Let that Bird Out to Fly: The Art, Asemic Writing, and Poetry of Karla Van Vliet
presented by Jane Edberg
Each morning I use pen and ink to meditate on the page, to clear my head with asemic writing. To learn more, click on this link: Jane Edberg and the Art of Asemic Writing.
Asemic writing is a wordless form of writing, an art form offering an impression or abstraction of conventional physical writing. — Karla Van Vliet
One late evening, I searched Instagram looking for artists and poets who engage in asemic writing. I was surprised to find many people using this form in their art and design practices. But when I saw Karla’s video of her slow ballet of ink scribed onto the page, I was mesmerized. Then I saw her paintings incorporating asemic mark-making with impressionistic images of earth, air and water.
I’ve been using natural pigments; earth green, earth red, and indigo. — Karla Van Vliet
Her art is similar to a zen garden: quiet, organized, rich with nature. Her poems also calm the soul. I feel joy when I view her work, and a pang for connection. My longing is stirred just enough to elicit vulnerability, to acknowledge humanness, in such a tender way — I am held by that beauty.
With all the chaos in the world I like to create a calm place to rest the eyes. — Karla Van Vliet
In the Rain Grayed Evening, a Snowy Egret
by Karla Van Vliet
… has settled, like a moon,
in the treetop. White light in our grieving.
A small grieving in the scope of things
but any anguish leads back to that first torn sky.
Each our own storm.
Earlier we planted the yellow lily among
the green peonies, flowers like rising goldfinch.
Beneath, the stillborn kittens,
perfect little bodies which would not take breath.
We bury what can.
It’s not enough, even the filled hole, the blossoms,
loss settles like a mist, seeps into the ground of us.
What cannot be shared or understood, private hurts
that pitch, swirl in currents of mourning.
But the moon-bird. And you.
Our hands reach for each other’s over the channel,
wing their way to perch among branching fingers
like the egret’s mate swooping in to land.
First published in ORBIS Quarterly International Literary Journal
Karla’s Artist Statement:
Expression is like a bird flapping around inside me.
Painting, asemics, and poetry are how I let that bird out to fly into the world. Or at least fly out of me onto the page.
My most recent work comes from an exploration of the river, the sky, stone, resting water, rain. I’ve been using natural pigments; earth green, earth red, and indigo. These are dry pigments mixed with an acrylic medium. I paint on watercolor paper which I mount onto a cradle board then seal with a varnish. I started doing this so the pieces don’t have to be set under glass. I cut the paper field I work on with thin lines or angled lines. This gives me a horizon, a bank, the line between sky and water. between water and land, or simply a line of color against water and stone. It adds an extra dimension to the pieces.
This is an extension of work that started with ink on paper, and my exploration with asemic writing. Asemic writing is, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts states, “a wordless semantic form that often has the appearance of abstract calligraphy. It allows writers to present visual narratives that move beyond language and are open to interpretation, relying on the viewer for context and meaning.”
Asemic writing for me is the gesture of writing, a way of expressing what has not yet found voice in word but needs speaking.
It keeps my hand in the practice of writing. Engaging in asemics is a radical act, that of not being silenced in this time where I am often at a loss for words. It is a place I can express my internal experience in that transitory realm between image and defined language.
My work traverses between the organic form of rocks, the organic circle, hag stone, Ensō, horizon line, the natural form of river, mountain, flower, and the woman’s face. It oscillates between these images as I move from medium to medium following my creative impulses.
With all the chaos in the world I like to create a calm place to rest the eyes.
My intent is to create a sense of stillness, a place where feeling can open and be experienced. The pieces can be seen as ancient text, discovered, and waiting to be translated by the viewer.
I am also an Integrative Dreamwork analyst; this study of the unconscious and close attention to the experiential knowledge that come from dreams has a deep influence on my work, both my visual art and poetry.
It was a dream of asemic writing that first prompted me to start experimenting with asemics directly.
My works are also deeply influenced by the landscape of Vermont.
Some other influences — here is a condensed eclectic collection of artists and writers who have also meant a lot to me over the years: Cy Twombly, Constantin Brâncusi, Isak Dinesen, Carson McCullers, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Louise Gluck, W.S. Merwin, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Mark Rothko, Joseph Cornell, Anna Akhmatova.
My poetry rises from these same influences in lyrical form. My words often use imagery of the natural world to describe my internal landscape. I was a late reader and didn’t start writing until I was in my twenties. But it was a way for me to say what needed to be said, slant, in code. In a way it was a lifesaver during a time I had stopped making art.
I believe expression of self is at the core of my art in all its forms, and of my life as well.
Karla‘s Bio:
Karla Van Vliet’s newest books are She Speaks in Tongues (Anhinga Press,) a collection of poems and asemic writings, and Fluency: A Collection of Asemic Writings (Shanti Arts.) Her books From the Book of Remembrance and The River From My Mouth, collections of poetry and paintings, are published by Shanti Arts, and her poem length chapbook, Fragments: From the Lost Book of the Bird Spirit, is published by Folded Word.
Book Links:
She Speaks Tongues, poems, asemic writing, Anhinga Press, 2021
Fluency: A Collection of Asemic Writing
Fragments: From the Lost Book of the Bird Spirit
The River From My Mouth
From the Book of Remembrance
She is the winner of the 2022 Global Excellence award: Poet & Artist of the Year, and the winner of the Bacopa Literary Review’s Visual Poetry Award. She has been a finalist for the Tupelo Press’s Sunken Garden, and Snowbound chapbook prizes. She is a Forward Prize, a three-time Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net, nominee. Her poems have appeared in Acumen, Poet Lore, Green Mountains Review, Crannog Magazine, and others.
Van Vliet’s paintings have been featured in WAAVe Global Anthology, Women Asemic Writers, UTSANGA.IT, Still Point Art Quarterly, Stone Voices Magazine, Champlain’s Lake Rediscovered, and Gate Posts with No Gate: The Leg Paint Project. She is a member of WAAVe Global (Women Asemic Artists & Visual Poets) and Asemic Writing: The New Post-Literate.
She is a co-founder and editor of deLuge Journal, and founder of Van Vliet Gallery, and administrator of the New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf, Middlebury College. Van Vliet has her MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Be sure to visit Karla’s website, Instagram, and Facebook pages.
Her work will astound you in it’s quiet beauty, poetic calm, and healing light.
