Special Showcase: Arrowhead Union High School Students- Blue Soap Bubble, by Joseph Cornell5/29/2024 NB: Information about the TER-Arrowhead collaboration follows the student works below.  Blue Soap Bubble, by Joseph Cornell (USA) 1950 The Blue Cabinet “Crash!” Dan rushes to the kitchen to see what happened—frightened to see if his nephew is hurt under his care. Staring at the broken glass on the ground, little Kevin says quietly, “Sorry, Uncle Dan.” “It’s alright,” Dan grunts as he picks Kevin up and moves him away from the shattered glass. “I was just playing. You should really clean out your cabinet though—it’s dusty.” Kevin smirks and Dan chuckles. “I’ll clean up this mess, you go ahead and watch some TV.” Dan follows Kevin to the living room and turns on the TV for him. He then walks to the closet and grabs a broom that he can sweep up the glass with. After sweeping up the glass in the kitchen, Dan walks up to the left of his blue cabinet and sets down the broken glass which stood there before. He takes a step back and begins to realize something; why does the glass look like it is not broken from far away? Why does it look tall? The chipped blue and white paint gives Dan the illusion that the glass is full of bubbling champagne—as if it never broke. An inch away from the broken glass is a little flag toy that Kevin must have created with a blue napkin and old thumbtack. The flag points to the right, at yet another glass. But the glass on the right is complete. Shorter than the “champagne” glass, but complete. He sees four groups of small pieces of string glued onto the cabinet's base—sticking upwards in between the two glasses, “Now what in the world did he do that for?” he mumbles. “They’re markers!” peeps Kevin from the doorway. Dan was startled. “Sorry” says Kevin as he walks towards the cabinet, and Dan. “The string pieces are like stepping stones,” Kevin explains. “What do you mean?” questions Dan. “It’s like a journey. I don’t really know how to explain it, but the glass is growing up. Look” he points to the two glasses, “It’s tiny and then it gets bigger!” “Ah okay I see, and what are the pictures for?” “The bird picture is flying freely into the sky, through the hoop—the hard part. And the right picture are memories.” “Like a timeline” whispers Dan as he is staring blankly at the cabinet. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m hungry.” Dan laughs, “Alright, we’ll get some pizza. Wait for me in the car, okay?” “Okay!” Dan was about to clean up his nephew's new creation, but couldn’t stop staring at it. He began to see his own life journey—starting as a little boy who was filled with so many unrealistic wishes, hopes, and dreams who grew up and realized that everything he needed was right in front of him—the memories he made and the people he knows, like Kevin—who reminded Dan that his life is fulfilled, complete. Ella Barrie ** Looking Through the Glass The world doesn’t seem to make sense. Looking through the glass, you’d think everything would be clear. And everything pops out against the dusky blue, but nothing seems to have a purpose. Just stand back and let your eyes adjust; then it will all make sense. A bird flying high in the sky, way above the sandy shore below, plants sprouting from the sand reaching towards the dulling sun, and two tall towers waiting patiently for someone to move in. You see the purpose is to not have a purpose, People like thinking, and this gives people a reason to wonder. Art makes people ask questions that will never be answered, so that we always have something to think about. As I look through the glass, I see the same things: the bird, the sun, the towers, and the plants. But what really matters is what you see, It may seem mundane to some, but lively to others. Art allows anyone to be creative and share their ideas, but not every piece of art tells you its meaning, allowing for the viewer to find their own meaning. So if you take time to look through the glass, you can find the meaning of anything. Jackson Hargreaves ** Alive Inside Pictures A Second: The bumped glass shatters and falls as a photo is hung from the top of the box. * A Day: A tiny layer of gray has begun to build up on the shards like grains of sand, Long gone relatives smile, their faces in pictures hanging from the wooden ceiling. * * A Year: The sharp shards are engulfed in fuzzy layers of monochromatic dust bunnies, Lumber which encased their former home remains damp, the pictures lighter in the sun’s stare. In formerly shiny metal, dark spots begin to collect as brown and red splotches break out. * * * A Century: The now brown tinted glass shards lie beneath a layer of dirt and stones. Lonely mahogany rots with the passage of time, gaping chasms left in the fungal wastes. Internal rust spreads throughout the pole’s core, falling on the remains of faded photos. Valleys of white have crawled through the glacier-like dark blue fabric for a hundred years. * * * * An Eon: The glass breaks further and further until it and the rich soil have become one. Lying beams now cross each other, the box has collapsed due to failed structural integrity, Inside, pebbles of rust and scraps of paper mix together until they are indistinguishable. Varying pictures of long gone relatives are now long gone themselves. Even still, it’s alright, you don’t need pictures to know the ripple of their lives are still ALIVE. Lucas Kempen ** The Glass is Half Full Growth is a lengthy process. It involves trials and tribulations, shortcomings and success. For some, growth comes naturally, others it is caused by some event. No matter where we start, our paths only take as long as we allow them to. When I find myself broken and needing to heal, I let it take the time, because after all, time heals better than any medicine could. Healing is the steep staircase to a building so tall all we can think about is what’s at the top. If we slow down and learn to enjoy stepping around the broken glass and dodging the rusty nails sticking out of the unfinished, creaking hardwood, healing becomes a process and not a chore. I have assimilated the process to enjoy the hoops and obstacles going up the stairs, to become a stronger person. Time is the ultimate medicine. I have found that no matter how challenging of a life event I have experienced, people coming and going, new celebrations of life and accomplishment, awards, money spent and money earned, all evolve through time. Slowly, the memory fades, the razor edge dulls and the bitterness subsides. Leaving me with an earned wiseness, I can look back and think, “I made it.” It may seem like time provides a way to forget what happened, but time is the growth of character, the blooming of the soul and the administrator of life. The shattered wine glass recalls distant memories with old friends and family. The fragile glass container was assembled and upright, standing tall and stout—but in an instant, came crashing down in retaliation to a negligent arm sweeping it from its feet. Glass scattered scarcely over the hardwood floor, its life put into irreparable dismay. We cannot let ourselves fall victim to this hopelessness and must go on, avoiding potential harm to our character, to keep our glass in-tact and upright--ready for the next drink to be poured. We find ourselves desiring to be paired. To have a plus one, thinking—hoping—that someone else will solve our trauma. This isn’t the case. Being with another person can create the illusion of growth and accomplishment, but as soon as they leave, it may feel like we are right back where we started. Growth is independence and self-love. We must fly through the hoops and slide down the scary zipline by ourselves. No other person has control of who I am. Colin Kipp ** The Bottom of the Sea Endless azure fading darker and darker. Darker the farther down you sink, sink to the bottom of the Sea to join what has sunk before. Two bottles, photos, a flag. Junk. Junk deemed junk because it never satisfied the owner, Owners who are ignorant of the potential of their ‘junk’. The bottles to hold something. The photos to show sometime. The flag to mark someplace. But what is the bottle when empty? Is it waiting? Is it useless? It waits to carry something that you cannot. What is the same photo years later? A snapshot from another life. Untouchable, but memorable. Where does the flag belong? At the peak to be seen by everyone? Or where everyone can recognize its identity. Looking through the endless ocean, somewhere out there through its vast darkness. Is your junk to make your own. Ben St. Martin ** In His Bubble Hours and hours by the beach they'd spend, morning glasses filled, joy without end. Drinking till sunset, their spirits soaring high, peace, belonging, beneath the blue sky. Joseph Cornell's in his own little bubble, his world depends on this beach, and how the woman he shares it with gleams, They look at paintings on the sand, for long they forget how to stand, they are the ones hanging up, in his box. One day his glass shattered, his bubble that was once bright is a hazard, his woman now gone, no more mornings, no more light, in his bubble, darkness fell, replacing the bright. His grief felt like an endless tide, that would drown him. Yet amidst the darkness, rage and despair, he clings to the shards, a silent prayer. Gazing at a full glass, he finds hope, in his broken bubble, learning to cope. In the room of broken dreams, which was quiet, he starts gathering pieces under the sky, with hands that were trembling. He was to rebuild what had been destroyed. He turned to his art for comfort, finding safety in the act of making. He used his art to hold memories of them in the sand, each item was a tribute to the love they had shared. He felt calm for a moment, and caught a glimpse of the beauty, that was still in the world, in the delicate dance of colours and shapes. As the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, he discovered that his despair gave him strength, beneath his grief. As the sun set again over the beach, Joseph stood alone among his broken bubble, he learned to see beauty in broken pieces, so he placed it in his artwork. Addy Strack ** The Broken Glass Everyone experiences an event in their life that makes them feel like they were a wine glass dropped onto the hardwood floor shattering into one thousand pieces. This life changing event could be anything; Your dad dying, losing one of your best friends, ending things with your significant other, breaking a body part, getting fired, or anything that would never make you feel the same again. There is only one thing that can help. Time. Thinking back I can think of all of these different times in my life where I would never be the same person again, but looking back, I recovered and changed for the better. I broke my arm when I was five years old. For months I was in a cast, not able to use my dominant arm. I told myself I would never be able to play baseball again because my right arm would never be strong enough to throw the ball hard enough, I could only use my left arm to get by. I lost my best friend during the beginning of the school year during my sophomore year. Everyone has that one friend who is always there for you anytime of the day. That one person you spent countless days hanging out with or talking to. Mine just disappeared like they were never there to begin with. I crashed and tumbled down a local ski hill during my junior year ski season. After jumping out of the start gate and making it to the third left hand turn I clipped the tip of my ski into the snow and flipped forward down the slope of the hill losing both skis. After standing back up and going to look for my skis, I felt a sharp pain in my knee that made it hard to stand, later thinking, what if this is my last ever ski race. Looking back at these events I realized something, these were my broken glass moments. I went from not thinking I would play baseball that year to playing with my other arm, something unheard of in the world of sports. I met new people, and even reunited with that old friend after months of wondering where they went and realized how much more they meant to me. I went on to win one of the biggest ski races I have skied in to this day after spending weeks healing from the crash that happened earlier in that season. The only thing that can put glass back together is glue. While you can still see the crack, the glue makes the glass whole again. The glue of our everyday life is time. Time is needed to placate the pain. Time is the only thing that helps after an event that makes you rethink the way you go about life. Time is what helped me find out what I needed to do to be me. Reflecting back on all of this, I realize that now after plenty of time to look at how these events broke pieces off of me I self repaired over time and was able to rebuild the shattered pieces that broke off from the base of glass during the fall but it always finds a way to be able to be put back together with a little glue. Josh Zirgibel ** Editorial Note For more than a year we have been working with teachers at Arrowhead Union High School who are using ekphrasis in their writing classes, and publishing selected works by the student writers. This has been an exciting collaboration in so many ways, being part of the invitation to students to contemplate art and discover the different ways that it can show us the human experience, near and far, past, present, or personal. Choosing from the student submissions a few to publish here for our readers is a painful process. Every single entry is a success story in our book, showing a facet of the communication that happens between someone far away or in another time, and a student today, and the creativity that connection can inspire. We are profoundly impressed by that creativity, and by your curiosity and by your courage. A big congratulations to the writers whose works are shown here this time. We hope all of you will continue to explore art, writing, and ekphrasis. Our readers and writers know from experience the extraordinary blessings they will bring to your life stories. Love, The Ekphrastic Review ** A Note from Liz Jorgensen and Terri Carnell We teach creative writing and advanced composition at Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, Wisconsin. For the past year and a half, we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Lorette and The Ekphrastic Review (1/12/2023, 5/26/2023, 7/10/2023, 1/5/2024). We want to express our sincerest gratitude to Lorette. Providing this authentic opportunity, she has selflessly dedicated many hours, and we are honoured and humbled to again have our students’ work showcased in TER. This year, our 236 students responded to one of the following: · The Chess Game, by Sofonisba Anguissola (Italy) 1555 · Christina’s World, by Andrew Wyeth (USA) 1948 · Gold Octopus Frontlet, by the Moche people (Peru) 300-600 AD (photo by Thad Zaidowicz) · Blue Soap Bubble, by Joseph Cornell (USA) 1950 · Three Coke Bottles, by Andy Warhol (USA) Our classrooms buzzed as our students engaged with the pieces of art, creatively expressing their own identity, values and beliefs. We were impressed with our students’ interpretations, their interdisciplinary connections, and their emotional intelligence! Through descriptive language, vivid imagery and sensory details, our students explored joy and nostalgia, contemplation or introspection. The students said they felt inspired and creative:
The study of ekphrasis encouraged each of our students to develop an appreciation for art and to see what is possible when art inspires writing. We hope you enjoy their ekphrastic pieces as much as we do.
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September 2024
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