In Their Own Words

By Anna Cearley on April 3, 2009 7:54 AM

What happens when USC students enrolled in the Master of Professional Writing Program are asked to either interpret or respond to an art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art?

For Kyle MacKinnel, a painting he saw at the exhibition - To Build a House You Start With the Roof by Franz West - reminded him of the incandescent colors of oil puddles. Later that day, he saw that same color on the backs of pigeons and that’s how he started out his poem “Ekphrasis,” which is the Greek word for description:

“Bronze city’s
beautiful pigeons,
puddles of oil…”

MacKinnel and six other students who are part of USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program will be presenting their interpretations of the museum’s Franz West exhibition on April 4 during the museum’s Late Night Art program.

The event, to run from 8 p.m. to midnight, includes art, video and music. The USC students are scheduled to present their interpretations between 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.

The students are MacKinnel, Sandra Vahtel, Joey Damiano, Christine Schilling, Danielle Lenglet and Stephen Silke. In addition, there will be readings by professional writers Amy Gerster, Dana Goodyear and August Kleinzahler.

Brighde Mullins, director of the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC, is coordinating the readings. She said that writing exercises encourage students to experiment with multidisciplinary approaches.

In the case of the current LACMA art exhibition, Mullins said, the works are “connected to the context of the Cold War and how artists metabolized the impossible.”

“The idea is to push students out of their comfort zone and to open them up to other ways of seeing and being,” she said. “This is a chance to rehearse comebacks and responses … plus my students always surprise me with their takes, their interpretations.”

Lenglet, who will graduate in 2010, said she chose a short story format to write her interpretive piece in the first-person.

“As a writer, it is amazing to walk in an exhibit, see a piece of art work and immediately be inspired to write your own piece,” she said. “Visual arts and writing are such different mediums, and it’s great to be able to connect them in some way.”

In a snippet from her short story, Lenglet describes the trepidation of going to the art exhibition and wondering what she will write about and how she discovers an installation called “Every Little” (2003), which is comprised of two couches on diagonally adjacent walls. Above the first couch are the words “Everytime you think of me,” and above the second couch the words are the words “we die, a little.”

Thinking of the couples, mothers, fathers and children who sat on those couches, Lenglet concludes in her story: “Everytime they think of one another is one less time they will think of one another, closer to the end. Whether the end is death, a fight or a break up, it is true that every relationship dies a little with every thought. That is a sad and beautiful thing.”

MacKinnel, who graduates in May, said USC’s program encourages students to find unique ways to express their creativity, which is especially important in today’s world where multimedia skills are at a premium.

He said he started out in the program with a screenwriting emphasis, switched to non-fiction and ultimately returned to his lifelong interest in poetry. He expects to continue writing poetry, but said he feels prepared for other writing opportunities.

“The way the world seems to be moving, with information exchange getting quicker every day, it’s important to be versatile in order to be able to express yourself and to reach an audience,” he said.

TAGS: humanities

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