Lauds

This is one of the first live collaborations for Art in Common Places where we experienced first-hand how inspiring it is to work together on a creative project across disciplines. Sarasota residents poet Teresa Carson and artist Leslie Butterfield, the founders of Art in Common Places, completed their project in April 2020.

Teresa’s statement: I wrote the first draft of “Lauds (Payne Park)” in June 2017, tinkered with it then put it aside (though not out of sight … it stayed clipped to a notepad that was part of my “poems in progress” pile). The poem could not be finished until I acclimated to my new life, of light and connections, in Sarasota. During a walk on Siesta Key Beach in March 2020 (pre-pandemic), Leslie said “connections” was one of her favorite words and I said “web” was one of mine. She subsequently proposed a painting/poem collaboration based on “the web of connections.” Immediately “Lauds (Payne Park)” came back into my life. Now I was ready to go where it wanted to take me.

Leslie’s statement: For several weeks I worked with early editions of Lauds creating collages of colors, patterns and words. The final artwork includes an Easter egg on which I wrote Teresa’s poem with added bits of a watercolor painting displayed on a background of a painting by Nell Hillsley. She painted the garden at my mother’s front door in St Paul Minnesota. My mother died in 1995. The composition called me, as does Lauds, because I believe deeply in the web that connects us all.