Wyeth’s Winter 1946 — North Carolina Museum of Art
Baugher
A neighborhood poet wants you to know about the halls of creativity available to you around Capitol Hill.
Capitol Hill resident and poet Janée Baugher has received the Dorset Prize awarded to an author that “exemplifies innovation, depth, and a unique perspective on the human experience.” Baugher says she gains that perspective from visiting area museums. Fortunately, the area around Capitol Hill has halls rich with beauty and creativity in spaces like the Frye and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park.
Fellow artists’ works serve as inspiration for her craft, and she describes visual arts as a creative outlet of self expression without having to focus on herself. Baugher’s winning collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, is inspired by the work of Andrew Wyeth. She feels his art embodies the concept of the shared human emotional experience. Launching her to the blank page, Baugher has built this collection as a way to answer why and how she’s felt so moved by Wyeth’s work.
A visit to the Philadelphia Art Museum in 2006 introduced Baugher to Wyeth. His works stand out to her for their profound ability to evoke emotion through his use of realism. Wyeth focused on the ordinary people of Pennsylvania and Maine, finding beauty and significance in the everyday.
“I turned to the visual arts as a way of extinguishing the personality,” says Baugher. Viewing Wyeth’s art allowed her to step away and into the greater realm of human emotion.
“I was a scientist, I had no business in being creative.” says Baugher.
After a life in research, Baugher took a creative writing class at the University of Washington where she discovered a love of poetry. She felt a need to channel her identity, but struggled to inspiration.
Museums changed that for Baugher. She writes in a literary style known as Ekphrastic poetry: a poetic response to the emotions a piece of art brings. Using language as a tool to bridge the visual and the verbal, allowing the poet to capture their response to the artwork in a way we can all understand.
Ekphrastic, originating from the Greek word “ekphrasis,” means description. This poetic tradition finds its roots in Homer’s vivid descriptions of artwork in The Iliad and The Odyssey. Historically, it was also a way for writers to describe and interrupt art their readers couldn’t view firsthand.
Through this form of creativity Baugher enters the flow state. Baugher says by free writing after viewing art she is able to see the world clearly, on a distinctly human level. Through carefully chosen words, metaphors, and rhythms, she conveys her unique emotional experience with Wyeth’s art for her readers.
Baugher emphasizes that this feeling is one we can all indulge in and create something with, regardless of artistic background.
The emotional depth of Wyeth’s work continue to shape Baugher’s poetic narrative. She intends to keep building upon the Wyeth Chronicles.
Beyond museums, locally Baugher suggests Hugo House, Volunteer Park and Lake View Cemetery for “curious’ individuals.” Baugher says she can also tap into the effervescent nature of the emotions that art inspires in nature. She’s become open to seeing miracles in the everyday just as Wyeth did, and outside of museums, finds inspiration in her plum trees and the man picking up trash from the sidewalk.
“Your imagination is your superpower.” says Baugher.
Baugher urges us to go out and create. Following her advice, Baugher beckons Capitol Hill residents to venture forth into the world of museums. The Seattle Asian Art Museum and MOHAI are both within walking distance, and the Frye Museum, although a little farther, is nearby. If museums aren’t for you, a The Seattle Public Library also provides an online source for free writing workshops and literary organizations, as well as the UW through the edX program.
Baugher allows us to see the world through a different lens –- one filled with wonder and human connection. She invites us to tap into our creativity, give voice to our own emotional narratives and perhaps find our own Wyeth in the process.
Learn more at janeebaugher.com.
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