Caroline Goodwin

Moondog Pelican
14″x11″; paper, glue, purple Sharpie, beach glass, crow feather, seed beads; 2020

Caroline Goodwin
Montara, California, USA

STATEMENT

I came to the art of collage during an online poetry workshop with bilingual Welsh poet and performance artist Rhys Trimble. The class was “Poetry and Eclogue: Ritual Ecopoetics” through The Poetry School in the United Kingdom. In response to Trimble’s prompts, I started to consider my relationship with the natural world in new and exciting ways and to find real joy as I continued the process of grieving my husband of 24 years, who died in a cycling accident in 2016. After reading and writing poetry for thirty years, the incorporation of diverse materials (poem fragments, scientific texts, and found materials from my home) liberated me. I use snippets of Nick’s handwriting, glass seed beads, purple Sharpie, cards and calendars from Alaska, work by dead poets, photographs of Nick and myself, and my own poetry in every piece. I continue to be fascinated by the healing power of collage.

BIO

Caroline Goodwin is a poet and collage artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born and raised in Alaska, she moved to California in 1999 to attend Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry. Her books are Trapline (2013, JackLeg Press), Peregrine (2015, Finishing Line Press), The Paper Tree (2017, Big Yes Press) and Custody of the Eyes (2019, dancing girl press). From 2014 to 2016, she served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California. She lives near the ocean with her two daughters and Jimi Hendrix the Pug.

ARTIST CONTACT

(415) 215-1267
[click to email]
www.carolinegoodw.com

IMAGES

Halibut in Birch Tree
11″x14″; paper, glue, purple Sharpie, nail polish, cat claw; 2020
Sphinx Moth with Misspelled Poet Name
11″x14″; paper, glue, purple Sharpie, glass seed beads, raffia, wood; 2021
Eel Me
11″x17″; paper, purple Sharpie, seed beads; 2020