Kincaid – Week One Recap

I spent the first week doing the same thing every day. I interviewed my neighbor, Arlys, in the morning and went over to Makerspace in the afternoon to work on the comic stencil.

Arlys has been telling me about her childhood, her time teaching at home and abroad, and all the places she’s traveled to (Japan, England, Norway, Germany, and Egypt so far). I’ve known her for a really long time, and I’ve been enjoying spending this time with her. I’ve been recording the sessions in my phone’s voice memo app and am using Otter.ai software to transcribe them so I can easily find information later on. I still have one more week left to collect more stories from her, and then I will start sorting them and drafting illustrations. It’s too soon for me to predict what my finished product will look like, but I have a really positive feeling about it.

I’ve attached some pictures of the stencil below. The final product will be made out of clear acrylic and will have more variety of pieces, but I’ve been making my test versions out of wood in order to not waste plastic. This is version 1.2. I made notches in the frame to help each long piece stick in place, and created a scale on the side to help divide the spaces into halves, thirds, or fourths. I have one more week left with Makerspace, and I’m predicting that it’ll get done then. Once it’s finished, it will help me a lot when I’m drafting my neighbor’s interview project (and other things!).

Most days I have free time before I go over to my neighbor’s house and before I leave for Makerspace, so I’ve been using that time to read some poetry books that I borrowed from someone. In one of the books, The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky, he advises readers who want to study poetry “to identify a poem one loves, to read it aloud, perhaps to write it longhand or type it out, and to get at least some of it by heart… For an art is best understood through careful attention to great examples.” So, I’ve been following that advice this week. I’ve glanced through The Darkness Around Us Is Deep by William Stafford, Howl and Other Works by Allen Ginsburg, and Dream Work By Mary Oliver. When I see a poem that I like, I’ve been writing it in my journal and marking the sounds that stick out to me. When I get the chance to write, I do. I’m not a poetry expert by any means, but I’ve really been enjoying this opportunity to develop my ear. (This part of the project will be ongoing.)