The Fissured Tongue Series
The Extravagant Art of Seeing; an Essay Enacted, 162 pp. (selected works)
thoughts while
tearing up a novel
late one night
Ben Miller
thoughts while
tearing up a novel
late one night
Ben Miller
The Extravagant Art of Seeing: Thoughts While Tearing Up a Novel Late One Night (p. 1), ink and glue on paper, 8 1/2 by 11 (inches), 2021
The Extravagant Art of Seeing: Thoughts While Tearing Up a Novel Late One Night (p. 2), ink and glue on paper, 8 1/2 by 11 (inches), 2021
The Extravagant Art of Seeing: Thoughts While Tearing Up a Novel Late One Night (p. 3), ink and glue on paper, 8 1/2 by 11 (inches), 2021
About the Author
Ben Miller is the author of the forthcoming Pandemonium Logs: A Clerk’s Tale (Skiff Books, an imprint of Rutgers University Press) and River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa (Lookout Books, an imprint of UNCW Press).
About the Work
"I created the first layer of my manuscript, The Extravagant Art of Seeing, by tearing up pages of a novel draft to create hundreds of scraps. These were glued (at many angles, but generally in sequence) on pages of 8 ½ by 11 90 lb. index paper. Next I generated small petroglyphic images (black pen on white paper) responding to questions: How many new forms might space created by a work’s destruction make possible? Does the maturation of expressive ability depend as much on looking backward as forward…piecing together a complete record of creation incorporating the poorest, as well as the brightest, content? That is, has the worst work the power to teach a writer the best lessons? Images were then cut out and, along with typed text, deployed like bandages (or stitches) in and around the novel’s shorn tissue."
About the Author's Process
"I employ varying approaches to developing visual texts without the use of software, but one element unites all: the aim of offering the audience a transformational experience, just as each expression makes me, in some sense, a new kind of artist. By “new” I do not mean shiny and flawless. I mean possessing the piquant freshness of having been altered intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually by resolute immersion in a creative process."
Ben Miller is the author of the forthcoming Pandemonium Logs: A Clerk’s Tale (Skiff Books, an imprint of Rutgers University Press) and River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa (Lookout Books, an imprint of UNCW Press).
About the Work
"I created the first layer of my manuscript, The Extravagant Art of Seeing, by tearing up pages of a novel draft to create hundreds of scraps. These were glued (at many angles, but generally in sequence) on pages of 8 ½ by 11 90 lb. index paper. Next I generated small petroglyphic images (black pen on white paper) responding to questions: How many new forms might space created by a work’s destruction make possible? Does the maturation of expressive ability depend as much on looking backward as forward…piecing together a complete record of creation incorporating the poorest, as well as the brightest, content? That is, has the worst work the power to teach a writer the best lessons? Images were then cut out and, along with typed text, deployed like bandages (or stitches) in and around the novel’s shorn tissue."
About the Author's Process
"I employ varying approaches to developing visual texts without the use of software, but one element unites all: the aim of offering the audience a transformational experience, just as each expression makes me, in some sense, a new kind of artist. By “new” I do not mean shiny and flawless. I mean possessing the piquant freshness of having been altered intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually by resolute immersion in a creative process."
