Thick as Mud: A Poetic Response

A Poetic Response Henry

The Henry Art Gallery is located on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples, and the shared waters of all tribes and bands, named and unnamed, including Suquamish, Duwamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations. The land acknowledgment reminds us of our connections, indebtedness, and responsibilities to the peoples and the more-than-human kin where we live and work. We invite you to join us in paying respects to elders past, present, and future and to consider what paying those respects means within the work that we do as individuals and within institutional frameworks.

Thick as Mud: A Poetic Response is a part of the Interpretive Guide series. This series is an ongoing print project that invites community partners to respond to one of the Henry’s exhibitions. The Henry offers this guide as an alternative to the traditional wall text, giving space to voices outside of the institutional museum framework.

Danielle Khleang

Thick

Henry

as

Mud

Interpretive Guide Assisting Editor

Art Liaison Program Manager

Rose B. Simpson, Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Editor’s Introduction

“Blood is thicker than water.”

That expression came sliding towards me, slowly, like mud. On a spiritual level the moment I heard the title of this exhibit, Thick as Mud, I felt that the poets I would select to respond to the work would need to be those who practice reaching the soul of a moment, not summarizing life or art, but able to find a tender place in what they see. Each of them succeeded.

Ekphrastic art is the response that a musician, essayist, dancer, or poet may use to celebrate a piece of visual art that moves them to speak it into the world in a different form. I selected seven poets, who in addition to myself, would be paired with one of the eight visual artists in the exhibition. Each of us were allowed to move together and separately through the galleries in order to find the individual piece that called us to write about it. The process of choosing an artist whose work you might linger with the longest requires slowing down, it requires finding the moment of mud within yourself. The moment of mud is a place of creation when what you know and bring to the world through the clay and water of your being, your culture, your sorrows and tenacity finds its way through you to the page. These eight poems are what each writer has sculpted and woven through words; they are the images moving and still which I hope will add to how you interpret what it means to see and to be, Thick as Mud.

Jourdan Imani Keith

Thick as Mud Interpretive Guide Curator and Editor Seattle Civic Poet 2019-2022

Sitting Shiva after Sasha Wortzel

BY SAVANNAH SMITH

Sasha Wortzel, Sitting Shiva, 2020. Burmese Python skin, vegetable-tanned hide, aluminum, plastic. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

How are you supposed to hold me while I grieve?

By greeting you with memories of summer and good times. Take me to your happy place.

I’m struggling to sit with all the holes and gaps. There’s no happy place during a time like this.

But It’s all still connected isn’t it? Seep into the weaves of time. Where did you spend it together?

The family gathered for cookouts and we sat in the backyard. Now tears are washing down and I slip right off the seat.

Then let them carry you to the ocean where you’ll be reborn. I once was a snake, so I know rebirth well.

Even if I make it there, I can’t stand to see the blood orange shadow casted on the shore.

Well that’s only because it’s sunset. Brighter days are still ahead, and shadows don’t always linger

And what happens when the shadows lift? When I’m all alone, then what is left?

Now the memories are to scale and glisten like you see on mine. You can sit and reminisce until you’re unweighted by grief

I can’t sit forever though, right? How do I move forward after I’ve sat?

You fold me up and carry me with you. Rest assured that I’m always right by your side.

Swamp Fat after Candice Lin

BY ROBERTO ASCALON

Candice Lin, Swamp Fat [detail], 2021. Scagliola, ceramic, clay, earth, mortar, lard infused with custom scent. Courtesy of the artist and François Ghebaly Gallery. Commissioned by Prospect New Orleans for P.5. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

The first of us

big knuckled, tightknot, rope muscle, salt-gnarled bodies wrapped in oyster raunch & salt scale.

Memories waterlogged. Home now drowned

in spartina grass. Anaerobic history

spat out a new America

riding high above miasma gruel

a brotherhood on stilts fish rich on the flood

tide. Mud-clutched at our missteps

swung ember alligator eyes

fluorescing night with hunger

floating over the dark water

in our direction. Yet we leapt light across shit-thick

tannins, waters dark as skin

barefoot, same way we Shrimp Danced

quick-step, head down, cracking

crustacean shells bare-soled.

Arm-in-arm. We brigands. Knee

deep. Thick like that. Like free

folk, beyond the census gamblers all. Cantadors, too

At least a few of us sang

Número cuatro; La casa del gato

Seis con su nuéve; Arribe y abajo

while burning the dark smoking the night

away with fish fat lamps only

to get up early to kneel

before the sea before wrapping our swollen lips

around a mouthful of santa maria. But on the boat we prayed san thermos

until we consecrated san malo as home above popping percolating mud.

The Fire after Christine Howard Sandoval

BY KAMNA SHASTRI

The green stripe is an almost-mirage Sliver of sky, green trees, quenching waters Of hope and redemption in this house of fire.

So smooth and brown, river delta-mud Earth is not yet separated from her origin in the heart of this house. Yet outside the facade is striped and stripped in revelation; cracks. Lines divided by color.

Adobe presses down but dirt does not settle fully bated breath, an exhalation between Documented history and truth as old as clay

Decompressed particles cling, loosely In rebellious abandon, boldly begging to be touched, seen, understood These subjugated legacies are coming undone.

Whisps of smoke gray and delicate whisper secrets, ghosts too of sacrificed lineages. Their disappearances funded this building, No home-coming here.

Amidst tensions corded

Between settlers and settled

Missionary and missioned

This house of fire may consume itself to ashes

One day.

But now is this gentle green vine so alive

Something shared still stirs.

Gaia’s blue-green life-breath Nourishes bodies calcium and mud. There is water here For now.

Christine Howard Sandoval, Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Foreground: Rose B. Simpson, Protector A, 2020. Ceramic, metal, mixed media. Collection of Lorna Meyer. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Protector A after Rose B. Simpson

BY JOURDAN IMANI KEITH

When I find you cousin my missing, my murdered where beside your body, your clothes are folded, as though the taking of you was as easy and neat as continents conquered I who am tectonic & still fragments I who witnessed with sidewalk who walked over who walked by and mother who watches too, who makes her eyes as knives who throws feathers to steel our spines

See I keep my arms in prayer every warrior knows the battle is invisible

stud double after Diedrick Brackens (in duplex form after Jericho Brown)*

BY RASHEENA FOUNTAIN

I’m nurtured in the mud: with shelter, for safety, to sustain— Mask me in earth’s seams, our womb again

Mask me in earth’s seams, our womb again My sweat’s a sea for hope’s seedlings

.

My sweat’s a sea for hope’s seedlings Find me in Grandma’s catfish—unhooked, unbound

Find me in Grandma’s catfish—unhooked, unbound: regenerated, recycled, rebirthed, retold to break strongholds

Regenerated, recycled, rebirthed, retold to break strongholds

Our soil, the murky trails

Our soil, the murky trails as canines miscue our scent

As canines miscue our scent, remember me. I’m your ancestor, nurtured in the mud: unbothered, unmoved, unwavering—

*Poet Jericho Brown created the duplex, a poetry form that mixes the sonnet, the ghazal, and blues poem, which inspired Fountain’s poem response. She sought the duplex form as a way to speak to Diedrick Brackens’ catfish, Black southern and queer ecological themes in his work.

Diedrick Brackens, stud double, 2019. Cotton and acrylic yarn. Collection of Allison and Larry Berg. Courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles/Dallas/Seoul.

Of Men and Gods and Mud after Ali Cherri

BY AMBER FLAME

Ali Cherri, Of Men and Gods and Mud, 2022. Three-channel video installation (color, sound); 18:30 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Imane Farès. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

A river so ancient it must be extinct

Still gives mud, danger, water.

Before the man makes of himself a cave

Of light carved into night, starlit

Before the lull and slop and hum

Of mud slick and gleaming, quick Rhythm of body rocking repetitive

Motion. Here. A stack of brick so thick

You can’t help but imagine a building.

Pyramid. Skyscraper. Wall.

You can’t help but imagine how many men

It takes, stacked end to end in precise overlay

To heat, bake hard. To build a monument.

Master Harmoniser (ile aye, moya, là, ndkoh) after Dineo Seshee Bopape

BY ALEYDA CERVANTES

all language ought to leave a body as its name slips through waves, murmuring an ancestral memory a slow movement among dunes earth mountain in metamorphosis historical library of unwritten seasons human cries, and all bodies have names

wind

cosmical flame

the water has memory carrying a journey somewhere written in chains

and more music comes from the speaker, and my body doesn’t like museums there is pain in remembering knowing time is a cycle of reflections where exhibitions become the only truth tellers But my mind loves art, loves the walk between pieces, the long artist’s explanation, loves to read and google:

“Did the artist feel hurt when having to remember again and again those who were taken?” and “where did the artist go after opening their soul for strangers?” and “Is inspiration something that happens with or against the body?” And who gets to name it art? do i?

and i lied

waves, lines, shapeshifting from left to right musically following one another and the count of the days don’t matter is morning light the first sign we are alive? if your survival is dependent on knowing or is this when the land is calling us back? all these questions never made it to any book in here they turn into a catalyst of ink writing the name. writing the name. writing the name

i am in love with museums

This Is Art! I yelled and no one was there to listen.

Dineo Seshee Bopape, Master Harmoniser (ile aye, moya, là, ndokh), 2021. Digital animation, single-channel video (color, sound); 25:08 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Summer [gestures to reignite fossilized landscapes] after Eve Tagny

BY EBONY WELBORN

Eve Tagny, Summer [gestures to reignite fossilized landscapes] [still], 2020 Single-channel video (color, sound); 1:02:04 hrs. Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole, Toronto.

Summer is here again

My solid surface dried in benevolent sun

Human guests frequent me more this time of year

Usually in passing

A stepping stone for final destinations

But

These three visited me

These three visited me and they are magnetic

Unearthed my potential

Recalling my desire to heal and play and support

Acknowledging the community care that has shaped my stone walls

They remind me of the ancestors

Synchronistic movement brought back sacred connections

Community members that once played with me as a first choice

That chose me to fortify their safe spaces

When secrets were kept in heart, I was chosen to hold them at lake bottom

A stepping stone that I didn’t mind

Reciprocal relationship that plenished me whole

But they left

Not by choice

But by force

By the force of those who didn’t fully understand memories lived in me

And in the hair on grasshopper’s legs

And in tall grass who’s gentle itches gave comfort

Uncontrollable choices still cause grief

These three visited me

These three visited me and they dig deep

Unearthed a relationship I didn’t know I missed

Recalling their desire to anchor and feel and understand

Me

Their praises let out embodied revelation

Memories of my past and present flow into them

Moments of reignited connection

Eve Tagny, The Carriers, 2023. Site-specific installation. Courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole, Toronto. Installation view of Thick as Mud, 2023, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle.

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.

Author Biographies

AUTHORS LISTED IN THE ORDER THEY APPEAR IN THE PUBLICATION.

Savannah Smith loves highlighting interconnectedness and enjoys evoking catharsis through a variety of creative activities and vulnerable conversations. She finds excitement and expansion in trying new things, is passionate about fostering curiosity, illuminating opportunity, and engaging the heart. Savannah is also the co-founder and Director of Youth Engagement for Sea Potential.

Roberto Ascalon teaches across the Northwest. He is a Kundiman, Jack Straw, Artist Trust Fellow and Seattle’s 2013 Poet Planner. Ascalon won the Rattle Poetry Prize for the poem “The Fire This Time, or, How Come Some Brown Boys Get Blazed Right Before Class And Other Questions Without Marks.”

Kamna Shastri is a writer and a community journalist. Kamna’s professional and creative work grapples with questions of identity, belonging, environmental and social justice topics as they relate to this region. Poetry has been a lifelong form of creative processing and expression for Kamna.

kamnashastri.wordpress.com

Jourdan Imani Keith Seattle’s 2019–2022 Civic Poet is a Pushcart-nominated author. Featured in Forbes and on NPR, her Orion Magazine essays, “Desegregating Wilderness” and “At Risk” appear in the Best American Science and Nature Writing Anthology, as well as textbooks. The founder of Urban Wilderness Project, she leads its R U An Endangered Species™ Women and Whales First: Poetry in a Climate of Change campaign. A recipient of the 2022 US Water Alliance Outstanding Artist prize and a 2018 Americans for the Arts award, her TEDx Talk, Your Body of Water became the theme for King County’s 2016-2018 Poetry on Buses program. Her essays and poems are in Prairie Schooner, Terrain, Cosmonaut, YES magazine, and Seismic.

urbanwildernessproject.com

Rasheena Fountain is a published essayist and poet from Chicago, whose work focuses on Black environmental memory. She is a PhD student in English at the University of Washington, where she attained an MFA in Creative Writing. Fountain’s forthcoming memoir will be published with Chin Music Press in Spring 2024.

Rasheenafountain.com

Amber Flame is an artist, writer, and performer whose work has garnered artisticmerit residencies with Hedgebrook, Wa Na Wari, Vermont Studio Center, and more. Flame served as the 2017-2019 Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House, and is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and fresh kicks.

Theamberflame.com

Aleyda Marisol Cervantes is a self-identified third-world woman living in occupied Coast Salish territory. She is a TEDx presenter and an advocate for immigrant communities. Her work appears in PALABRITAS, Acentos Review, and We Need a Reckoning. She dreams of living in Coyoacan and owning the most wonderful bookstore.

Aleydamarisol.wordpress.com

@raices_pres

Ebony Welborn lives a life that makes humans and non-humans alike feel seen, heard and valued. Using her intuitive and empathic nature, she shares her love for discovering forms of interconnectedness with others. This is embodied within her artistic expression and the creation of Sea Potential.

Thick as Mud is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Curator.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by generous gifts from David and Catherine Eaton Skinner and William True. Additional support is provided by Jessica Silverman, Jack Shainman Gallery, Stanlee R. Gatti, and Lorna Meyer Calas and Dennis Calas. Media sponsorship generously provided by The Seattle Times. Hospitality sponsorship provided by Graduate Seattle.

DESIGNER

Summer Li

Copyright © 2023 All rights reserved.

No portion of any of the poems in this guide may be reproduced in any format without the written permission of the authors.