“I learn by going where I need to go.” – Theodore Roethke
In June I had the second of two foot surgeries within a year. The first week afterward I had to keep my foot elevated for 23 hours a day. From then on it got better. But healing is slow, or at least that’s how it feels. And as readers who are familiar with this column know, I am a person who finds peace in movement, who feels most comfortable in the moment when I lift one foot before it touches the ground in front of it. I’m not looking for constant movement, I’m happy on the couch with a good book, but being immobile day after day, hour after hour, is uncomfortably loud. Alarm bells are ringing in my head and my heart is racing – every cell in me is screaming: “This body is made for movement!”
Before this surgery, a friend said, “You know, last summer after the surgery, you were incredibly productive. You made several collages out of paper and sutures.” I couldn’t remember anything from that time except that I couldn’t walk the trails I love so much for too many months. I didn’t argue with her, but even if I had had a burst of creativity once, I was sure it wouldn’t happen again. Although I’m a particularly optimistic person, it was depressing to have a second surgery because scar tissue – a result of the first surgery – had wrapped around and pinched a nerve, and a doctor I trusted told me that if the nerve wasn’t exposed, I would lose the function of my foot.
What I love most about the imagination and the creative process is that I don’t fully understand it—the way it works is mysterious. But I bow to its call. (Funny how similar it is to what happens in the body—I often don’t understand it either, but I have to respond even when I don’t like it.) The older I get, the stronger that call of creativity is and the easier it is for me to respond. Brian Edwards and Kim Smith of the Monterey Public Library invited me to teach a class in July, two weeks after the surgery. They wanted some kind of visual art project related to books and reading. I suggested making altered books.
Many people have a deep-rooted – and understandable – aversion to damaging books, so it might seem counterintuitive that a library would welcome such an action. But did you know that books often end up in landfills, not because some idiot bans them, but because they are old, in poor condition, or simply no longer bring joy? In fact, nearly 320 million books end up there every year! Giving a second life to a book that is no longer valued for its content is a perfect example of upcycling.
I was thrilled that the library liked my idea, which of course meant I had to create an altered book so I could provide them with an image they could use to promote the course. From my stack of old books, I pulled out a small bird book I had bought at a garage sale years ago – “Audubon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds,” published in 1949. I cut three windows in it at different depths and put some birds in them. On the opposite copyright page, I glued a compass. Birds have an internal compass, but mine can be a little wobbly. A few days before the operation, the book was finished, so I emailed the library a few photos.
Visual art invites humans to engage with methods of knowing that are not based on the familiar language of words we use daily for the mundane and the sublime. Sometimes, even though I’m a word woman, I need to be without words to discover the relationship between image, color, shape and memory, dream and questioning. But it’s more than that. Painting a picture activates parts of the brain that aren’t activated when writing, creating connections that can’t be made any other way. This gives me a more comprehensive, less linear way to process, respond to, and integrate experiences. Studies show that activities like drawing and painting can stimulate the brain and increase its overall function. So creating and looking at art makes us happy because it makes the brain happy! After making the altered book, I felt calmer, less anxious, and ready to close my eyes and let the anesthesiologist and surgeon take control.
Less than a week after the operation, I felt my imagination rush through me like a train, directing me impatiently, and as it did every time this happened to me, I had to hold on to my hat and endure the wind in my hair, even as I lay flat on my back with my wrapped foot and the three-inch-long incision sticking up. Apparently my friend had been right after all.
Using a rather blunt Exacto knife, I cut out the middle of another book. In my stack of photos of long-dead relatives—people unknown to me and long-dead relatives of friends—there was a sepia photo of a young Italian woman that caught my eye, so I cut her out of the background where she had stood for many decades. When I create a collage, I can place people and objects in new settings and adjust proportions. Things are not always what they seem, and sometimes the way we experience them emotionally is actually the greater truth. I placed the woman where I would like to be, walking in nature, among flowers, birds and bees, dwarfed by her surroundings. By imagining and placing myself in the image as if I were that woman, I felt closer to the places I would like to be, and in doing so was reminded of the immensity of nature.
The inspiration for the next book I revised came from one of my favorite artists – the Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca. His figures have particularly deep-set eyes. If you go to Arezzo or San Sepolcro in the Umbria region of central Italy, you can see women who look like they just stepped out of one of his paintings. I started with a section of della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto, one of the few paintings of the pregnant Virgin Mary still in existence. You can also go to Monterchi to see her in the Civic Museum, whose holdings include this painting alone, as my husband and I did on our first vacation to Italy in 1999. At the time, the painting was unprotected; we could have touched her. A few years later, when we returned, we had to look at the Madonna through plexiglass, something della Francesca could never have imagined. I love the way she touches her belly, the way the gussets of the dress part to make room for her growing baby.
I carefully cut the Madonna out from the rest of the picture, added a little delicate lace to the collar of her dress, attached the bodice with beads and sequins, and placed a red crown on her head. The book I cut out the middle of to hold her was a gift from my mother, an old copy of Dante’s “Paradiso”. I slipped the decorated figure into the window I had made and added more decorations to the edge of the book, including a small sign that said “Search.”
This process of creating, whether in the form of words or images, is what I call “finding my story.” It has helped me free myself from thoughts about my foot and the frustration of not being able to walk. Making an image is also a form of movement, not just metaphorically, but one of progression and transformation. The maker begins in one place and ends up somewhere else. For me, that is always a place I have never been before. Since my mind was not clear enough to write, I satisfied my need for creativity and movement by altering more books. I am grateful to the Monterey Library for their invitation, which gave me much-needed direction.
The last book I “re-wrote” is called – no surprise – Flight. It also started with an old bird book. I painted the pages with watercolors and stamped some trees to give the birds a nice place to fly. Someone – I’m not sure who – is looking past the birds from behind the trees and staring right at me.
A few weeks ago I was given the go-ahead to slowly start walking again. The doctor assured me that I couldn’t ruin my foot; it was just a matter of getting the swelling and pain under control. The best I can say for now is that I’m doing that – getting it under control – and starting to write again. Hopefully in late fall I’ll be able to write to you from somewhere along the trail, even if I can’t walk far yet. And hopefully you’ll get further than you expected, too.
Vecchione’s next class for the Monterey Public Library, a writing workshop where we draw inspiration from banned books, will be held on October 3 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. For more information and to register, visit the library’s website: montereylibrary.org.
