Joseph Cornell, John Taylor, and Poetry

In honor of the Festival of Arts closing up shop, I want to single out a particular artist there that blew my mind.

Not that the other fine artists didn't -- some of the childrens' art was breathtaking -- but in John Taylor, there is something so contrary to the other pieces on display. Wildly detailed and even quietly fanciful ships and submarines made of scraps of refuse that he lovingly collects and then shapes into something like this:

Out of who knows what junk, he crafts these rusted remains of battleships and submarines that are simultaneuously hyper-realistic and ever-so subtly skewed into the fantastic. They tap into multiple layers of child and adult fantasy: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea wonder, World War heroism and destruction, Little Mermaid romanticism and the unrelenting progress of death and time in the body of an unreasonably large shark in Jaws. They cause a sort of associative disorientation, bringing out (in this viewer) childlike wonder and the chill awareness of inevitable decay.

And then there's the added level of these wondrous things being made from other peoples' cast-off and disposables. Upon closer inspection, the deck is a bit of CD jewel case. Over there is a fan cover from a computer. Look beneath the rust:

It's these qualities in Taylor's work that remind me of Joseph Cornell's shadowboxes. Cornell has been discussed and explicated (and envied and admired and...) to an overwhelming degree. But they're still fantastic, I don't care. And if you want a new way to approch Cornell, you should check out Dime-Store Alchemy, by our new Poet Laureate Charles Simic. It's Simic's dark, powerful poetry being driven by Cornell's whimsey and history, and it's a real treat.

And if you're the type that is sick to death of Cornell, sick to death of poets taking inspiration from that scumbag Cornell, then take a gander at this fine and funny essay by Naem Murr: http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0707/comment_179843.html

-Patrick