Artist Nancy Krim has been exploring the boundaries of poetry and the made-object for several years.
She write this on August 29, 2009:
I want to share a bit about how my three kinds of materials-- words, wood and stone--are beginning to come together. The photos are of pieces I am calling mojos, which I made from driftwood roots and stones and took with me to a writing conference at Ghost Ranch in August.
I intended to see if I could sell them to writers, as pieces to sit on your desk, call forth the muse. But, as I have found with almost everything I make, I ended up giving these babies away.
Kim Ponder Mojo for Afghanistan
This piece was going to be a raffle prize, but it disappeared into the group that organized the conference. Someone adopted it. The mojo for Kim Ponder was my personal mojo, not intended to be given away, but when I heard that
Kim, who is in the Service, would be returning to Afghanistan, I gave it to her.
"Aroho Mojo" (two photos)
"Instructions for Proper Care and Feeding of Driftwood Desk Art (Writing Mojos)
First, understand it once anchored a tree,
was ripped from the earth who knows how,
washed into the Pacific,
then coughed up on Moonstone Beach
where the shaper found it in sand, grey with surface rot.
What the eye and hand shaped wasn't surgery so much as a peel
--using sandpaper and muscle power over hours, days, to excise rot,
to resurrect root--grain--swirl--
where nutrients once traveled from soil to sky, transformed.
After the sanding, the smoothing, tung oil shines her up naturally, not varnish.
And the stones, gathered at Ghost Ranch--pure adornment.
She'll sit on your desk in a variety of postures, depending on your mood.
The muse has been known to lounge in her curves.
You can prop her vertically, look through the large hole and see sky as O'Keeffe saw it, often, through bones.
She's lightweight and travels well. She'll even provide a place for your pen."
Darlene thumb rest mojo
