SKETCH

An once-in-a-lifetime opportunity awaits in the New Year. I will be working on a series of abstract animations documenting my father’s life through his poetry. As literary selections begin, inspiration enters. Words translate to lines and lines translate to words. Text becomes a mark stretching meaning.

*Poems For A Gentle Person* by Mike Balisle, artwork by Jenny Balisle (1981).

The words spark movement. Part of a creative practice includes context research and idea exploration. Historically, sketches have been recorded from cave walls to paper. My sketches reflect a virtual memory. The goal is to mimic how a synapse permits a neuron to relay an electrical signal. A thought begins and leads to a final concept.

Mike Balisle excerpt:

as the outline of a leaf

becomes a deer track

or as a deer track

becomes an oak leaf

we become

either or neither

Jenny E. Balisle LEAF sketch:

Mike Balisle excerpt:

cabins and cottonwoods

hay rakes

antelope harps

elkhorn reefs

islands of trees

islands of magpies

the pure past of mountain peak and moon

sage basin corral monument to moment

trout memory

deer blood

on work boots

where your eyes

are not your eyes

Jenny E. Balisle ISLAND sketch:

Mike Balisle excerpt:

yellow cedar

beached

in a backyard of a village

in the fishing cannery

plenty of work to be around here

must learn

the birds

and their

nesting tongues

must find the tools

that share and mark the air of bells

the hands the net the kelp

the berries

a land that grows bear and gulls

Jenny E. Balisle CANNERY sketch:

The LEAF, ISLAND, and CANNERY sketches contort words visually. Clarity and meaning dictates each mark. Our project is currently a preamble introducing purpose. Words and artworks will be altered. The book is a collaboration between father as poet and daughter as artist.