Coalescence

David Kessler and I have created a new art form, whereby each part expands the other, and can lead to many levels of interpretation. This was not, and could not, be contrived in any way, and is the result of a shared artistic vision. However, despite saying that, we also manage to surprise and delight each other, and the pleasure of creating a mutually satisfying new piece is vast.

Largely, I have written in response to David’s artwork, musing over the image till I find a ‘key’, or entry point. Sometimes I find this easily, and at other times it may elude me for a while. Occasionally I will leave an image, but if it continues to speak strongly to me, I will make more effort to find the doorway into it.

I write using a variety of poetic forms, and this can affect my ability to express how the image speaks to me, also. I may have ‘wrestled’ with a particular form, then try another, and the poem seems to just come together. Though this is more the mechanics of interpretation, it is nevertheless an important part of the process.

Sometimes I ask David to create an artwork for a poem that is particularly significant to me, and though he stays true to the content, he adds elements which complement and amplify the essence.

Though David and I follow different paths, we always meet at the crossroads.

Erina Booker

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52 Pages, 22 Colour Plates, Hardcover

Coalescence

Not infrequently, a visual artist and a writer produce a collaboration wherein the images and the text complement each other. Usually this works reasonably well, sometimes very well. But only very rarely does a partnership emerge that is so far beyond that as to be in a whole different world. Coalescence is the passionate and dynamic outcome of such a partnership

Much more than a mere collaboration, this volume resulted from the coming together of two very different individuals — around the globe from each other — who found that their independent creations could be melded into incredible works of cooperative art. The contributors’ differences can be seen in their separate personal Introductions; the integration of their minds and spirits can be seen on the following pages..

David Kessler’s wondrously-wrought creations are the epitome of digital manipulation as a true art form (not just a gimmick). Erina Booker’s vividly evocative poems bring their own personal magic that she weaves in and around David’s work, as his is woven into hers. Their individual contributions could easily stand alone: in fact, both participants have personal collections in print. But here it is the synergy — quite literally, the energy and impact of the combinations that is far beyond that of the sum of the parts — that make this so powerful: so well worth owning and coming back to again and again.

This is not a book one can skim or scan. It is a book to soak in, like a spa of ever-new sensations — a whirlpool of blending, conflicting, life-enriching, and occasionally disturbing emotions. It is a book to savour, like a gourmet meal made up of course after delectable course. It is a book to experience, not simply read.

from the Foreword by John Ambury

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                                                   Apples

                                                         The slow storm

                                                         gathers force
                                                         yet we will be
                                                                       a tree
                                                         which stretches
                                                         reaches warm

                                                         and finds its sun

                                                         birds nest in our branches
                                                         and soft moss clads
                                                         our bloody roots

                                                         the strength is hidden
                                                         cavernous
                                                         in womb-dark earth,
                                                         my pink-gold pippins
                                                         shaking in my storm,
                                                         there is no mercy
                                                                   for your birth

                                                         a stem, the convoluted cord,
                                                         with firmest trunk
                                                         I hold you tight
                                                         till crystalled cold
                                                         when you drop ripe
                                                         upon the earth;

                                                         and I grow old

                                                                              Erina Booker

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                                            Madrigal

                                                       I built my house beside the forest green –

                                                       Sweet sound,
                                                       For I your beauty had both heard and seen –

                                                       Abound,
                                                       But now I see your back’s to me,
                                                       And you will not let me be free
                                                       To flowers strew
                                                       And worship you,
                                                       With me on bended knee.

                                                       So now, sweet songstress, I must take my leave -
                                                       Bright bird,
                                                       Let you no longer cause my heart bereave –
                                                       Unheard,
                                                       I’ll find another who will sing for me,
                                                       And wind me round with her sweet melody,
                                                       Lovingly,
                                                       In harmony,

                                                       I for her and she for me.

                                                                                            Erina Booker

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About the Authors

Erina Booker is a writer, teacher, and counsellor, and her life has been largely about words and the many uses of language. She has written poetry for most of her life, studying at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and completing a major in Literature within her Bachelor of Arts degree from Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Currently, she has five collections of poems in print, and this is her first collaborative venture into the fusion of art and poetry.

Her background covers a further range of studies & interests, including Post Graduate Counselling, Applied Science in Medical Imaging, & also Musical Performance with the instruments of piano, flute, and ‘cello. Added to which, she owned and ran a sheep farm in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales for ten years, breeding black sheep, and enjoying the deep connection she feels with the natural world. Her varied experiences inform her writing as she draws on an elaborate tapestry of events. Erina Booker lives in Sydney, Australia.

David Kessler began in the streets of Brooklyn, NY. He was the youngest of two sons and a daughter from a poor family who lived in a five story cold water flat in Brownsville, NY. He was an average student at school, but knew in his heart that the lessons to be learned in his life would come from experience.

Art was what he always wanted to do, but that was to come later.

After graduation, he worked as a messenger on Wall Street, and then within a Wall Street brokerage firm. Shortly after, Uncle Sam invited him to join the US Army and shipped him off to Vietnam and he became an infantryman. While there, he purchased a 35mm camera, and photography was to become a lifelong passion.

After an honorable discharge from the army, he moved to Rochester, NY, where he found employment in the Research and Development division of the Eastman Kodak Company. He spent most of his free time taking photos and participating in Kodak’s Camera Club, entering his photos in monthly competitions they held.

His last years there were spent in the newly established Digital Imaging Division, and he attended three seminars of Adobe Photoshop at the Rochester Institute of Technology. That was where he combined his love of photography and art into the as yet unknown art of Digital Illustration. He has been developing his skills ever since.

Today, David lives in Ithaca, NY, and productively spends his time creating art from his vivid imagination.

Recently he connected quite by chance with a poet from Sydney, Australia, named Erina Booker. They decided to combine his art with her poetry, developing a melding of two art forms. The results of their venture are presented here, in this their first book.

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