Working On Gallery Vol. 7 - No.1
Guest Writer: Camila Valladares
Guest Editor: Lúcia Leão
Opening Statement: Naoko Fujimoto
Guest Writer: Camila Valladares
Guest Editor: Lúcia Leão
Opening Statement: Naoko Fujimoto
WEAVE is a theme for the Working On Gallery Vol.7.
The act of weaving is meticulously connecting differing artistic elements or themes. We may think that one thread has nothing to do with something, but it will connect to another thread, even across time and distance. This activity builds our creative society by borrowing a concept from CamilaValladares' project, "Livro Casa” (Book-House). She studies how Elizabeth Bishop's artistic process interacts with her Brazilian identity and connects North and South American literature and history to create a new visual narrative.
For Vol.7 of Working On Gallery's guests, I am focusing on writers and artists who weave elements into their creative community. Those elements could be family relationships, neighborhood activities, or academic interpretations. Either way, one thread tightens and makes us stronger like a universal cloth.
The act of weaving is meticulously connecting differing artistic elements or themes. We may think that one thread has nothing to do with something, but it will connect to another thread, even across time and distance. This activity builds our creative society by borrowing a concept from CamilaValladares' project, "Livro Casa” (Book-House). She studies how Elizabeth Bishop's artistic process interacts with her Brazilian identity and connects North and South American literature and history to create a new visual narrative.
For Vol.7 of Working On Gallery's guests, I am focusing on writers and artists who weave elements into their creative community. Those elements could be family relationships, neighborhood activities, or academic interpretations. Either way, one thread tightens and makes us stronger like a universal cloth.
Introducing Camila Valladares
Guest Editor: Lúcia Leão
Poems can become a house or a home. A place to look for both.
Words can be written on surfaces or taken out to allow a space for another kind of experience to be welcomed.
In Camila Valladares’s work, visual readings of poems and stories can be seen as containers and/or as a dilution of walls. A Brazilian visual artist and researcher born and based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in her most recent work Camila approaches Elizabeth Bishop’s poetic texts both through her love of objects and her admiration of Bishop’s ability as an “image-making” poet.
Words can be written on surfaces or taken out to allow a space for another kind of experience to be welcomed.
In Camila Valladares’s work, visual readings of poems and stories can be seen as containers and/or as a dilution of walls. A Brazilian visual artist and researcher born and based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in her most recent work Camila approaches Elizabeth Bishop’s poetic texts both through her love of objects and her admiration of Bishop’s ability as an “image-making” poet.
Visual reading: “Literary life”: Visual reading of “The Sea and its shore,” a story by Elizabeth Bishop.
Visual reading: “Mildew’s ignorant map”: Visual reading of “Song for the Rainy Season,” a poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
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Bishop lived in Brazil for 15 years and even bought an eighteenth-century house there, which she remodeled and named after Marianne Moore, her friend and mentor. With a background in design, Camila is currently pursuing her PhD in literature at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). She has a master’s degree in literature from UERJ and works at its Arts Center. Camila started working with book binding during an internship, many years ago. I found Camila Valladares by chance, through a random combination of reason and affection, through coincidences that have as their common ground the University of Rio de Janeiro, where I also studied. During my undergraduate years, Camila’s grandmother (Theresinha) and Camila’s mother (Henriqueta) taught at UERJ and gave me my first—and most passionate—lessons about literature. I would say that we all occupied a space that held for us a map with no endings and no borders. Camila found Bishop by chance, at UERJ as well, and her poems/houses/objects became part of her story as a researcher and visual artist. I invited Camila to write about her work and her thesis, where we can see a few of her visual readings, such as the first picture. |
Visual reading: “The Blue Pharmacy”: Visual reading of “Santarém,” a poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
“CAIXA TRAJETO” PRESENTATION
Written by Camila Valladares
Edited by Lúcia Leão
Edited by Lúcia Leão
Camila Valladares, Casa Mariana
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Camila Valladares is a visual artist and researcher based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work and research are grounded in her multidisciplinary background in Design, Visual Arts, and Literature. In 2014, her project "Plexo" was featured in the collective exhibition "Virei Viral" at the Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil (CCBB, in English: Bank of Brazil Cultural Center), in Rio de Janeiro.
In 2016, it was presented in a solo exhibition at Galeria da Passagem (in English: Passage Gallery), at UERJ. In the same year, she began working as a designer at the university's Art Center, where she has also offered workshops on Artistic Creation, Handmade Bookbinding and Artist’s Books. Camila holds a master’s degree in English literature (UERJ - Brazil) and is currently pursuing her PhD in the same research program at UERJ. Instagram @literaryimages |
Casa Mariana, Ouro Preto (Photograph by Camila Valladares).
About “Caixa Trajeto” (Path Box)
Camila's research focuses on the work of North American writer Elizabeth Bishop, particularly regarding the artistic and poetic processes of the writer. The research methodology is directly related to Camila's artistic practice. Her visual compositions are associated with the poetic images created by Bishop through an overlapping of layers. The researcher understands the results of this process as “visual readings” that contribute to her studies, providing a surface for a literary discussion around the focal points of Bishop’s work.
Her master’s thesis is titled in Portuguese A Mina Casa de Elizabeth Bishop: Um garimpo poético (Elizabeth Bishop's House Mine: a poetic mining). The title suggests that the house and its objects serve as a genuine mine of precious stones, which Bishop's keen eye is capable of excavating and polishing. This allusion is particularly relevant due to the poet's relationship with Casa Mariana (Mariana’s House), a property purchased by Bishop in Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The house underwent a significant restoration process. As it is a historic building, this was a challenging project for the poet, who was dividing her time between Brazil and the United States, at that time. Casa Mariana began to house objects, stories, and poetic images crafted by Bishop. The house with the most beautiful roof in the city, “shaped like a lobster,” received from the writer not only this title, but also a door with a plaque she designed in honor of the writer Marianne Moore.
Ribbon labeled with the researcher’s surnames closing the box.
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The figurative sense of “garimpar” (to mine) also brings us closer to a process of poetic production that is slightly different from the one for which Bishop is recognized. The poet, with her sharp eye, capable of creating accurate works from what she observes, is also able to gather objects for her creations in a subjective visual capturing. In texts such as “In the Village,” “Sestina,” “The Country Mouse,” and “In the Waiting Room,” whether in prose or poetry, Bishop poetically constructs images by looking at her memories. The writer turns the camera lens toward herself and excavates her past in search of these images.
The objects captured by the poet play a significant role in this process. They also tell stories. They unfold and become material images that can help us access Bishop's memories. |
Then, she transforms those memories from raw stones into literary jewels. In the fragment “Excavation and Memory,” by Walter Benjamin, the idea of the past emerges from the image of something buried. According to him,
(…) who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging. Above all, he must not be afraid to return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil”. - - Walter Benjamin
Benjamin's imagery once again connects the poetic process present in Bishop's work to the concept of “garimpo.” Turning over the soil will lead to encounters with childhood memories, but it may also lay bare the pains and scars of absence. The house and the objects become the “mine” to be explored. Both the researcher and the poet discover their subjectivities materialized as raw material for their poetic production.
Closed Box
Reflecting on the treasures that can be found within a house, Camila, as a researcher, draws from her own experiences related to her childhood home and biographical objects. The term “garimpo” in its figurative use, has always permeated her home and was related to all the finds her father brought home from thrift shops and antique stores. The objects, full of stories, composed the home like a treasure box. In the house, there are also boxes containing small, old family objects, ready to share their stories or keep their secrets long after. This reflection on her experiences and the visual readings developed for her research inspired the need to transform her thesis into an Artists’ book, one that could also provide readers with an experience of reading interlaced with a memory retrieval common to both the poet and the researcher. Thus, Caixa Trajeto (Path Box) was born.
Open box with its objects
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The Caixa Trajeto was produced in a unique series of four units, specifically for the author and the three members of the master’s thesis defense committee. The units had the same dimensions and contained the same elements. It is important to highlight that even with the same content, each box is unique. Each box is tied with a ribbon labeled with its owner’s name.
The labels represent the researcher’s first biographical object. They were produced using the same type of label maker that Camila’s father used for his work during her childhood. Various objects in the house had names of family members affixed on them for this reason. Upon receiving the box, the thesis advisor, Professor Adriana Jordão, was moved by the memory the object evoked in her, a memory similar to the one that had inspired Camila to include it in her project. Inside the box, another element highlights the singularity of the object: the pattern created by time on the wood. It is like a fingerprint of the material that makes each item unique. Inside the box, there are two envelopes, a small hanging silver-framed photo, a kind of miniature house commonly found in Minas Gerais, and the thesis, manually bound by the author in hardcover with a spine shaped like a box. |
Artist’s Book “A Mina Casa de Elizabeth Bishop: um Garimpo poético” and its hardcover with a spine shaped like a box.
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We begin our reading of the Caixa Trajeto (Path Box) with the thesis itself. The spine, constructed in the shape of a box, conceals the manually sewn binding that unites the pages. Its graphic design, also created by the author, breaks with the official formatting norms by placing images and texts side by side as if its pages could be a mirror.
All citations and captions appear in blue, evoking the “Blue Pharmacy” from the poem “Santarém,” where the poetic voice encounters the “wasp nest,” which fascinates it as much as it would have fascinated Bishop herself. This correspondence opens the possibility for the reader to discover their own "wasp nest" beyond the researcher’s reflections. |
Cover of Artist’s Book “A Mina Casa de Elizabeth Bishop: um Garimpo poético.”
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Open Artist’s Book “A Mina Casa de Elizabeth Bishop: um Garimpo poético.”
Open Artist’s Book “A Mina Casa de Elizabeth Bishop: um Garimpo poético” with its graphic
design.
We begin our reading of the Caixa Trajeto (Path Box) with the thesis itself. The spine, constructed in the shape of a box, conceals the manually sewn binding that unites the pages. Its graphic design, also created by the author, breaks with the official formatting norms by placing images and texts side by side as if its pages could be a mirror. All citations and captions appear in blue, evoking the “Blue Pharmacy” from the poem “Santarém,” where the poetic voice encounters the “wasp nest,” which fascinates it as much as it would have fascinated Bishop herself. This correspondence opens the possibility for the reader to discover their own "wasp nest" beyond the researcher’s reflections.
“the blue plarmacy”, a wasp nest representation on a visual reading of “Santarém”
(developed by Camila Valladares).
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The horizontal format of the book refers to traditional family albums, in which one could view images of the past, recognize relatives from different eras and trace connections to ancestors. Below is an image of one of the researcher’s family albums that served as a reference for the format of the thesis.
The relationship with the album extends to the reading experience. It is common for photos to capture not only moments in people’s lives, but also the objects that surround them at certain times. These objects identified in photographs can act as activators of our memories. This dynamic is mirrored in the relationship between reading and the objects that comprise the “Caixa Trajeto” (Path Box). In Chapter 2, for example, a passage from the tale “In the Village” is explored, in which the child narrator discovers her mother through objects taken from a trunk by her grandmother. |
Family photograph album of Camila’s grandmother.
Beside a bundle of postcards and photographs with mysterious stories in the trunk from her parent’s house in Boston, there was also the “silver-framed photograph, quickly turned over” (Bishop, 2011, p. 106) by the grandmother so that the girl would not see it. Another object appears in this context: the picture frame. What secrets does this window hold about the family that the girl cannot know? It represents a fragment of memory that she may never be able to access." (Valladares, 2023, p. 64)
The interpretation of this moment can be linked to the silver picture frame in the box, which can easily be turned, preventing one from seeing what is inside the frame at any given moment.
Silver picture frame with the text fragment from “In the Village.”
Souvenir from Minas Gerais. Little ceramic house.
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The house-souvenir may reappear throughout the thesis, as it can correspond to Casa Mariana, the house as an image and the objects captured by the poet's gaze.
The first envelope to be opened contains another Artist's book, the “Livro Casa” (Book-House). The faces of this small object also serve as the cover image for the thesis. It is based on four emblematic houses that were significant to Elizabeth Bishop's creative process. Two of them are in North America (Canada and the United States) and the other two in Brazil. |
Open the first envelop: “Livro Casa”. An Artist’s Book by Camila Valladares.
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The first envelope to be opened contains another Artist's book, the “Livro Casa” (Book-House). The faces of this small object also serve as the cover image for the thesis. It is based on four emblematic houses that were significant to Elizabeth Bishop's creative process. Two of them are in North America (Canada and the United States) and the other two in Brazil.
Although it can be read by folding and unfolding it according to the reader's desire and transformative action, the “Livro Casa” has four main panels. Each face is dedicated to one of Bishop’s houses. At the next figure it is possible to see the four principal faces with its correspondent houses. From left to right: |
“Livro Casa” (and its envelope).
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Faces of “Livro Casa.”
- Childhood’s house, in New Scotia – Canada. Composition on the front side and fragment of “In the Village,” on the back side.
- Samambaia’s house, in Petropolis – Rio de Janeiro – Brazil. Composition on the front side and fragment of “Song for the Rainy Season,” on the back side.
- Casa Mariana, in Ouro Preto – Minas Gerais – Brazil. Composition on the front side and fragment of “Under the Window: Ouro Preto,” on the back side.
- Boston apartment, in Boston – United States. Composition on the front side and fragment of “Crusoe in England,” on the back side.
“Livro Casa” opened with its fold marks in blue.
On the front of each face, there is a representation built in layers of each of the houses and, on the back, there is a text by Elizabeth Bishop corresponding to the depicted house. The blue fold marks indicate these main areas (Figure 16). At the same time, they allow for the possibility of these houses transforming into other entities, depending on the reader's relationship with them.
Possible formats of “Livro Casa.”
Example of layer composition of “Livro Casa.” The face “Childhood’s house.”
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The book may take on various forms, although there are main modules in its structure. For the construction of these modules, the composition of each one shares a methodology based on layer overlapping. The figures bellow show the features of these layers.
The “Livro Casa” is an important element for reading the thesis built in layers. It also composes the complexity of Elizabeth Bishop's poetic creation process regarding her gaze towards the interior. While it provides the reader with indicators of the materiality of these places, it also reveals their fluidity and mobility, similarly to images formed in our memory that can change or even fade over time. Time is essential when examining Bishop's creative process. The poet herself acknowledges the impact of the passage of time in the opening line of “Santarém”: |
Of course I may be remembering it all wrong This transformation and movement, the additions of new elements and the absences caused by time affecting the poet, the researcher and the readers are found in the opening of the last element of the box. The envelope conveys to the reader the idea that this box now truly belongs to them. When the envelope is opened, there is a card with a line that says, “This box will always be incomplete.” This note offers the reader the possibility of adding or removing objects (material or otherwise) from the box each time it is opened. It is something alive and, just as poetry, is transformed every time it is read.
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The envelope: “Esta caixa estará sempre incompleta” / “This box will always be incomplete.”
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Example of a layered construction sequence. The face “Boston Apartment.”
The box is open to the reader.
Camila’s thesis is available in Portuguese:
Guest Editor:
Lúcia Leão is a translator and a writer originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work has appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, SWWIM Every Day, Gyroscope Review, Chariton Review, Harvard Review Online, and elsewhere. It is also included in the anthology Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing. Lúcia holds a master’s degree in Brazilian literature (UERJ–RJ, Brazil) and a master’s degree in print journalism (University of Miami–FL, USA). She is a book reviewer for RHINO literary magazine and a volunteer copyeditor for South Florida Poetry Journal, She has been living in South Florida for 30 years.
Lúcia Leão is a translator and a writer originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work has appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, SWWIM Every Day, Gyroscope Review, Chariton Review, Harvard Review Online, and elsewhere. It is also included in the anthology Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing. Lúcia holds a master’s degree in Brazilian literature (UERJ–RJ, Brazil) and a master’s degree in print journalism (University of Miami–FL, USA). She is a book reviewer for RHINO literary magazine and a volunteer copyeditor for South Florida Poetry Journal, She has been living in South Florida for 30 years.
