2024 ENSH482 - CEL & Public Humanities

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2024 ENSH482 - CEL & Public Humanities

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83 items

  • "A terrible newspaper headline" / "The Bell Jar"

    This artificial newspaper reconstructs the clippings that recount Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel. For the collages, I took the newspaper images described alongside the headlines in the text and portrayed them in a conceptual manner that incorporated the novel’s central themes. I typeset the headlines by hand, printed them on UVic Libraries’ Vandercook printing press, and then scanned everything to arrange it digitally into the form of a 1950s newspaper’s front page. Crafting this newspaper urged me to meditate on the symbolism of print media in The Bell Jar, as Esther struggles with her ambitions for the future, her mental health treatment options, and the social demands on young women to be modest and domestic as well as sexually enticing. This newspaper represents Esther’s metaphorical bell jar and the media’s reality-distorting role in producing and maintaining that bell jar.

    BECKY TURNER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    Using methods of collage, typesetting, and digital arrangement, I crafted this 1950’s newspaper that recreates the clippings recounting Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel (The Bell Jar 198–99). The crafting process reminded me of the subjectivity of media; every decision I made—about type font, which magazines to use, and which images looked best together—influenced the overall presentation and its perception by viewers. Typesetting was very enjoyable, but it brought to mind the invisible decisions that go into the production of a text. To Esther, her portrayal in the magazines told her she was nothing more than a “scholarship girl” in fancy clothing (198). Much of Esther’s sense of self is tied to the magazines, newspapers, and tabloids she reads, which contributes to her distorted perspective of reality. In collaging the images, I had the opportunity to think about the pressure on women to be attractive, healthy, happy, and maternal—or, in other words, to be the perfect housewife. By synthesizing these demands into the collages, I created a newspaper that represents the reality-distorting, metaphorical bell jar over Esther’s head. Through my crafting journey, I explored the history of printing, the origins of collage, and the connections of these crafts to The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath’s own life.

    Historically, printing was a field dominated by men. Women were told that their “professional incompetence,” both physically and intellectually, barred them from being able to compose lines of type or operate a letterpress (Betts 21). This rationale was completely false, as the records we have of women in printing prove that they had no such problems (21); however, because women were rarely allowed to be in official unions or have their printing recognized, there is a historical lack of these records documenting women’s work (Battershill 13). When women were allowed into the occupation, it was often because their husband or father had died, and someone was needed to replace them (12–13). Moreover, women were rarely paid fair wages (Betts 23). As printing became more automated, it developed a reputation as an artisanal craft (141) for the women “who were denied access to [it] for centuries” (13). The modern letterpress community relies heavily on group support and sharing to preserve the knowledge needed to restore and operate machines. Today, we can learn how to engage with this historically masculinized craft in a feminist, amateur way (Battershill 10). Through engaging in the generative printer-press relationship that is inherent in the use of a letterpress (Betts), we can honour our own participation in the process and the legacy of women forgotten by history.

    A collage is “a work made by assembling various forms to create a new whole” (Adibi 1). It was invented alongside paper itself, but since then has utilized many crafting forms beyond paper, including painting, wood work, architecture, and music (2–5). Nowadays, most collage work is conducted by hobbyists. Collaging requires its creator to trust the process and take risks as they paste images together. It is a messy, imaginative, and inspiring process that opens up pathways to think about images and themes in texts and the ways in which they can be portrayed. This form of invention boosts self-confidence and creativity (7), and allows for the creator to develop a more critical view of spaces (13). It also led to the art of décollage, in which layers are torn away to reveal something underneath. In décollage, the artist must trust themselves to rip and tear the paper to reveal a better final image. The idea of stripping away parts of oneself can be either toxic or empowering, in the same way that pasting layer upon layer can create either a beautiful culmination of art or a mess of secrets. In this way, collage becomes a metaphor for growth, development, and the formation of identity.

    Sylvia Plath was a talented American poet who struggled with her mental health, and one month after releasing her first novel, The Bell Jar, she killed herself (Poetry Fndn 4). The novel was originally published in 1963 in England under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas.” Plath’s mother fought the publication of The Bell Jar in the United States until 1971, fearing that it would upset those who had inspired characters, and some accounts say that even Plath did not think of the novel as serious work (Smith 92). Once it did become available in the US, the novel quickly rose on the New York Times best-seller list and has remained popular since then, although the initial reception in England was only modest (93–94). Plath discusses gender roles and social expectations for a young woman’s career, relationships, and sexuality through a realist lens that accounts for the sociopolitical world of the 1950s. As feminist reviews of these concepts became more popular, Plath’s own life was conflated with that of her protagonist (95). Her suicide greatly influenced this reception of her book (Poetry Fndn 6). Feminist interpretations of the novel as a biography, as well as psychoanalytical readings, were not without merit, as Plath’s writing illustrates her struggle with depression. At the age of 20, she attempted to kill herself by swallowing sleeping pills (4). She survived and was treated with electroshock therapy, just like Esther in the novel. Mental health aspects aside, the novel expertly describes the pressures of “the mutually exclusive options of career and marriage/motherhood” in the 1950s and ‘60s (Smith 99). Plath likely experienced many of the same internal and social conflicts as Esther.

    There are four collages included in my mock newspaper. The first, under the headline “SCHOLARSHIP GIRL MISSING. MOTHER WORRIED,” is described as a “tarty” photo of Esther in her scholarship-money clothes, looking false and extravagant (The Bell Jar 198). The deconstructed face represents the lack of clarity and connection Esther feels with herself. Each of her idealized features is the epitome of beauty on its own, but together they form a monstrosity. The subtitles allude to her dissatisfaction in striving towards the unattainable ideals of womanhood. In another magazine from her time in New York, Esther looks as glamorous as the other girls in the program as she wears an evening dress and drinks a fancy cocktail (207). However, the image is posed and false, for she comments earlier that it is the sort of photo that would make everyone think she “must be having a real whirl” (2). The other collages employ ransom note-esque qualities with their cut-up letters. This technique draws attention to the demands that society makes of young women, and their harsh, threatening quality, such as the emphasis on marriage as the ultimate goal in the second collage. Esther worries that “maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went about numb as a slave,” for this is the image of marriage that surrounds her (85). The third collage contributes to Esther’s glorified perception of her disappearance with its storybook image of a search party in the woods, and the last collage deals with her suicidal tendencies, using the motifs of inadequate healthcare and escapism. “Crazy,” with a giant question mark, embodies the question marks that are “all [Esther] could see” at the end of the novel (243). She is healed, but will she stay that way? Her body is represented by a mummy that is interlaced with features of the ambulance; in this way, Esther becomes her own saviour. “I am, I am, I am,” declares “the old brag of [her] heart,” illuminating Esther’s resolution to continue despite everything (243).

    In creating this newspaper, I was able to understand the influence of the media on how mental health, social ideals, and stereotypical demands are depicted to the public. I came to appreciate the invisible efforts required to produce print media and the rich legacy behind such media. The precise order and organization of typesetting juxtaposed with the chaos and ongoing process of collaging reveal the different ways that form can relate to content. As Caroline Levine suggests in “The Affordances of Form,” we can understand the unpredictable consequences and reader interpretations of different forms colliding (8). I hope that in my exploration of media and social themes in The Bell Jar, I have guided readers to an understanding of issues from the 1950s that are still present today. Returning to the question of The Bell Jar as an autobiography, we might now consider Levine’s idea of treating “fictional narratives as productive thought experiments that allow us to imagine the subtle unfolding activity of multiple social forms” (19) and imagine Plath’s novel as the experimental representation of social conventions that she observed in her own life.

  • “A Mass of Lightning in One Clap of Thunder” / Les Misérables

    This craft object is an exploration of perspective and location in the fourth part of Les Misérables. In my reading of the novel, I focused on the impressive number of locative details that Hugo includes in each character’s exploration of Paris. I traced the details of an 1834 map of Paris onto fabric and then embroidered the paths of each character, with each colour representing a different perspective. Areas with dense embroidery are places that attract the most attention in this section. 

    My intention for this piece was for the line of perspective to be traceable from the beginning of the narrative to the end, but due to overlapping threads, that’s no longer possible. However, this piece still emphasizes which characters and locations are the most significant in this section and also provides an interesting spatial representation of the novel.

    ELIZABETH DUCHESNE ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    For this project, I worked with the text Les Misérables and used the crafting medium of embroidery. Les Misérables is a deeply detailed novel in terms of location, with the last three parts taking place primarily in Paris. I wanted to explore place in conjunction with perspective within the text and how these aspects of the text might be depicted in a physical medium. As part of my making, I employed both drawing and embroidery, as I needed a base layer of map that could be clearly differentiated from the embroidery. I created an embroidery that displays both location and perspective for all of the characters, as well as the places mentioned within narration (in light purple) and digressions (in dark purple). For this piece, I aimed to combine the aesthetic elements of embroidery with data visualization and mapping. For depicting the different ways characters inhabit locations, I employed a few different techniques. For digressions, which did not include a particular perspective or place, I used a chain stitch (one stitch per page). For places where characters spent several pages, I used petal stitches to depict the number of pages they spent there. For journeys and for pages that discussed going to more than one place, I used a French knot as a marker for when the page changed.

    When working with ‘narrator’ sections where no specific character was focalized, I noticed that these scenes often worked as montage sequences, with at times ten or fifteen places mentioned per page. This increased frequency of location shifts produced the effect of the city being alive with activity. The most intense pages were those describing the insurrection, where Hugo would mention 10-20 different locations on each page. Through embroidery, I think I captured the intensity of this sort of urban wildfire, particularly in the sense in which Hugo describes it: “The insurrection had made of the centre of Paris a sort of inextricable, tortuous, colossal citadel” (Hugo 915). Hugo’s most evocative description compares the innumerable uprisings springing up to “a mass of tongues of lightning in one clap of thunder” (914). I think the intensity of the overlapping threads conveys this imagery well.

    I started this project by going through my chosen section of the novel (Part 4) and typing out the various perspectives and locations within it. For better clarity with locations and paths, as well as for the map to base my craft on, I referenced “Visualizing Les Misérables,” a website that exists as part of a research project conducted by Michal P. Ginsberg at Northwestern University. The novel’s major locations within Paris were marked within the project’s maps, as well as a few of the paths of the characters in the fourth part. I then made a digital mock-up for my embroidery using a drawing program. For many of the places listed by the narrator, I had to search through either Google maps or the French language Wikipedia (if the street no longer existed). I then cross-referenced that information with the 1834 map used by the Ginsberg project to locate the street itself. Some locations I was unable to find at all, and so I had to skip over them. This practice allowed me to consider how landmarks persisted or were destroyed over time in Paris since the setting of the novel. The novel itself was written thirty years after the book is set, so many of the places within the novel no longer existed at that point. The most notable landmark in this section is the elephant monument, which was situated at the Place de la Bastille and demolished sixteen years before the novel was published. Part of this novel’s purpose, then, was Hugo’s attempt to remember and preserve the Paris of his youth.

    Les Misérables’ original French publication was incredibly successful: shortly after its publication, the Daily News in the UK reported that “[w]ithin two days […] five thousand copies were sold; two editions were exhausted in one week, and a third, of 7000 copies, is announced” (“Literature”). Another British newspaper described how in Paris “[t]he booksellers’ shops were literally besieged as long as a copy remained unsold, and by four o’clock there was not one to be had” (“Foreign Intelligence”). Isabel Hapgood’s English translation also received great praise when published in 1887 in the US. Her edition was originally sold for the price of “$7.50” for five volumes bound in cloth, “15.00” for five volumes bound in leather, and in a “[p]opular edition in one volume” that cost a more affordable “$1.50” (“Multiple Classified Advertisements” 2). The Boston Daily Advertiser pronounced that Hapgood had accomplished the task of translating “with more than her accustomed skill” and furthermore declared that “Miss Hapgood ought to be congratulated on her success” (“Books and Authors”).

    When embroidering the piece, I found it easier to differentiate the threads as compared to the lines on the digital mock-up because threads had a feature of layering, which would show what came first or later. However, the multiplicity of the threads eventually culminated in viewers’ inability to follow the chronological order (particularly notable when the light purple thread crossed the middle section of the piece). I had originally intended for the path to be traceable, but this intention turned out to be difficult to achieve with the amount of overlap in the center of the piece. For future crafting exploration, I think I would recommend choosing a story with fewer overlapping locations. The piece still maintains its value in terms of representing the networks of the plot as a whole, as well as the significance of certain places (based on how many pages the characters stayed there). I think the value of the piece lies in expressing the frequency of location, the closeness of the places (for example, I had no idea that Marius’s house was only a few blocks away from the prison), and the frequency of characters’ perspectives within the plot. Eponine, for example, only has around nine pages where her perspective is at the forefront.

    The other difficulty I found with the actual embroidery was the inability to be exact in terms of location. Since I had to trace the map onto fabric, inevitably the fabric shifted, and some of the road placements were moved closer or farther apart. The locations of the major places are correct, but for the one-off locations mentioned in the narrator-montage sequences, the roads were often too small to draw in, so I had to approximate based on landmarks. The other difficulty I found was that when transferring the digital lines into embroidered stitches for the insurrection sequence, it was very difficult to tell the lines apart, and I got lost. I eventually made my way to the end of the sequence, but it was a bit more approximate than I intended. My methods were unable to capture everything, nor was I realistically able to do so.

    Embroidery has been used across cultures and centuries, but I feel that the form that I was most inspired by for this object was Victorian embroidery. In “Fancywork and Bourgeois Culture,” Nancy Bercaw argues that by “consciously endowing each object with a message, fancywork makers created a bond between the object and the self” (Bercaw 243). Victorian women used their embroidery as carriers of self-expression and self-encoding. By creating embroidery, as the maker, I am implicitly adding something of myself to the object. However, just as crafting is able to encode messages about the person making it, so too is it useful for encoding other information. By combining aesthetic techniques with data, one can make meaning in ways that actively engage the viewer more than plain text would. As Talia Schaffer notes, Victorian crafting was conceived as “improv[ing] on nature by preserving, cleansing, arranging, and fixing the materials that nature had left in chaos” (Schaffer 32). By crafting, materiality is made into meaning—and, for this project, materiality is made into a unique understanding of Les Misérables.

  • [Macalister’s Fish] / "To the Lighthouse"

    This lino printed fish with pieces cut out is overlaid on a printed quote from To The Lighthouse and attached with embroidery thread and tape. Woolf, in her novel, mentions a fish whose body was “mutilated” and “thrown back into the sea,” and this mention of the fish highlights the relationship between social relations and embodiment (Woolf 243). The cuts in the fish allow for viewers to peer through at the underlying quote, seeing a potential answer to the proposed question, “What is the meaning of life?” – a question that guides the characters in the novel. This project does not allow viewers to perceive Woolf’s tentative answer; rather, it prompts viewers to consider the question themselves and participate in the discourse Woolf posits in her novel.

  • A Little Life

    A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is a novel that spans decades, focusing on four college friends, Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcom, and their life in New York City. Willem is an aspiring actor, JB a talented and opportunistic artist, Malcolm an architect, and Jude a headstrong litigator. Jude St. Francis is at the center of the novel’s plot yet is irreparably scarred by his past and unable to share his deep trauma with his loved ones. As the plot slowly unravels, Jude’s tragic backstory is revealed: abandoned at birth, he subsequently suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse before reaching adulthood. As an adult, he struggles with mental health and self-harm, unable to cope with the metaphorical hyenas in his mind that he associates with his abusers. The community he builds is rich with love for him and held together by his kindness and selflessness, though his friends and family are desperate to know the trauma of his past that he refuses to share with them and that they learn of only after his death.

  • A Mother's Grief / "Hamnet"

    My project features two hands, and it symbolizes the connection between Agnes and her son. Inspired by a drawing I created while reading the book, the design explores the themes of connection, loss, and transcendence that Maggie O’Farrell weaves throughout the novel. The hands reflect the bond that forms between mother and child and is a key element of Agnes’s journey as she grapples with the feelings that are upon her in the aftermath of the death of her son. While stitching the project together, I found myself thinking about how readers resonate with the themes of grief and resilience. Creating this artwork, I was able to look deeper into the meaning of loss, and it showed me how it manifests differently for everyone and still remains universally impactful. Transforming this interpretation into an artistic piece helped enrich the themes and emotions to me when it comes to the human experience.

    MACKENZIE LARKIN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet richly explores themes of grief, love, connection and creativity. O’Farrell looks at the impacts of the devastation that comes with the loss of a child and how the family navigates the effects and the aftermath of this profound grief. Protagonist Agnes’s love for her children and her husband is explored, and it is obvious the sacrifices that she makes for their happiness and survival. The theme of family dynamics is a central part of O’Farrell’s novel, and it is these dynamics that highlight how individuals shape their relationships and the legacies that can be inherited. Another key theme of Hamnet is the connection between human life and the natural world; Agnes is an example of this when she finds the rhythms of nature and finds the interconnectedness of all living things. One could further consider themes in the novel’s portrayal of the plague, which acts as both a personal tragedy and the reminder that life has a fragility to it, and each individual experiences it differently. This novel examines the essence of storytelling and the means it provides to preserve one’s memory in an attempt to transcend mortality and death. Embroidery in relation to Maggie O’Farrell’s novel can be seen as a powerful symbol that intertwines themes of memory and grief. Through the character creation of Agnes throughout the book, readers can start to form an understanding as to how embroidery may help O’Farrell in representing the traditional role of domestic crafts and the ideas of care, expression, and resistance.

    Agnes is a natural healer and has a very profound connection with the natural world. Her intuitive understanding of people helps her channel her own emotions, which can be linked to the emotions that can be portrayed by embroidery projects. With every stitch, there is a symbolized connection to Agnes’s desire to weave together her life fragments and bring together her life, memories, and relationships each holding their own significance. Embroidery also helps to mirror the novel’s exploration of the fragile connections between Agnes’s past and present and the ideas of life and death. The connection between embroidery and the death of Hamnet can be seen as a way for her to process the grief she is struggling with. The repetitive, meditative nature of stitching reflects Agnes’s attempts to create order within the chaos that is her mourning in a tactile way that allows her to hold onto what she has lost, “Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.” (O’Farrell, 8). Creating something through embroidery parallels the novel’s narrative, helps create a way of preserving memory, and transforms the pain felt by tragedy into something that can be admired by others. Just as O’Farrell investigates the dynamics of creation and legacy, embroidery represents the different but equally profound forms of artistry created by people. Using embroidery as a motif resonates with Hamnet and emphasizes the interconnectedness of life and the way that love and loss can be woven seamlessly into the human experience, as the narrator observes: “She grows up, too, with the memory of what it meant to be properly loved, for what you are, not what you ought to be” (O’Farrell, 58). O’Farrell highlights the enduring power of creativity as is an act of remembrance and as a way to mend the fractured pieces of the heart.

    Throughout the process of creating my embroidery project, I had to learn patience and the importance of both creativity and the feeling of satisfaction from creating something by hand. Although embroidery can appear quite simple, I quickly realized that it is a very intricate art form requiring focus and care. I was taught that each stitch has to be made with intention and that you have to learn that accepting imperfection gets the job done. As I worked through my project, something else I learned was that it is actually important to slow down and appreciate the process rather than rushing through it just to get it done because when you rush, you are more likely to make mistakes and miss the meaning behind the design you create. Selecting colours and patterns helped me engage with the creativity that I thought I had lost in the most unexpected ways and helped reteach me that even when I think the smallest details don’t matter, they actually make all the difference to cohesion. The process reminded me that art is just as much about discipline as it is about inspiration and that looking beyond technical skills offers feelings that are meditative and calming. The rhythm that comes from stitching provides a sense of calm and focus and offers a welcome escape from the chaos of everyday life. I think my biggest lesson is that it is important to value even the smallest imperfections in my work, no matter how frustrating they are. The reason for this is that accepting the imperfections is evidence of effort and growth rather than a flaw. Overall, I think that choosing to work on this embroidery project helped me to find a new hobby that taught me not only technical skills but also helped nurture my creativity and offered me a personal insight that I hope to hold onto for the future.

    Spending the last couple of weeks working on the embroidery project helped to enrich the initial interpretation I had of Hamnet. It allowed me to find a connection between embroidery and the novel’s themes of memory, grief, and creativity on a more personal and tactile level. When I first engaged with embroidery in class, it held my interest and attention, and then getting to do it again for my final project as well as in my personal time offered me several different outlooks on Agnes and her quiet strength and resilience. Threading each colour of string through the needle and stitching together the embroidery pattern brought the novel’s exploration of loss and people’s processing of loss to the forefront and inspired me to look at how loss can influence finding meaning in creation. Each stitch is a symbol of the threads that bind individuals to one another, which looks at how interconnected relationships especially inside the pages of the novel are and how the bond between Agnes and her child, in particular her son has remained preserved. Just as Agnes preserves the memory of her son and channels her grief, embroidery becomes a metaphor for life’s fragility as well as its inherent beauty. As the narrator notes, her son’s memory and her grief “will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life” (O’Farrell, 9). The imperfections of the stitching mirror the imperfections of love in the novel; this parallel reminded me of how O’Farrell integrates ideas of strength and vulnerability in her characters. My own project allowed me to understand that O’Farrell was telling a story about enduring love, memory, and creativity and that stitching together the fragments of my embroidery project created a connection to Agnes trying to stitch back together the broken fragments of her life after her son's life ended.

  • A Scarf as Protection and Solace / "The Common Life (for Chester Kallman)"

    In my own practice, crocheting is a forgiving and gifting type of art. The scarf is inspired by the quiet comfort and support that the home offers Auden and Kallman. Further, the scarf is a physical barrier from the cold, as if shielding the wearer from more harm than just strong winds. The embrace holds in the warmth of their closeness even when they are far apart. The movements of crochet are fluid and natural, yet they take a mechanical type of repetition that requires a slowing down and stopping of my daily life to perform. The scarf’s red and blue pattern suggests a warm inside and a cold outside. These dichotomies connect to the poem, which evinces an appreciation of the home and a confidentiality about the relationships cultivated inside it. Wearing the homemade scarf suggests a similarly dichotomous message: despite displaying a façade, only the wearer and the giver know the true character and experiences of their relationship.

    NADYA BREMNER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    My inspiration for the scarf emerged out of a brainstorming session on crocheted objects that I believed would fit into Auden and Kallman’s home. Crocheting a scarf evokes imagery of a quiet home, a serene room warmed by a fireplace and by the love running through the halls. Gifting a crafted object is like giving a piece of yourself over to the receiver because of the time and effort that went into the gift’s weaving and knotting. This act of crocheting felt parallel to the intention behind W.H Auden’s “The Common Life” because the poem was a gift to Kallman to encapsulate their life inside the home together. The scarf lies close to the mouth and around the neck, hiding and concealing the words and secrets of the wearer. Auden teases the reader about this secretive nature by taunting that Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t know much past “a quick glance / at book-titles [that] would tell him / that we belong to the clerisy and spend much / on our food. But could he read / what our prayers and jokes are about, what creatures / frighten us most, or what names / head our roll-call of persons we would least like / to go to bed with?” (Auden, 27- 34). As a piece of apparel, however, the scarf shows the outside world a glimpse of the wearer’s personality. I wanted the scarf to be a different medium for the concept of concealing the precious and personal moments shared within the home, while still exhibiting a facet of the self through stylistic choices. Then, through the scarf-making process, I gleaned more about the type of homely acts that bring you closer to the people around you and the type of comfort that would spur the writing of a poem, or the making of a scarf, to demonstrate gratitude to this person.

    I have had trouble finding critical reviews about the publication and information about the reception of Auden’s “The Common Life” at its time of release in 1963. However, much of the information on Auden and Kallman as partners is contradictory and converging. Many outlets present the two men as only working partners and colleagues, while others reveal the romantic nature of their relationship alongside their collaborations as artists. Despite the truth or the realities of the two men’s relationship, “The Common Life” depicts a closeness to and a familiarity with one another that hold love and affection unbeknownst to the outside world. For the couple, the home they shared would be where they were able to express themselves freely without input and threats from bigoted outsiders. The home is a place of refuge and comfort for its residents. The house holds the power to keep outsiders away and allows free expression of the self within its walls. While the poem calls upon the reader’s own inclination to their house, the home that Auden and Kallman relied upon was necessary for their wellbeing and relationship. I read an interview conducted by Polly Platt in the spring of 1967, when Platt visited the home that is described in “The Common Life”. The interview was brief but connected with the points made within the poem, with a few interjections from Kallman himself. The interview was an informal view into the life of the men inside the house, with Platt joining Auden and Kallman in their routines of doing crosswords and taking tea. Platt received a tour of the home: “The poet smiled with the memory of last night’s dinner, declined to describe it, and opened the door to the guest room. This space that he had called the “shrine to friendship” held two simple iron beds, two windows to the woods outside and in the corner a crucifix. A great orange cat was curled up on the floor” (268, Platt). This quotation displays Auden’s ability to represent the home as more than a resting place—that is, as a symbol of the men’s relationship through the meaning attributed to even the most mundane of features. The interview concludes with a drawing of Auden’s home in Austria, demonstrating the influence that the space holds over its visitors and suggesting why the house was such a prominent figure in Auden’s writing. The implicit query about the nature of their relationship (platonic or romantic?) does nothing to discredit the connection between Kallman and Auden, as connection and closeness are not exclusive to particular kinds of relationships.

    Nevertheless, my final project was not to discover the truth of their relationship but to imbue a physical object with the same feeling that reading this poem evokes within me. Further, the use of the home as a vessel for this knowledge is what drew me to the poem in the first place and what my continued study has been focusing on– not others’ perceptions of Kallman’s and Auden’s relationship. The scarf thus became my own method of imbuing a crafted object with a sense of belonging.

    In my previous projects for this course, I spent my time trying to make an object that would resonate with a feeling of familiarity and safety that a home produces for its residents. The types of crafts that we experimented with varied from paper quilling to embroidery to typesetting. I looked to resources on the history of crocheting and crafting to connect its historical roots to the types of experiences that I embarked on this semester. The article “'Use Your Hands for Happiness': Home Craft and Make-Do-and-Mend in British Women's Magazines in the 1920s and 1930s” by Fiona Hackney in the Journal of Design Rings aided the comparison between my own crafts and the history of female-led creating as signs of homemaking. While the idea of women as homemakers can have restricting and misogynistic tones, I found that reading about crafting as a way to express a belonging in the home suggested Auden’s appreciation for his own space. Hackney writes, “A home craft feature in Woman assured that ‘although men don't like fripperies and modern rooms scorn odd bits and pieces, both will accept joyfully this distinguished chair back in crisp crochet’. Not just an antimacassar, this example of hand work symbolized women’s skills, tastes and values, smuggling these back into the modern interior under the guise of ‘distinguished’ design” (Hackney, 29). The change from seeing crafting objects as frivolous decor to viewing them as pieces of art helped construct my own view of the scarf as more than a piece of apparel. This idea of rebranding and revitalising craft culture connects with changing crochet from a purely functional art to a source of decorative and personalized gifts.

    During the crafting process for the scarf, I spent a lot of time thinking about the poem as an art form that is meant to be read, shared, and seen. Yet Auden manages to reveal his feelings for Kallman without divulging the true nature of their relationship—or any true experiences they had within the home’s walls. For example, in the paper module, I created a linocut based on the line “every home should be a fortress, / equipped with all the very latest engines / for keeping Nature at bay,” which refers to using windows and glass as physical barriers from the cold and judgemental outside world (Auden, 60-62). A scarf, however, is a handmade object that is a portable tool for keeping its wearer protected from the elements. The scarf becomes a portable memento of the safety that the home brings to the men. Auden proposes an idea of what makes a home rich, not in the monetary sense but in the sense of a richness of life and of fulfillment. The idea is familiar in the lines “the homes I warm to, / though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling / of bills being promptly settled / with cheques that don't bounce)” (10-13). Making a scarf connected with this idea of wealth in my own consideration of what luxury is: for me, luxury has never been about having the most expensive possessions but about the possessions I do keep holding an importance based on their origins. Crocheting a scarf or receiving a made item, even if the scarf or item is not crafted of the most expensive yarn or perfect stitches, imbues the object with a value that is unmatched by fame or status.

  • Allyson McMahon's Audio Reflection on "Imitation of The Scream"

  • An Intimate Space / "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"

    My final piece for the course was to set up a display for the pop-up art show, designed to (hopefully) create a sense of intimacy and reflection for the viewer, a drawing in. I used a battered old trunk found at the side of the road some years ago, along with a lamp and an antique wooden chair to create the look of a bedside table – or a place of waiting, or perhaps even an altar (all interpretations work well with my chosen text). The trunk stands for travel (of course); I was hoping to evoke a feeling of a journey, a departure, or just waiting in Grand Central Station when your beloved has forgotten to pick you up. The lampshade, a wine-coloured velvet with a raised floral pattern, reminds me of the novella’s theme of bloodletting (blood sacrament). Scattered abalone shells represent Big Sur, California, where Smart’s affair with George Barker began. The shells have a weathered exterior, but when you flip them to look inside there are delicate, iridescent lines that look like waves approaching the shore. The Bible is cracked open to the Song of Songs. My two paper crafts, “Kelp in Amorous Coils Pin Down the Pacific” and “When Your House is on Fire,” are also featured in the display. Smart’s prose is raw (and demanding) in her exploration of love, loss, and longing – obliging the same from me when I attempted to engage with the text through crafted forms. The materials I used – shells, torn paper, and discarded objects – (hopefully) reflect the text’s fragmented, raw, and vulnerable interior.

    ML PRENGER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    The novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept was first published in 1945 by Editions Poetry London (a small press). It did not come in like a lion: there was not much fuss around the book then, and only 2,000 copies were printed. It was not until the book was republished in the 1960s that it started gathering more attention. It has always been a polarizing work, for different reasons at the time of initial publication than readers might find today. I have read multiple reviews from modern readers who call it out for being the stuff of teenage girls’ diaries (gushing). I believe the cultural context of the time is critical to consider. It was written at a time of anti-adultery laws, but also at a time when being homosexual was considered criminal. Both Smart and Barker were bisexual and were involved in an extra-marital affair. In the novella, Barker confesses to Smart about a passionate encounter with a young man, a “blonde-sapling” with “blue eyeshadow” (78), in the backroom of a print shop; Smart’s response is one of regret that she cannot turn herself into a “printshop boy with armpits like chalices”(8). Smart not only confessed to criminal offences, but she had them published. Her mother raced to have the book banned in Canada, burning all the copies she could get her hands on. Smart describes her mother as having a “clutch [that] held me in every way, with claws of biology and pity and hysterical hypnotism, and made me long for my annihilation. Can even Freud explain the terror of that clutch?” (69).

    Through Smart’s double use of scripture as both inspiration and shield, the novella’s connection to the Bible, particularly Song of Songs (but also Psalm 137—“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion”), speaks to the broader tension of the time (which is newly relevant again today, one could argue) when religion and morality were wielded to enforce cultural conformity. Smart’s work subverts the sacred text, reclaiming scripture to validate her love and suffering and using it as a shield to defend herself.

    When I read this book for the first time, I was in my 20s and (at that time) an evangelical Christian. I was also a closeted bisexual (leaning more towards lesbian) and unable to live an authentic life out of fear of rejection and eternal punishment (yes, hell). I was madly in love with a woman, but we were both too scared to talk about it openly because we both came from religious homes. This was the late 90s/early 2000s, and while people were not imprisoned in Canada for same-sex relations, same-sex marriage was still not legal, a fact that confirmed (for me) that there might be something wrong with me. I cracked open this book for a Canadian literature course and was both horrified and mesmerized by Smart’s blasphemy. It was beautiful (I was always a fan of Song of Songs), and it unlocked me. I was already set in motion to release myself from the noose of religion at the time, but Smart allowed me to fully cut the umbilical cord from whatever held me in its clutch. Love is love (we understand this now), but, in 2000, it still didn’t feel that way (for me). But Smart had recognized her truth and, decades before (I was born), declared it to the world. Reading her work again 25 years later, I am still inspired by Smart’s courage. Her novella is about love – messy, painful, and forbidden. My crafted projects allowed me to physically work with the visceral elements of this novel, to take her story and my own and fold, tear, and twist them together to explore that painful (universal) experience of love, loss, and longing.

  • Antigone

    A cornerstone of classical Greek tragedy, Sophocles’ Antigone explores themes of justice, familial loyalty, and defiance against authority. Written in 441 BCE, the play was first performed during the City Dionysia in Athens, a festival celebrating art and religious devotion. Set after the Theban civil war, it follows Antigone’s moral courage as she chooses to bury her brother Polynices despite King Creon’s decree. Her defiance suggests the consequences of resistance and moral conviction, sparking a tragic conflict between divine and human laws. The play resonated deeply with ancient audiences and has since inspired countless interpretations across cultures. Its enduring relevance lies in its ability to question power, authority, and the moral choices that define humanity. Through its exploration of sacrifice, justice, and love, Antigone continues to engage modern readers and audiences, offering timeless lessons on the complexities of human nature.

  • Antigone Burying Polynices / "Antigone"

    This amphora visually narrates the story of Antigone, a heroine from Sophocles’ timeless tragedy. Crafted in the tradition of ancient Greek black-figure pottery, but using modern materials like household paints, the vase depicts Antigone burying her brother Polynices in defiance of King Creon’s decree. The design incorporates classical motifs such as the meander pattern, symbolizing eternity and justice, and gold accents, highlighting the sacredness of burial rites. The crafting process involved modern materials like household paints, reinterpreting ancient techniques while maintaining the spirit of storytelling. The amphora mirrors Antigone’s themes of defiance, familial loyalty, and the tension between human and divine laws. Like its ancient counterparts, this vase preserves and reimagines a timeless story for contemporary audiences, bridging the past and present.

    AVNI KHEPAR ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    The amphora vase has long been a vessel for practical use and artistic storytelling. Its creation reflects the intersection of form, function, and cultural legacy. In crafting an amphora inspired by Sophocles' Antigone, I aimed to reinterpret the ancient tradition of black-figure painting to convey the play's themes of defiance, burial rites, and legacy. My modern crafting process diverged significantly from ancient techniques, yet this very contrast highlighted the timeless relevance of Antigone's struggle. Through this project, I discovered how physical creation can deepen engagement with literary texts, translating abstract themes into tangible art that preserves and reinterprets cultural narratives.

    The amphora has a storied history in ancient Greece, functioning as both a utilitarian object and an artistic medium. These two-handled vessels, often used for storing and transporting goods like wine and oil, also held a more profound cultural significance. Amphorae played a central role in funerary practices, serving as grave markers or containers for burial offerings. Their shape, with a vast body and narrow neck, allowed for practicality and decoration, making them ideal for storytelling through imagery (Cartwright).

    The black-figure painting technique, developed in Corinth around 700 BCE and later perfected in Athens, revolutionized pottery by transforming it into a narrative art form. Potters and painters used a unique slip (that is, a mixture of clay and water) that turned black during firing to create silhouetted figures on the natural red clay surface. Details were etched into the black slip, revealing the red clay beneath and allowing for intricate depictions of mythological, historical, and everyday scenes (Cartwright). This technique was not only decorative; it functioned to educate, commemorate, and preserve stories for future generations. My amphora draws from this tradition, using black paint to depict a pivotal moment from Antigone: the burial of Polynices.

    My crafting reflected a modern adaptation of ancient techniques, blending resourcefulness with creative intent. Unlike ancient artisans, who meticulously shaped their vessels on pottery wheels and employed multi-stage firing processes, I began with a pre-formed vase created during a pottery class with my sister. At the time, the vase had no specific purpose, but this project gave it new meaning as a narrative vessel for Antigone. The design of my amphora was carefully curated to reflect key themes of the play. The meander pattern, a continuous geometric motif, adorns the bottom section of the vase. This pattern symbolizes eternity and the cyclical nature of justice, echoing Antigone's defiance of Creon's temporal authority in favour of the gods' eternal laws. Her assertion that the "unwritten and infallible laws of the gods … are eternal" (Sophocles, lines 455–456) aligns with the timelessness suggested by the meander. The central image of Antigone burying Polynices captures the emotional and moral core of the play. Using black paint, I depicted her in a dynamic pose, pouring burial soil over her brother's body. Gold accents highlight the sacredness of the act, signifying Polynices' royal lineage and the divine significance of burial rites. White details emphasize Antigone's purity and moral clarity, contrasting with the dark, oppressive forces represented by Creon's decree.

    The crafting began with taping the vase to create clean lines for the meander pattern. Painter's tape allowed me to achieve this precision, but I believe a nod to the meticulous artistry of ancient Greek pottery is warranted. Next, I painted the background with a terracotta-coloured matte base to mimic the natural clay tones of traditional amphorae. Once the base was dry, I sketched the central scene of Antigone burying Polynices, carefully balancing simplicity and narrative clarity. Black paint brought the scene to life, while gold and white accents added depth and meaning. Finally, I applied a clear glaze to the black paint to unify the design and provide a polished finish. Working with modern materials posed unique challenges. Achieving the smooth textures and precise details characteristic of black-figure pottery was difficult with household paints and brushes. My work's uneven lines and textures reflect these limitations but also evoke the human imperfections central to Antigone's themes. Painting with limited resources mirrored Antigone's resourcefulness in fulfilling her sacred duty, reinforcing the connection between craft and narrative. Each stroke of paint became an act of storytelling, transforming abstract ideas into physical art.

    Sophocles' Antigone, composed around 441 BCE, remains one of the most enduring works of classical Greek drama and is widely known by English majors. The play explores universal themes of justice, resistance, and the sacredness of burial rites, centring on Antigone's defiance of Creon's decree forbidding the burial of her brother Polynices. For the Greeks, proper burial was not merely a personal obligation but a sacred duty, essential for ensuring a soul's passage to the afterlife. Antigone's actions assert Polynice's humanity and challenge Creon's attempt to erase him from collective memory.

    The amphora's role as a funerary object parallels these themes. By depicting Antigone's burial of Polynices, my vase emphasizes her commitment to preserving his legacy and upholding the gods' eternal laws. The meander pattern reinforces the cyclical nature of justice and morality, while the black-figure technique connects the story to ancient Greece's cultural and artistic traditions. Crafting the amphora allowed me to engage with these themes tactilely, translating the play's abstract conflicts into a physical medium that celebrates memory and resistance.

    Antigone was first performed during the City Dionysia, an ancient Athens festival celebrating art and religious devotion. The theatre was a communal experience, offering audiences a platform to explore moral and civic dilemmas (Goldhill). The play's tension between divine and human authority resonated deeply with its audience, as burial rites were sacred obligations that reflected both individual and collective values. Over the centuries, Antigone has transcended its cultural origins to inspire movements for justice and human rights. Its themes of resistance and sacrifice have remained relevant, highlighting the power of individual conviction in the face of authoritarian rule. As a narrative vessel, my amphora aligns with this legacy, serving as both a commemorative object and a medium for retelling Antigone's timeless story. The crafting process allowed me to situate the play within its historical and cultural framework while reinterpreting it for a modern audience.

    Crafting this amphora deepened my understanding of the intersection between material creation and literary analysis. The imperfections in my work, from uneven lines to improvised materials, mirrored the human flaws and moral struggles central to Antigone. As Antigone's defiance highlights the tension between human and divine law, my crafting process underscored the fragility and persistence required to transform abstract ideas into physical art. This project also illuminated the enduring relevance of ancient art and storytelling. By adopting the black-figure tradition, I connected with a craft that has preserved cultural narratives for millennia. Creating the amphora became an act of preservation and reinterpretation, bridging the ancient and the contemporary. Through this project, I gained a deeper appreciation for how craft can illuminate the universal themes of literature, enriching both the creative and analytical aspects of interpretation.

  • Avni Khepar's Audio Reflection on "Antigone Burying Polynices"

    In this audio reflection, I share the results of an experiment designed to test whether Sophocles’ Antigone still resonates with modern audiences from diverse backgrounds. Using a black-figure amphora as my medium, I retold the story of Antigone’s defiance and her burial of Polynices through visual storytelling, accompanied by exhibit labels that explained its symbolism and connections to the play.

    To test my theory, I invited three individuals—an economics major, a political science student, and someone with no academic background—to view the exhibit and share their interpretations. Their responses surprised and validated my hypothesis: each person, regardless of familiarity with Antigone, connected with its universal themes of justice, love, and moral courage.

    This reflection explores how crafting the amphora deepened my understanding of Sophocles’ timeless tragedy while proving that art and storytelling remain powerful tools for bridging ancient narratives with contemporary audiences.

  • Badlands

    Kroetsch’s fifth novel, Badlands, follows the protagonist, Anna Dawe, who tries to understand her absent father, William. As both a first-person and third-person narrator, Anna creates a story about her father using his cryptic field notes that detail his time as a paleontologist in the Alberta Badlands in 1916. This largely fictive account of William’s life helps Anna reconcile her identity with her family’s past. First published in 1975, the novel underwent five further editions in 1976, 1982, 1983, 1988, and 1991. Initial reviews of Badlands celebrated the novel’s comedic elements, while critics in the 1980s and 1990s underscored its postmodern dimensions. Current approaches highlight how the text describes colonized Canadian land. The text deals with historiographic themes, showing how individuals remember, but also reject, the past. Badlands challenges myths about masculinity and heroism, and it subverts nationalist colonial narratives by illustrating the division between settler mentalities and Indigenous land.

  • Becky Turner's Audio Reflection on "A terrible newspaper headline"

  • Beloved

    The original cover of Toni Morrison's Beloved.

  • Beloved

    Toni Morrison’s Beloved grapples with the haunting legacy of slavery through the experiences of Sethe, a woman living in post-Civil War Ohio after escaping enslavement. Inspired by the real story of Margaret Garner, the novel gives a voice to African-Americans silenced by history. Morrison draws attention to the smaller, everyday details and experiences of mid-19th century African-American people, ultimately humanizing them and detailing quiet acts of survival rather than focusing on statistics and monumental events. The novel delves deeply into both personal and collective history, exploring how Sethe, her family, and her community confront and navigate the trauma of their pasts. Sethe’s struggle to reconcile with her memories, especially the haunting presence of her deceased daughter Beloved, embodies the complexities of trauma and healing. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and quickly became a literary masterpiece, widely praised for its rich prose and complex exploration of the African-American experience. Today, the novel stands as a cornerstone of contemporary literary studies.

  • Burn Our Bodies Down

    Burn Our Bodies Down is an eerie horror novel following teenager Margot, who, after years of living alone with her mother’s toxicity, finds a piece of her mother’s hidden past and runs away to find out the truth about her family’s history. Margot ends up in the small town of Phalene, where she meets her grandmother for the first time. While staying with her grandmother, Margot uncovers the sinister reason her mother left Phalene in the first place. Burn Our Bodies Down is haunting in the best way possible and keeps readers hooked as they uncover familial secrets alongside Margot. During Margot’s time in Phalene, she makes friends, begins to understand why her mother is the way she is, and discovers herself. Burn Our Bodies Down was well received by audiences who enjoyed Power’s first novel, Wilder Girls, and who relish twisted family dynamics, farmland, and generational secrets.

  • By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

    This confessional novella was born from Smart's love affair with the poet George Barker. It doesn't name names or follow a linear path. It is a tumbling out of poetic prose, like blood from a slit artery, words gushing, pulsing and messy, onto the page. Only 2,000 copies were printed on initial publication. Smart's mother bought as many copies as possible, for burning. Despite this initially limited distribution, the book has achieved cult status and influenced other artists, including Morrissey of The Smiths.

  • Candle Cove

    This is my cover of the Nightlight Press-published Ichor Falls: A Visitor’s Guide, which contains a printed edition of Candle Cove. Originally published digitally in 2009 on Kris Straub’s now-defunct website Ichorfalls.com, Candle Cove narratively questions the relationship between fiction and memory. Within his narrative, Straub tasks the reader with examining how fiction can easily be conflated with memory. Framed as a message board discussion among four characters, the narrative describes in detail a disturbing television program from the characters’ youth. The ending twist of the story reveals that the show never actually existed, and the reader now must examine the supposed memories of the story’s characters. After its original digital publication, the story gained traction as a creepypasta (a term derived from the computer commands of “copy and paste”), a genre of internet fiction focused on spreading horror-related legends online. Other notable examples of creepypastas include The Slender Man and The Backrooms.

  • Carly Goodman's Audio Reflection on "Philomel"

    Supplementary Music from Zapsplat.com

  • Carried Stories / "The Song of Achilles"

    This series of linocut prints and blocks represents the act of retelling and reinterpretation as undertaken by Madeline Miller in The Song of Achilles. Each print depicts themes or scenes from the novel, each on a different type of “urn” or carrying device. The series aims to depict how stories are a method of carrying stories physically and through space, allowing readers to give them new life.

  • Cedar Flynn's Audio Reflection on "Do You Remember Candle Cove?"

  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth has become a desolate wasteland, and much of its natural life has vanished. The majority of humanity has relocated to Mars, where they live alongside android slaves. However, some of these androids manage to escape back to Earth, leaving bounty hunter Rick Deckard to find and "retire" them. To distinguish androids from humans, Deckard relies on a test designed to measure a trait that androids supposedly lack: empathy. As the novel progresses, the distinction between human and android becomes increasingly unclear, challenging readers to question the very nature of humanity itself. First published in 1968 in the United States, Philip K. Dick’s novel did not achieve immediate success but gained attention for its innovative world-building. Over time, critics came to regard it as a foundational work of science fiction. Yet it was ultimately overshadowed by its iconic film adaptation, Blade Runner, which premiered in 1982.

  • Do You Remember Candle Cove? / "Candle Cove"

    This crafted object combines the artistic practice of painting and video editing on a laptop’s screen to explore Kris Straub’s Candle Cove. The edited video uses a mixture of uploaded content on YouTube to examine how Candle Cove was shared online as part of the digital genre of creepypasta (taken from the computer commands “copy and paste”). The video also investigates the text’s thematic placement within the wider horror genre by sampling clips from popular horror movies, such as Perfect Blue (1997) and The Ring (2002). The painted screen reflects the narrative delivery of Straub’s text, with each color representing a character in the story. Together, the colors highlight the role of individual and collective memory in Straub’s story. When combined, these artistic forms reflect the themes of Candle Cove whereby one’s memory and understanding of images are called into question. Through this crafted object, I considered the narrative form and genre of Candle Cove.

    CEDAR FLYNN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:

    Kris Straub’s short horror story, Candle Cove, explores the malleable barrier between memory and fiction. Narratively, the story is delivered through a group of characters detailing their memories of watching a disturbing childhood show. Throughout the narrative, characters question whether the program even existed at times asking if their memories of the program are manufactured or perhaps even a “dream” (Straub 26). The finale of the story reflects the characters’ questioning of their memory back onto the reader, revealing that the show’s imagery was in fact nothing but “dead air for 30 minutes” (Straub 27). It becomes the reader’s responsibility to decide whether the memories presented were fictional or something more horrific.

    Originally published on Kris Straub’s website, ichorfalls.com, in 2009, Candle Cove was positively received for how it used its digital format to deliver its horror. Because the story is formatted as a message board, an online reader of the story could easily read the text unaware that it is a piece of fiction. As Joe Ondrak writes, the message board presentation grants the story a “degree of verisimilitude” whereby an online reader of the narrative takes it as “a ‘found’ conversation between real people” (Ondrak 174). The digital world’s façade of reality presents the horror in the story as a real event. For a reader unaware of the fictitious nature of Straub’s text, they too are made to question whether the show existed in the real world. This façade was further strengthened with Candle Cove being shared online within the tradition of creepypasta.

    Creepypastas are horror texts that were originally spread over the internet. For scholars such as Valentia Tanni, creepypastas are the internet’s “digital folklore,” with the narratives being a collaborative process using a multitude of artistic media “that anyone can contribute to” (Tanni 84). For Candle Cove, the text first spread online with “people copying and pasting the link to the original story” (Ondrak 174). However, people began sharing the story in many ways, from “performing it on real forums and message boards” to creating YouTube videos claiming to be real episodes of the diegetic television show (Ondrak 174-175). Candle Cove’s spread as a creepypasta blurred the line between reality and fiction: online, one can stumble across discussions and videos presenting the narrative of Candle Cove as a real story without the knowledge of its fictitious nature.

    Because Candle Cove was originally published digitally, I wanted to capture its digital origins in my crafted object. To achieve this effect, I decided to focus on visuals on a laptop’s screen. Inherent to the tradition of creepypastas is the combination of artistic forms to spread a story, so I felt it would be appropriate to use two main artistic approaches. The approaches are split between physical and digital art: physically, the laptop has had its screen painted over with acrylic, while digitally, an edited video is played on the screen. To highlight the visual aspect of my crafted object, I decided that video would not contain sound. My project aims to explore how the text is narratively delivered and how it was spread as a creepypasta.

    The concept of a painted screen was inspired by Canadian artist IAIN BAXTER&’s art series titled Television Works 1999-2006. While BAXTER& states his use of a painted screen is focused on the “pervasiveness of technology & its relation to our natural and social landscapes,” for my crafted object, I used the image of the painted screen to highlight the role of collective and individual memory in Straub’s narrative (Iain Baxter&). With the story’s narrative being delivered through the characters exchanging individual memories, at times the characters correct details of one another’s forum posts. These corrections highlight that through the exchange of their individual memories, the characters are constructing a collective memory of the past. To reflect the construction of collective memory in my crafted object, the laptop’s screen was painted in four different colored quadrants, with each individual color representing one of the characters in Straub’s story. Like how individual memories in Straub’s text are combined to create a collective, the individual colors cover only part of the screen, and it is only when they are viewed collectively that the entire screen is filled.

    When planning how to paint the laptop’s screen, I questioned whether there was any way to signify the digital nature of Straub’s text with paint. I realized that this could be done through visual representation. To visualize the digital aspect of Straub’s text, the colors blue, yellow, red, and green were chosen based on their resemblance to the colors in the 2009 Microsoft logo. To create these colors, the physical mixing of paints was required. As I mixed paints to achieve desired colors, the process reminded me of the mixture of forms that Candle Cove can appear in as a creepypasta. Like how mixing the paint together forms a new color, I realized that the different online presentations of Candle Cove, whether retellings or fan-created videos, still come together to form the digital myth of the text. As a creepypasta, the narrative of Candle Cove is constructed through a mixture of forms.

    The edited video was directly inspired by filmmaker Jane Schoenburn’s experimental 2018 documentary, A Self-Induced Hallucination. Schoenburn’s documentary is constructed “entirely of footage uploaded to YouTube” to explore how the creepypasta “The Slender Man” was spread online across 2009-2018 (A Self-induced Hallucination 00:40). Similarly to Schoenburn’s documentary, the edited video I created uses clips from YouTube videos to visually display how Candle Cove is shared online. While I wanted the video to showcase how the story was spread online, I also hoped that the video would spread the story itself. Ideally, a viewer could watch the video and gain some semblance of Candle Cove’s narrative. To achieve my desire, I focused on how Soviet filmmaker, Sergi Eisenstein, claimed that the editing technique of montage can be used to present “an idea that arises from the collision of independent shots” (Eisenstein 49). With Eisenstein’s commentary in mind, I realized I could structure my video based on the plot of Candle Cove and use the pairing of clips to communicate the story’s narrative.

    One concern I had when beginning to gather content for the video was whether to include clips from the official adaptation of Candle Cove, season one of Syfy network’s Channel Zero (2016). I felt concerned that the use of clips from an official adaptation would distract from how the story was spread using fan-created content. However, as I gathered content to create my video, my concern was lessened. I discovered that, on YouTube, videos, such as “Candle Cove Clip #1 – Bravery Cave” by “itzAdyden,” have clips from Syfy’s show uploaded with little to no reference to their original source, instead presented them as real episodes of the show described in Straub’s story. Through videos like “itzAdyen’s,” Syfy’s adaptation becomes recontextualized as Candle Cove’s fictional program, allowing users to use the content in the spread of the creepypasta. Because of this process of recontextualization, I had no qualms about using clips from Syfy’s adaptation within my video, as I realized they still captured how the story was spread online.

    As I edited the video, I realized that through the editing process, I could explore Candle Cove through the lens of comparative analysis with other horror texts. Thinking about Eisenstein’s theory of “intellectual montage,” where the pairing of shots suggests an intellectual linkage, I began to add clips from horror movies I felt explored similar themes to Straub’s story (Eisenstein 82). Through comparative analysis, I became aware of how Candle Cove’s horror is presented by focusing on human fears of technology. For example, the imagery of the static television screen at the end of Candle Cove is present in films such as Poltergeist (1982) or The Ring (2002), and when this connection is visually signified, the text’s thematic similarities to these films are made apparent. Candle Cove, like The Ring and Poltergeist, uses the concept of a sinister technological force to inflict fear on its readers, focusing on how technology could possibly alter one’s understanding of their reality.

    As I completed my final project by combining the painted screen and edited video, I became filled with delight. I loved that when my chosen art forms were combined, the contents of the video became visually blurred by the painted screen. Like the characters of Straub’s text questioning their own memories of specific images, a viewer of my object is made to question the visually obscured images on the laptop’s screen. I felt pleased that with my crafted object I was able to communicate central themes of Straub’s text within an artistic form. Most of all, though, I greatly enjoyed that the process of creating my object made me experiment with two different artistic approaches that led to new understandings of my chosen text.

  • Elissa Frielink's Audio Reflection on "Woven Narratives"

    In this magical realist novel, Thomas King blends Indigenous oral traditions and Western literary forms, creating a circular narrative that reflects his characters’ navigation of Indigenous identity in a post-colonial world. The novel is structured through a frame narrative and divided into four sections, each narrated by Four Indigenous Elders who move between plotlines in mythic and realist realms. In the mythic realm, they guide Coyote through blended Indigenous and Biblical creation stories, while in the realist realm, they escape from a psychiatric hospital. Joined by Coyote, their journey affects the lives of characters preparing for the Sundance, a Blackfoot ceremony in Blossom, Alberta. First published in Canada, Green Grass, Running Water has received critical acclaim, contributing to King’s list of award-winning literature. His work is widely taught in Canadian and international universities because of its innovative form and engagement with diverse themes such as storytelling, identity, spirituality, gender, and media.

  • Elizabeth Duchesne's Audio Reflection on "A Mass of Lightning in One Clap of Thunder”