aka Wolfwoman: A Poetic Artist's Book

Glynnis Reed-Conway

Glynnis Reed-Conway Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

Twinned images in this visual poetic essay evoke a Du Boisian sense of double consciousness and Marasa consciousness found in cosmologies of Haitian Vodou and Yoruba Orisha Ibeji twin figures. I propose a “liberation of misfits,” through a visual poetic narrative resistant against marginalization on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, and ability. I present my poem, “aka Wolfwoman” in the form of a poetic artist’s book, featuring images created as arts-based research to support and expand upon the story invoked in the poem. The poem communicates the “othering” of an uncontained, neurodivergent woman hounded by a heteropatriarchal figure that seeks to dominate and control her. Amid the dispossession and homelessness of diaspora, I seek a sense of home situated firmly in the body. I engage with identities forged out of multiplicity and suggest the liberatory potential in misfitting.

Author Biography

Glynnis Reed-Conway, Pennsylvania State University

Glynnis Reed-Conway (she/her, they/them) is an accomplished professional visual artist, art educator, and emerging scholar. She has two decades of experience as an art educator, working with diverse students as a teaching artist, K-12 art teacher, museum educator, and as a university instructor. She is a co-editor and contributor to the Curriculum and Pedagogy Group volume BIPOC Alliances: Building Communities and Curricula and author of the book, James Baldwin: Novelist and Critic. Reed-Conway has exhibited her artwork widely in the U.S. and internationally. She is a recipient of the Visions of a New California Award and numerous other grants and awards. She is currently a dual-title doctoral degree candidate in Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She recently served as the Blockson Graduate Assistant at Penn State University Libraries in the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African Americana and the African Diaspora, where she curated the exhibits “Haiti: Liberation of the First Black Republic” (2022) and “Black Feminist Embodiments of Self-Love and Self-Recovery” (2023). She is motivated by the capacity of art to build worlds and act as a potential healing agent and liberating force. Her scholarly activities weave multiple strands of study that include artmaking practices, African spiritualities, disability studies, and autoethnography to bring greater awareness of the value of the lives and contributions of intersectionally marginalized individuals in the field of art. The author may be contacted at reedglynnis@gmail.com