Pandemia and Memento Mori
Melissa T Hall, artist
Missy Brownson, poet
Artists' Statement: About Pandemia: At the start of the pandemic, my mind went into lockdown right along with my body. I buried my head into as many books as I could consume during my waking hours. Eventually I took note of my unhealthy retreat from everything and decided to pour my turmoil and unease into visual ideas. My method of connecting to my muse concerning the pandemic had to be in an intimate, personal way. Acquiring the perfect prop, a giant acrylic globe, was the lynchpin to return my mind to being fully engaged. Creating storyboards for my ideas and setting up photo shoots was a way of regaining as much normalcy as possible. I have found that the theme of this work, while intensely personal, speaks to a much broader audience as well since we have all endured this time collectively even when isolated.
About Memento Mori: Memento Mori, Latin for remember you will die, is the third series of work fueled by my substantial brush with mortality. The first series, Aggressively Fragile chronicled my fight with cancer. The second series, Aftermath, displayed themes a little more removed from the epicenter of my diagnosis. After four years in remission, Memento Mori is not a meditation on death, but an encouragement or reminder to embrace your mortality and allow that knowledge to motivate you to fully live each day.
-Melissa T Hall
About the Poetry: This ekphrastic experiment has been a welcome challenge. The past year has been a challenging year for all of us; I have found it to be challenging personally, professionally and creatively. Melissa’s evocative images have provided a flood of inspiration; I have written more over the past three months than I have in the past three years.
The poems inspired by Memento Mori images are more reflective of other poems I’ve written, form-wise. My process for writing these entailed what I refer to as “internalizing the image,” in which I connect with the image, relating it either to my own experiences and/or the experiences of other women. It is from this empathetic perspective that I have written these poems.
While I have also used the image-internalization process while writing the poems inspired by Pandemia images, I chose to use the tanka form for each of these. A friend of mine referred to a tanka as a “grown-up haiku,” and I love that. Like the haiku, the tanka is a short form originating in Japan; it features five lines and a 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count. I used the tanka to mimic the containment and limitations expressed by the bubble in Melissa’s work, as well as the containment and limitations we have all experienced over the past year.
-Missy Brownson
Artists' Bio: Melissa T. Hall is a narrative photographer/artist based in Lexington, Kentucky. Feeling something was missing after starting a career in computer science, she returned to school in Florida to study studio art and photography. Hall thrives on setting up elaborate photo shoots in dilapidated, abandoned locations. She employs models, vintage clothing, and various props to craft her stories. Her work is completed by combining her photography with encaustic medium and oil paint. Hall’s motivation is to expose the beauty in the midst of ruin.
Poet Missy Brownson resides in Georgetown, Kentucky, and works as a director at a Frankfort-based educational organization. Her chapbook, Hush Candy, was published by Broadstone Books in 2018. Brownson, a graduate of Earlham College and participant in the MFA program at Murray State University, didn’t begin writing poetry in earnest until 2007 when she returned to her hometown of Owensboro, where she reconnected with creative writing legend David Bartholomy and met poet Kelly Moffett. Brownson’s work reflects her obsessions with sound and exploring the complexity of women’s lived experiences.
Hall and Brownson met in 2018 when Brownson was invited to do a reading at an opening of Hall’s work at the Arts Alliance Southern Indiana. The organizer of the event, a former colleague of Brownson’s, had not read her work, but had a hunch that it would fit – and it certainly did. From the subjects (and treatment of the subjects – a dark twist) in their work – it was clear that these two artists were kindred. Emails were exchanged, meetings were held, a partnership was formed. From the first ‘test run’ of Brownson writing a poem inspired by one of Hall’s images, it was clear that an ekphrastic experiment was destined to occur. Memento Mori and Pandemia are the results of this experiment.
About Memento Mori: Memento Mori, Latin for remember you will die, is the third series of work fueled by my substantial brush with mortality. The first series, Aggressively Fragile chronicled my fight with cancer. The second series, Aftermath, displayed themes a little more removed from the epicenter of my diagnosis. After four years in remission, Memento Mori is not a meditation on death, but an encouragement or reminder to embrace your mortality and allow that knowledge to motivate you to fully live each day.
-Melissa T Hall
About the Poetry: This ekphrastic experiment has been a welcome challenge. The past year has been a challenging year for all of us; I have found it to be challenging personally, professionally and creatively. Melissa’s evocative images have provided a flood of inspiration; I have written more over the past three months than I have in the past three years.
The poems inspired by Memento Mori images are more reflective of other poems I’ve written, form-wise. My process for writing these entailed what I refer to as “internalizing the image,” in which I connect with the image, relating it either to my own experiences and/or the experiences of other women. It is from this empathetic perspective that I have written these poems.
While I have also used the image-internalization process while writing the poems inspired by Pandemia images, I chose to use the tanka form for each of these. A friend of mine referred to a tanka as a “grown-up haiku,” and I love that. Like the haiku, the tanka is a short form originating in Japan; it features five lines and a 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count. I used the tanka to mimic the containment and limitations expressed by the bubble in Melissa’s work, as well as the containment and limitations we have all experienced over the past year.
-Missy Brownson
Artists' Bio: Melissa T. Hall is a narrative photographer/artist based in Lexington, Kentucky. Feeling something was missing after starting a career in computer science, she returned to school in Florida to study studio art and photography. Hall thrives on setting up elaborate photo shoots in dilapidated, abandoned locations. She employs models, vintage clothing, and various props to craft her stories. Her work is completed by combining her photography with encaustic medium and oil paint. Hall’s motivation is to expose the beauty in the midst of ruin.
Poet Missy Brownson resides in Georgetown, Kentucky, and works as a director at a Frankfort-based educational organization. Her chapbook, Hush Candy, was published by Broadstone Books in 2018. Brownson, a graduate of Earlham College and participant in the MFA program at Murray State University, didn’t begin writing poetry in earnest until 2007 when she returned to her hometown of Owensboro, where she reconnected with creative writing legend David Bartholomy and met poet Kelly Moffett. Brownson’s work reflects her obsessions with sound and exploring the complexity of women’s lived experiences.
Hall and Brownson met in 2018 when Brownson was invited to do a reading at an opening of Hall’s work at the Arts Alliance Southern Indiana. The organizer of the event, a former colleague of Brownson’s, had not read her work, but had a hunch that it would fit – and it certainly did. From the subjects (and treatment of the subjects – a dark twist) in their work – it was clear that these two artists were kindred. Emails were exchanged, meetings were held, a partnership was formed. From the first ‘test run’ of Brownson writing a poem inspired by one of Hall’s images, it was clear that an ekphrastic experiment was destined to occur. Memento Mori and Pandemia are the results of this experiment.
Pandemia
Memento Mori
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