Wording the Image: Writing Inspired by Visual Art

Event Details

Course Description

How do we translate a painting, drawing, collage, or sculpture into words? This three-hour intensive class designed for emerging and experienced writers offers a chance to explore the beautiful practice of ekphrasis (writing that engages with a work of visual art).

• Participants are invited to bring an image of a visual piece that holds personal meaning for them. It could be an iconic work by a well-known artist, or a tapestry made by a friend, or it might be that garage sale painting whose origins will forever remain obscure—as long as the image holds some resonance.
• The class will read contemporary examples of ekphrastic writing, examining how other writers approach the challenge of creating a rendition of an artwork in the reader’s mind, learning to explore and deepen the vocabulary brought to the act of seeing.
• The class will also look at a number of artworks together and practice naming what is there. The heart of the session will be writing towards the image that the participant has selected. Participants can choose whether to do so through poetry or prose.

The session will emphasize giving voice to a personal connection with a work of art, and after looking at both examples of ekphrastic writing and works of art together, each workshop participant will create a piece of writing that gives voice both to their chosen image and their relationship to that work.