The Center of the Plane

Breenah Rowden, "Life is hard" (11 Oct 2005)

This entry is the first of seven I am posting on the mailart from my wife Nancy's creative writing class. There was so much good stuff that I could only pick a few to present here.

The back face of Breenah Rowden's card is akin to a handdrawn collage. She has divided the surface into a grid of nine rectangles, with the three larger rectangles occupying the middle column. The four rectangles at the corners include various images from life: the torso of a pregnant woman, a tae kwon do certificate, the face of a girl, and a phrase. The other four rectangles along the edge of the card are flags of various nations. And the center rectangle is the moral of this piece, a simple call to take life on its own terms and not give up. What I like most about this card, though, is how the soft colors and textures of the colored pencils give the piece a hazy cast, as if the whole card were shot in soft focus.

un violon d'ingres