Eye Book by Conner Carey

In a creative process course, my former student Conner Carey made an art project out of a 1950s handbook on mores for girls, which they bought at the Ottumwa Goodwill. They blacked out words and sentences to create ‘found’ poems on some of the pages. They cut some pages into the shapes of leaves, others into the shape of eyelids, and yet others into the shape of an eye. The more deeply you read into their book, the more you saw of the eye in all of its water-colored splendor; then you watched it turn into a slit and from there a vagina.

The book had dimensional depth through the layering of the pages. Conner’s art book turned into a manifesto of women’s strength, autonomy, beauty, and emancipation in the form of poetry, image, prose, collage, and painting. The accompanying found poems were thoughtful, fierce, authentic. It was a stunning work of art. We had it on display at an art show in honor of the 40year reunion of our English department.

In a poetry class, Conner wrote a poem called “You, Woman” for all the women throughout history who did not have a voice. You can watch them perform it here.

You can have a look at Conner’s website here.