My Romance

by Eileen R. Tabios

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Summary

MY ROMANCE is a unique collection of writings that conflate poetry and the visual arts. Author Eileen Tabios presents essays on contemporary artists representing a variety of aesthetics, ranging over abstraction, minimalism, figuration, monochromatism, conceptual art and sculpture. Each essay is followed by a poem written by Ms. Tabios as a result of having considered and written on the essay's subject artist(s). The book features 18 artists including established names like Richard Tuttle and promising emerging artists like Marc Trujillo. While each essay and poem may be read on a standalone basis, the juxtaposition of essay and poem allows the reader to discern part of the process through which Ms. Tabios wrote the poem. Another significant dimension to MY ROMANCE is how Ms. Tabios uses her meditations on art to venture forth into other disciplines and topics. As examples, she uses her essay on Ulrike Palmbach to address urban culture, her essay on Santiago Bose to address political corruption, her essay on Christian Vincent to address Wall Street culture, her essay on Max Gimblett to address Buddhism, her essay on Susan Bee to address the flux of language, and her essay on Tom Friedman to address human mortality. She explains her approach "I write on art because it is a way to engage with capitalism, politics, culture, history, issues of identity and the environment. To write on art is like the writing of a a way of engaging with the world." Sculptor Miriam Bloom says about MY "Eileen Tabios knows with all of her heart and soul that both poetry and visual art involve distillation, essence, mystery, and grandeur of experience. Her poetry is an analog for abstraction in the visual arts." MY ROMANCE features the following Santiago Bose, Max Gimblett, John Yau, Ulrike Palmbach, Ruth Liberman, Ed Moses, Paul Pfeiffer, Richard Tuttle, Christian Vincent, Stephanie Syjuco, Carmen Lomas Garza, Susan Bee, Tom Friedman, Marc Trujillo, Joseph Marioni, Miriam Bloom, Venancio "V.C." Igarta, and Carlos Villa.

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