Poemumbles

In 1977, New York-based painter Susan Weil — who attended Black Mountain College in 1948 alongside Robert Rauschenberg, whom she later married — began writing short poems for her Swedish friend and art dealer, Anders Tornberg. Her poems, inspired by the writings of James Joyce, were often accompanied by small drawings and watercolors.

It wasn’t until spring1984 that Weil’s writings took on their lasting form as “poemumbles.” Starting with “May 11th, 1984,” she sent one poemumble to Tornberg every day, for the duration of his lifetime, and beyond. Now, 10,930 poemumbles later, the creations are on view — for the first time in the U.S. — in Poemumbles: 30 years of Susan Weil’s poems/images. The exhibit opens on Friday, Jan. 30, at BMCM+AC.

The show features more than 60 of Weil’s original notebook-sized poemumbles, a sculpture and several larger works on plexiglass. Poemumbles tracks the progression of these works over the course of 30 years, tracing the artist’s materials and modes as her life and landscape changed. “They were her daily ritual. They didn’t have to have an agenda, so they could drastically change from day to day,” says Brian Butler, who co-curated the show with Rachel Inch, Weil’s archivist. “They don’t take themselves too seriously, yet they’re still compelling.”

The images include drawings, watercolors and paintings of everything from cups of coffee to birds and bikes. “They’re snippets of what she’s been inspired by, what she’s reading, her family, goings-ons,” says Inch. In recent years, Weil took to using computer-sourced imagery and Xerox copies for some of the poems, though she still hand-draws many of the images.

“In a sense, this is Weil’s archive,” Butler says. “These works are meant to be thumbed through, which is how she shows them at her studio, and now visitors will have the same opportunity.” — K.S.