Cantos-Thinking Vessels is part two of a text-based artwork which uses visual art notebooks collected between 2019 and 2023 as found text, reframed and rewritten in the style of The Cantos of Ezra Pound as an epic, non-rhyming, stream-of-consciousness, prose poem, where inner thought processes are exposed as a kind of creative self-portrait or a fragmentary thinking diary. The work explores ideas about creating, aesthetics, art, painting, expression, climate change, being, politics and representation through times of inspiration, self-doubt, grief and trauma. Cantos-Thinking Vessels traces ideas through the development of the Vessels painting project. The notebooks were started as a dialogue with poet Derek Mahon to share the development of the project and continued after he died in 2020.

The work was conceived as a visual, written document where layout and font are integral to the concept, comprising short paragraphs, sentences, lists and quotes. The idea for this work came about after reading Uncreative Writing Managing Language in the Digital Age, Columbia University Press, 2011, by Kenneth Goldsmith, who introduced me to The Cantos of Ezra Pound. It is 8,200 words (56 pages)

This project was supported by an Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award 2022

Also see Artwork Vessels (parts 1 & 2) 2019-22