RESPONSE TO ANNE CARSON'S PLAINWATER AND TOM WAITS' MULE VARIATIONS On-Going

While on a flight from Chicago, Illinois to Baltimore, Maryland I wrote a series of responses to every track on Tom Waits' Mule Variations album using the duration of the track as my free writing time for each corresponding response. I had been reading Plainwater by Anne Carson and was thinking a lot about the ways we invent systems as writers and people, frameworks by which we associate memories, to do lists and expectations.

The response is a work of obsession that was driven forward with the intention of creating an unending series of steps or requirements which could be repeated to construct an encyclopedia sized work from a few lines of text. I varied the words and then the characters used to create the responses by thinking of subtext and connotation as material, rather than working in a linear fashion, from a sentence to a paragraph to a poem or story. The responses are also unique in that I have chosen to divulge my process. I invite anyone to continue the work or change it. The required examples and documents are available to investigate or undertake this process below.

Response Variations Visuals {New Window}

This is my final output in response to Tom Waits' Mule Variations, track 1. These images are meant to be printed and shown in an 8" x 10" format, matted and in a single line along one wall. They are intended to be seen, not read.

Variations for Track # 1 {New Window}

This is the body of work that was generated while using the 19 instructions below. This work makes up the process I used to create a series of black and white prints as a response to Mule Variations.

Response to Anne Carson's Plainwater and Tom Waits' Mule Variations {pdf}

The original 16 responses, one for each track of the Mule Variations album written on the plane ride from Chicago to Baltimore, are in the document above.

Instructions Towards a Response {pdf}

Finally, presented in the instructions document, I offer the steps I created to make my response to the first track of Mule Variations.