Picturing

“I believe the desire to create pictures,” David Hockney states, “lies deep within us.” This sentiment is paired with the experience that most of us derive a deep pleasure in looking, beholding, and seeing. And in being seen, truly known. If nothing else, we are deeply visual creatures. Vision is a primary sense and a principal way of making sense of the world.

How we picture is akin to how we perceive and interpret, determining the nature of our experiences and, therefore, the very quality of our lives. Hockney affirms that the history of making images is less about representation and more about how we see.

In this collection of poems, Mickelson re-imagines what words a history of images contains and draws out the desire to be taken in whole and laid bare.