presentation was even more performance-based, inspired by work I had been doing as part of the Vis-à-Vis Society group in Seattle, which focused on the “poetic analysis of the everyday.” Over the course of the year at the Vermont Studio Center, I had asked people to write down a small secret and leave it (anonymously) in a small envelope in a teacup in my studio. I wasn’t sure what I would do with all the secrets at first – but I was interested in including interactive elements in my studio in the Church building (which I made into a kind of text-based installation) – and “Secrets” seemed like a particularly powerful and intriguing type of data to explore.
For the presentation, I read through the year’s worth of collective secrets, grouped them by thematic categories, and made “a delicious pie chart” of the findings with the help of my fellow staff member Mario Romano (a.k.a. Dr. Aw). I decided to make a poem-survey for the audience or my reading night, like I had with the poem-surveys from the Vis-à-Vis Society’s performances and collaborative book (“Who Are We? Investigations & Findings”), and I hoped this survey would provide people with a poetic, interactive lens to reflect back on their own experiences. I borrowed the seriousness of science to create a humorous undertone to the endeavor, while using the surprise and imagery available in poetry to create an opportunity for real emotional resonance.
Video from Sierra’s Reading:
Other writing by Sierra Nelson:
Starting in January 2009, I began writing as a guest blogger for The Kenyon Review www.kenyonreview.org/blog. The experience of being in Vermont has definitely informed these essays and musings – especially the weather and seasonal landscape.
And a few of my poems and some of Loren’s drawings were recently featured in the journal, The Black Boot (http://www.theblackboot.com/Web_Selects/Sierra_Nelson.html.) Ryan Wilson, one of the editors, was a VSC resident in July.
Other poems by Sierra Nelson:
http://waywiser-press.com/sierranelson.html
http://www.hubcapart.com/ink/20freight.php
http://webdelsol.com/DIAGRAM/8_5/nelson.html
http://www.versedaily.org/2007/laustic.shtml
http://pbq.drexel.edu/archives/issues/issue74/content/poetry/scurvy-nelson.html