Writing
Photo by Mia Lemay.
It’s structured around the concept of sharing ideas in different forms, on a spectrum of finishedness. I take great inspiration from sculpture as a medium and decided to call pieces of my writing that are less refined Maquettes — the equivalent of a sketch for sculpting — and full, fired essays are Sculptures.
As I’ve watched my creative writing process evolve, I recognized that I unknowingly come back to themes of bodily degradation and sadness, the unity of medical issues and emotional issues, and what is beautiful about it all. I fixate on the beauty in decomposition and disgust. These are broader themes in my life, and it connects deeply with my sexual trauma work as well. My description for Patina’s Heartbeat is as follows:
Purveyor of Beauty, Rhythm Devotee, and Winded, the Long Way. Shasa L. Sartin shares her reflections on arts of all mediums, ways of measuring time in all methods, and pains from all places. She loves citations cause she loves showing gratitude.
In my writing I am greatly inspired by artists across mediums, especially visual artists. Abbas Kiarostami, Ana Mendieta, Antony Gormley, Doris Salcedo, and Jennifer Packer, to name a few.
There are threads between some of them, like Kiarostami and Salcedo both having eye diseases (like I do). Mendieta and Gormley being focused on the body, their bodies (like I do). Packer and Kiarostami sharing critical thought about light, and thus about attention and intention (like I do).