This past January, in conjunction with the exhibition Orbits in Lord Hall at the University of Maine, professor and writer Hollie Adams invited a group of poets to respond to the work of the artists in the show, Tom Jessen, Isabelle Maschal O’Donnell, and Ian Trask. I was assigned the last named and turned to the Maine Arts Journal and Lights Out Gallery for inspiration.
Click on the photo below to view a video of Trask’s work in the show.
Ian Trask, UnEarth Installation, digital video, 2020.
The Repurpose of Life
What we need is to truly desire change, accept the sacrifice, and loathe the
alternative like our lives depend on it.
—Ian Trask
I find an impish satisfaction in making trash beautiful.
—Ian Trask*
The task at hand, for
handy Trask, began
with filched forks
then Bisbee at Bonnaroo
and litter picking, plus
a mind for puzzles
and seeing potential
in the discarded,
all things tactile
and non-precious.
The repurpose of life
lies in how we treat the things we toss
and how the tossed are gathered
in a manner that brings them
back to life or, better,
transforms the forsaken
and bears new orbs and
even constellations
into our complicit universe.
Balls are bound, color-
coded and suspended
like candy or bundles
of joyful junk—plastic
fantastic lover.
Vacuum hoses,
wrestled and restless,
threaten escape.
Convergence occurs
as the impish artist
figures out his next move.
He questions his work
while seeking a path
which winds, wonderfully.
Curious, we follow,
lured by recognition
of the cast-off, enchanted
by a wayward art.
—Carl Little
*Citations are from “Ian Trask Interviewed by Greg Mason Burns,” Maine Arts Journal, Winter 2022.
Image at top: Ian Trask, Vacuum—Spore, 2020.