*****
Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. Her fifth Bloodaxe collection is The Anatomical Venus (2019.) She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and teaches creative writing online for the UEA/NCW. She has work translated into Polish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Coatian and Greek for Versopolis. She has a chapbook, Maps of the Abandoned City with SurVision, and a book of collage poems Hear What the Mood Told Me with Knives Forks and Spoons Press. Wunderkammer New and Selected Poems is published in the US by MadHat Press.
She received ACE funding to research and write her sixth collection for Bloodaxe Books, Constructing a Witch (October 2024.) These collage/ poems form part of the manuscript in progress.
*****
Artist Statement
Most of my practice involves play. I place things together in the same enclosure to see how they will get on. I need some manner of logic before I reach for the glue to make their relationship permanent. Often that logic is a dream-logic and I am interested in the way that words, images and textures jostle against each other and shift their meanings and connotations. These collages were made while my mind was abuzz with witch research.
This way of working always feels alchemic to me; the magical process of transformation and creation. When making collage from pre-existing materials, each thing that you use is already charged with its own power. It was important for me with these collages to keep the rough edges and show the materials I used. Having seen the very handmade poppets and such at the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle and the objects used in the Spellbound exhibition at the Ashmolean, I wanted to get a scratchy folk-art feel to these. These are all made on the broken backboards of old books. Some may think that this is vandalism, but I only use foxed and damaged things. I like to think that I give them a new life and rescue them from the silverfish.
******
*****
*****
*****
The High Window 