"Campus East"
I have a more personal project to share here today—a strange and special illustration for my poem "Campus East," which was first published in Sheila-Na-Gig Online.
This poem is a callback to the summer of 2020, which Alex and I spent under lockdown on the campus of the University of York while he was studying for his master's degree in Victorian literature. With the exception of a few other international students, the campus was all but deserted. Buses were not running, and businesses were closed. Our only respite from a our teeny studio dorm room was to take long walks around the eerily quiet campus that was bursting with natural life. Sometimes those walks feel like the only thing we did for about four months as we watched so many of the things we had planned to do in England come off the calendar to make room for the global tragedy that was covid.
This poem memorializes that ghostly time and how it brought us more in tune with the humming natural world around us and closer to one another. Scroll down to see the finished piece and read the poem that explains the weird decapitation. 😉
CAMPUS EAST
In that springtime of long walks, I was always saying Look,
pulling at you to pause for a predictable ecstasy like
Oh the hyacinths are out! or THIS will be our picnic place. The daffodils.
When the world becomes so small, everything small
takes on stature. The hillock atop the rise took on a city of
rabbits. Puddles took on tadpoles. Black slugs took on names.
You said if by some accident I turned into only a head with
nothing attached all would be well still. The swallows came
back from Africa and each eave turned peppy with their nesting.
So few things go as planned. In the end we left without taking
even one picnic in the corridor of yellow trumpets, never
even once sipped our tea ringed by that fringe and fragrance.
But I regret nothing. You said you would slip the little
oval of me into a mesh bag every morning and bring it along.
You said no leg, no limb could come between us.
The Process
Watercolor illustration is always a slow process for me, involving layers upon layers of carefully applied transparent paint. Here's a peek behind the scenes so you can see how this particular piece developed over a period of a few days:
That's all for now, friends! Don't forget to follow along over on Patreon to be the first to see new creations like this one and to receive a new zine or other story creation from me every other month.
All the best,
Bryana