This work is a collaboration of word and image, of word as visual image, and of visual image as a conjurer of words. It is a collaboration of two women who have shared many aspects of their lives in parallel time as mothers, wives, and teachers. Here is an artist whose work becomes political, a therapeutic role to the culture. Here is a therapist poet whose work has shaped itself toward the beauty of the personal/mystical. This exhibition is a celebration of the collaboration between these two artists and their new publication Picking Clean the Bones: Poems by Sally Atkins and Visual Art by Marianne S. Suggs (2005).
Sally Atkins is a poet, dancer, and ritualist. She is a Professor of Human Development and Psychological Counseling at Appalachian State University. Marianne Stevens Suggs is a mixed media artist who has exhibited nationally and regionally in juried and invitational exhibitions. . Her work is often about social issues affecting women. She is a Professor of Art at Appalachian State University.
Picking Clean the Bones (2005). Poems by Sally Atkins. Visual Art by Marianne S. Suggs.
By Marianne S. Suggs. Image courtesy of the artist.
Artist statement
“For 26 years, we have shared friendship, mothering, academic life and a love for artistic experience. We share, as well, a deep love and respect for the landscape of gentle mountains and ancient rivers we inhabit in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. I this work, we celebrate our person al relationship and our relationship with the land in an artistic collaboration. This is an interweaving of word and image, with an awareness of word as visual image and of visual image as conjurer of words”
– Sally Atkins and Marianne Stevens Suggs.