The snail shell has become my talisman — a visual representation of how slow the writing process can be. An affirmation that it is not only okay to take my time revising, but essential.
I call the photo “Poem by Snail Light.” In 2004 during my first residency at The Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia, I spent as much time photographing and drawing as I did writing. I wanted to explore how the processes interacted for me. One of the benefits of a residency is time to explore what feeds your art. And what feeds mine is time to look, walk, frame images, play with words on the page, and read. This is one of the many photos I took during that month. One of the few that has survived in constant use since then, though I often revisit images from my residencies there in 2004 and 2010. Particularly images of the Anagama Kiln Firing.