Mt. Lebanon poet, artist earns spot in 'Art of the State' gallery in Harrisburg
Marilyn Narey’s main challenge in preparing her entry for Pennsylvania’s “Art of the State” contest was that she could only submit one piece, instead of the full series from which it originates.
In addition to her work as a visual artist, the Mt. Lebanon resident is also a poet, and she described her “Mapping the Water” series as a group of artistic pieces “in conversation” with one of her poems.
“One of the lines is, ‘So how do you find your way, when you know the ocean will swallow you up too if you don’t make your own map of the water?’ ” Narey said. “ ‘Mapping the Water’ was written as I developed a body of varied works that confronted questions of change: How do we make our way in a world where nothing stays the same?”
Her submission to Art of the State, titled “Shorelines: How Do You Mark the Edge of the Sea?”, took third place in the Works on Paper category, and will be on display at The State Museum in Harrisburg through Sept. 14, along with 94 finalists chosen from more than 2,300 entries.
Narey’s graphite-and-colored-pencil drawing depicts a spatial line of four rectangular “maps” floating across foam left by waves on the sand to highlight the ever-changing water’s edge. It is employed as a metaphor for one’s constantly shifting environment.
Narey is a former educator, author and scholar focused on trans-disciplinary curriculum and literacy education, and last year opened Radiant Hall art studio in McKees Rocks.
She spoke with TribLive recently about intermingling her artistic disciplines and the way her poetry has informed her art (and vice versa).
This interview has been edited for length.
Q: What is your preferred artistic medium?
A: Paper is my primary medium. Beyond using paper as a drawing surface, I make hand-made paper pulp and re-purpose commercial packaging papers to create my 2-D and 3-D artworks. I love the sensory qualities, the embedded meanings, and the histories it holds and its versatility.
As a trans-disciplinary artist whose focus is on ideas and how to best communicate them, paper as a medium allows me to represent complex concepts by tapping into diverse fields of knowledge: The science of optics, visual perception, and psychology to create artworks that range from abstract to super-real; the history and socio-cultural practices surrounding paper to frame my ideas, the technology to engineer the production of the pieces, and finally, the environmental and geopolitical fields as I approach my work through the lens of recycling and repurposing.
Q: You are also a poet. How do you find your poetic side informing the physical art you create, and does it always? Do those two disciplines constantly mingle with one another?
A: I see my art practice as a conversation among the three of us: the words, the images and me. The conversation is provoked by an encounter with the world or some internal noticing — how might the poem or the art help me make sense of it? These “conversations” are sometimes noisy, even a bit contentious as the poem and visual piece develop and I work with both to distill a perceived meaning to its sensory essence.
Sometimes I write the draft of the poem first, other times I start with the visual art, but most often, it is a back-and-forth process with word and image informing the final result which can be a poem displayed side-by-side with the art or an integration of both into a single piece.
Q: Have you been able to convey a poetic concept through your art that perhaps wasn’t possible with poetry alone?
A: It is often said that poets paint pictures with words and thus must be able to visualize images in their minds, so bringing my poems more directly to the visual through the artwork enhances the experience and in many ways makes the concept of the poem more accessible to others.
Additionally, for me, poetry engages all the senses, not just the visual. As I extend my art with considerations of space/movement, sound, and touch, the words through the “experience of the poem” takes on an even richer, more complex meaning.
Q: How as your work in the physical art space influenced the way you write poetry?
A: While my process of writing poetry in conversation with the visual artwork has remained the same, since moving into my studio at Radiant Hall, my thinking has become more expansive.
Instead of one artwork, I’ve started envisioning a large space with multiple works and numerous multi-sensory aspects, by incorporating video and audio as well as theatrical touches so the poem can evolve into an immersive experience that prompts wider connection, critical thinking, and deeper meaning.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
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