Maria Damon






Asemic Kill City

Asemic Kill City

Detail from a scarf, Raw Power/Kill City: For James Williamson on the Occasion of His Rejoining Iggy and the Stooges After Forty Years.
Silk and cotton
ABC: for Anne Blonstein

ABC: for Anne Blonstein

The late English poet Anne Blonstein wrote her initials using the Greek alphabet; she used Hebrew and traditional Jewish exegetical techniques in her constraint-based writing; and she lived in Basel, at the crossroads of many languages (French, German, Swiss-German, etc.) that use the Roman alphabet. Cancer took her life far too soon. Linen, cotton, metallic thread, glass beads.
 
The Bang

The Bang

Detail from a scarf, The Bang/The Stooges: For Derek See, producer and guitarist for The Bang, guitar technician for Iggy and the Stooges.
Cotton
Asemic Kill City

The Stooges

Detail from a scarf, The Bang/The Stooges: For Derek See, producer and guitarist for The Bang, guitar technician for Iggy and the Stooges.
Cotton
 
FUN

FUN

Detail from a scarf, FUNHOUSE: For Steve Mackay, saxophonist for Iggy and the Stooges..
Cotton

WATT

WATT

Detail from a scarf, WATT/FROM PEDRO: For Samuel Beckett and Mike Watt, bassist for Iggy and the Stooges (and many other bands).
Silk and cotton

 
Listen to Your Mothers

Listen to Your Mothers

For Adeena Karasick." Shin (the tooth), Mem (water) and Alef (the ox) are referred to as the Three Mothers because of their foundational importance in Kabbalistic thought. They also spell out the command, "Listen!" The ox's horns form Moms' megaphone.
FUNHOUSE

FUNHOUSE

Detail from a scarf, FUNHOUSE: For Steve Mackay, saxophonist for Iggy and the Stooges.
Cotton

 
Baby Blanket

Baby Blanket

After Man Ray's 'Lautgedichte.
Wool and cotton

Rock and Roll

Rock and Roll

Detail from a scarf, Rock and Roll/Idle No More, for Paul Seesequasis.
Cotton

 
SOS: for Michael Hancher

SOS: for Michael Hancher

I made this for the chair of my department at the University of Minnesota in 2006: he was a very kind person and the department was in a critical moment. I later published it in Annie Ballardini's and Obododimma Oha's online 100,000 Poets for Change issue of the Poet's Corner.www.fieralingue.it
Flaxen

Flaxen: for Jen Bervin

The marvelous textile artist/poet Jen Bervin is long and lanky and beautiful. We both like this word a great deal, as it captures a textilic and metaphoric way of talking about one aspect of a woman's (or man's) beauty.
 
Millay

The Millay Sisters Learn to Cuss: for the Millay Colony for the Arts

The quote from Norma Millay, the poet's sister, explains how the sisters would practice uttering profanities over their mending in order to fit in with their wild new milieu in Greenwich Village. The V is for Vincent and a few other things, and the butterfly (a candle burning at both ends), wild thyme and wild strawberry were all creatures to be found in abundance in July at the Colony.
Kandu

KANDU: for Kathrin Schaeppi and Urs.

I stayed in Basel, Switzerland, in May and June 2011. The wifi network was named after my hostess and her boyfriend, K- and-U. Cotton on linen. It was an extremely important word in the maintenance of my sanity and daily routine.
Cotton on linen
 
Regressive (asemic) Rock and Roll

Regressive (asemic) Rock and Roll

Detail from a scarf, Rock and Roll/Idle No More, for Paul Seesequasis.. The dark side of the moon, the "wrong" side of the scarf. Errant, awkward, asemic or dyssemic communication is of great appeal.
Cotton