My project, a film called EXODUS featuring original poetry

           

            I grew up in a family of artists who drew, illustrated, painted, sculpted, and practiced photography. My first love was, and always will be, drawing. I attended portrait art classes with my mother where I found a love not only for the technical rigor of portraiture but also the beauty of the human form, and especially the human face. Eventually, however, I found a media that has become a (relatively) new favorite, which is poetry. I find poetry to be powerful because each word or line offers the quality of an ultra-brushstroke of meaning and imagery, and the poetic toolbox is both visual (physically in space and in the mind) and audial, and so much more.

When I first heard Lana Del Rey, I felt like I found a soulmate, or at least a kindred spirit in terms of art, and in particular craft. I find her lyricism very poetic in its crafting: multi-layered, imagery-filled, etc (and a balance between accessible and opaque, a kind of mist). Her content and themes also inspire me (specifically in relation to nostalgia). In her films, such as Tropico (see link below), she delivers poetry with a natural smoothness I find refreshing compared to conventional, sterile delivery. I hope to harness inspiration from this delivery in my project.

https://youtu.be/VwuHOQLSpEg?t=420

Through Lana’s musical references, I came to love Walt Whitman, who I now claim as my all-time hero of art. His theme of the human body (please read “I Sing the Body Electric”, it’s amazing) I think attracts me due to my roots in portraiture. But also, his all-encompassing (from the level of landscape to a human feature, and his wide bandwidth of who and what in the world he discusses) as well as philosophical, reflective and cinematic nature hits home as well because I often reflect on my physical surroundings in a similar way. The trailer to the movie Tree of Life reminds me of his poetry and inspires me (see link below).

https://youtu.be/RrAz1YLh8nY?t=10

My poetry, however, seems to not wash over areas of whole states of the US, like Whitman’s. I grew up traveling to Door County where both my father and mother visited as children and which now holds a familial legacy. Specific locations, and in particular the beach our house is on, are personally significant in terms of my childhood (and current nostalgia), but also the micro-local nature and culture is a muse as well. My poetry is obsessed with this location and all it means to me, divulging in some sort of spirituality I have about it. My Instagram posts have been my first attempts to document this visually.

My poems are very audial by nature because I am obsessed with rhyme and rhythm, which I think lends itself to being heard. I also think their images may lend them to being “seen” in a film. I am constantly visualizing the poems in my head, and I sort of want to unleash them in a way. I plan on taking inspiration from them, and Lana and Whitman (and others), to make a film I want to call EXODUS.