edited by courtney marie
A small army of Spiderweb artists and writers have recently had the distinct pleasure of working with this featured writer over the last few weeks, and we would be remiss if we didn’t take this opportunity to share some of her projects and her wonderful work with you. Lisa Huffaker is a phenomenal poet, a classically trained opera singer, and an abundantly creative visual artist (her collages are WOW!), but she’s also a community-builder and, like us, an appreciator of anything made by hand with love.
Lisa Huffaker
This might not be the first time you’ve seen Lisa’s name on the Spiderwebsite, either. You may recall the beautiful previously published piece that we shared last year during our National Poetry Month project, called Moon When Nothing Shines. We’ve been enamored by her work for a long time.
Anyone who knows Lisa knows she is a beacon of creativity and positivity in the DFW literary and DIY communities. Earlier this summer, she invited Spiderweb Salon to participate in White Rock Zine Machine, a project funded by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, in which a collection of tiny zines is created and dispensed from a beautiful antique baseball card machine for just 25 cents each. What an honor! Challenge accepted!
So we’ve been making zines together all month, totaling a full flight of 1,200 created by 12 different artists and writers. Read more about the project here and check out the grand unveiling of our collaboration at Deep Vellum Books next weekend (September 1) at our launch party. Even Wake & Bake will be there will a special treat! Don’t miss out on the chance to score some lovely tiny art pieces made lovingly by hand, see a dozen or so Spiderweb creators share their work, and meet the one-and-only Lisa Huffaker in real life. We seriously can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on.
We hope you will also take a moment today to enjoy this dreamy poem Lisa wanted to share with us today, Leafy Sea Dragons. Lisa is an artist and writer that works in countless mediums, and you can see the intersection of all those interests in her work, especially this piece. The artist Alexander Calder is cited as the inspiration behind the words, and how wonderful is it that her poem, prompted by the work of another, also prompted in its turn a perfectly fitting original piece by the one and only Marco Zavala. Here’s to endlessly inspiring one another, friends.
Leafy Sea Dragons
Inspired by the mobiles of Alexander Calder
Some of us aren’t built for the chase.
We sail oceans of air, our fins
palm-out in space, our bodies
improbable linking arcs balanced
weightless without muscle.
Someone swifter may dart
through our field of being, a silver flash
to set us spinning, but we
vegetable beings, we hold out
hands like patient leaves
to gather the light that feeds us.
We tremble for small reasons.
We float here a long time.
You might mistake us for water weeds
but we know how an ocean moves
because it sways us.
Lisa Huffaker | photo by courtney marie
Lisa Huffaker is a poet, musician, and visual artist. Her poems have been published in Southwest Review, Poet Lore, Measure, Able Muse, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She won the Morton Marr Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her latest project, White Rock Zine Machine, in which she transforms retired vending machines into whimsical sculptures offering tiny books by Dallas writers and artists, has been celebrated in D Magazine and The Dallas Observer, and awarded grants by the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. A classical singer by training, she sings with the Dallas Opera. She served as a Visiting Artist at the Dallas Museum of Art last summer, where her installation, Sound/re:Vision, invited visitors to interact with a music box Zine Machine, compose their own chance music, and create zines inspired by a playlist ranging from opera to gamelan.
Don’t forget, if you’d like us to feature your work, you can submit it here!