Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2018SYR03
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
A framing coupon, good for a 20 percent discount at Edgewood Gallery, a custom frame shop at 216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Does Syracuse Live
poster information
Description
Does Syracuse live
In the future or the past?
It's always changing.
Inspiration for this haiku comes from local newspapers. There are always articles celebrating the region's past: early settlement, the Erie Canal, growing trade, industrialization, civil rights contributions, and celebrities. All these and more are proud achievements, even if sometimes rose-tinted. But problems plague Syracuse with the passing of those fondly-remembered days and there are also articles about working toward and building for future industry, education and social progress. About building on or replacing what has passed. It seems every edition of the newspaper reflects Janus, looking both forward and back together. I like that this haiku may be read any of a few different ways and they all seem valid. It's as if there is some underlying dynamic regardless of your perspective. This future/past duality seems contradictory but it also seems power our progress.
In choosing a haiku to illustrate, I sought one whose overall theme was time-related. Throughout my development as an illustrator, I have found that certain motifs, themes, and icons become intrinsic to my process and, speaking more broadly, I think, reflect my values, hopes, and fears. “Time”—the sparsity of it and its fleetingness, amongst other things—is of particular interest. Pictorially representing time, my shorthand has become the hourglass shape. Fittingly then, I chose a haiku whose deceptively simple minimalism speaks volumes in written form. The very same intangibleness of the hourglass shape, and time itself.