CR Grimmer (they/them), Words and Drawings
Megan Simper (she/her), Musical Score
Click here for video transcript and visual description
00:00-00:12
Visual description and transcript:
The screen opens into a beige backdrop. A timelapse begins of drawing an outline of an eye and nose bridge facing left in pencil followed by a handwriting stopping and starting again. It reads, “Pew orange carpets my knees.” A speech bubble is drawn from the eye to around the text.
Audio description:
Sounds of pencil on paper, with different pencil strokes overlapping in side and becoming more rhythmic.
00:12-00:30
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while a new drawing fades in. It is an eye from a different angle, still facing left but more toward the viewer. The handwriting now says, “I white-tighted kneel black patent toe.” The speech bubble drawn has water drops leading to the bubble.
Audio description:
Sounds of pencil on paper, with different pencil strokes overlapping in side and becoming more rhythmic.
00:31-00:49
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while a new drawing fades in. It is another eye now closer and left-facing again. The handwriting now says, “box slips I thought slips protection.” The speech bubble drawn has harder angles and is shaped like a thin rectangle.
Audio description:
Piano begins playing over the pencil marking sounds.
00:50-00:58
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while a new drawing fades in. It is a similar outline of an eye, now facing right. The handwriting says, “knee-skin scrapes orange carpet sponge-sticky.” The speech bubble drawn is looser with small round bumps leading up to the bubble.
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
00:58-01:05
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while the first drawing and speech bubble re-appear. The original handwriting is erased. New handwriting begins and flashes the word “born.” It is quickly erased, and the speech bubble instead says, “when red I came out like a kidney afraid.”
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:05-01:09
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while the second drawing and speech bubble re-appear. The original handwriting is erased. New handwriting begins and says, “for words I gaped I wish I could say.”
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:10-01:15
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while the third drawing and speech bubble re-appear. The original handwriting is erased. New handwriting begins and says, “I mewed kitten & cub but already the tongues.”
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:15-01:20
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades out while the fourth drawing and speech bubble re-appear. The original handwriting is erased. New handwriting begins and says, “began to overtake me too shrill to even call.”
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:20-01:25
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while all four drawings appear as one still on the screen. The speech bubbles only show the text from each drawing that replaced the original text.
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:26-01:58
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while a new drawing begins. It is a different angle of an eye facing right. It takes longer and has more stops and starts than prior drawings. The speech bubble has a random, sharp angles. The handwriting begins and writes, “A howl,” which is quickly erased. It begins again, this time saying, “some sun/days I begged/to be new.”
Audio description:
The piano music and pencil sounds behind it continue.
01:58-02:31
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while a new drawing begins. It is a different angle of an eye facing right with a nose bridge profile. Different blotches of pencil thickness and saturation appear and are erased while drawing. The speech bubble has loose, cloud-like bumps and curves. The handwriting begins and writes, “Some/sun/days I begged to/see new.”
Audio description:
Horns join the piano the piano music pencil sounds, slowly increasing to the foreground of sound.
02:32-02:59
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while a new drawing begins. It is a different angle of an eye facing left and is the first to appear on the left side of the screen. The speech bubble is a long diamond shape stretching to the screen’s right side. The handwriting begins. It is more spread out than previous speech bubbles and writes, “Sister/Angie/give us/this day white/lilies.”
Audio description:
The horns, piano, and pencil sounds continue with a subtle build.
03:00-03:07
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while the fifth drawing reappears. The handwriting in the speech bubble is erased and replaced with, “See how/mom puts/head in/a howl:/elbow/&/crying dad, see/how two/antennae/grew a/longside/the/left/ear –/I did not.”
Audio description:
The horns, piano, and pencil sounds continue.
03:07-03:16
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while the sixth drawing reappears. The handwriting in the speech bubble is erased and replaced with, “know I had/phantom/antenna/until/age 25 or 26 or 27 – my first girlfriend/they ran a finger over/it saying it’s why I felt so/much –.”
Audio description:
The horns, piano, and pencil sounds continue.
03:17-03:48
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades while the seventh drawing reappears. The handwriting in the speech bubble is erased and replaced with, “I said it explains/how I was born/alien, not-of-here/I feel,” which is then erased. It is replaced with, “They had slim, cool/moon-blue fingers,” before it is erased and replaced to say, “They had slim & cool/moon-blue fingers,/I understood.” “I understood” is quickly erased and replaced with, “I say it just/explains I was/born-not-of-here.” “I was/born-not-of-here” is quickly erased and replaced with, “even at/birth I arrived.” “I arrived” is quickly erased and replaced with, “I was not/from here I realiz.” “I realiz” I erased and replaced with, “& it/was/not/until/now,/I see.”
All of the text in the speech bubble, line by line, is erased and replaced with revised handwritten text. Drafts of what will be written flash at times outside of the bubble. It is slowly replaced to instead read, “Their fingers/slim, cool, moon-blue/I hear them graze as I/voice it as evidence:/I came out,” until its all erased and just reads, “Their fingers/slim, cool, moon-blue/I hear them graze/As I call the cut/cartiledge.” The word is misspelled and stays.
Audio description:
The horns, piano, and pencil sounds slowly begin to fade.
03:49-03:53
Visual description and transcript:
The previous screen fades to a screen that shows the last three drawings on one still with only the last version of the text remaining.
Audio description:
The horns, piano, and pencil sounds fade out.
Excerpt from poem used in first set of text text, “Some Sundays”:
I white-tighted kneel black patent toe
box slips I thought slips protection
knee-skin scrapes orange carpet sponge-sticky
some sun days I begged
to be new
some sun days I begged
to see new
Sister Angie give us
this day white lilies
Excerpt from poem used for second set of text, “I AM born again”:
for words I gaped I wish I could say
I mewed kitten & cub but already the tongues
began to overtake me too shrill to even call
see how mom puts head in a howl:
elbow & crying dad, see
how two antennae grew a
longside the left ear—I did not
know I had phantom antennae until age
25 or 26 or 27—
my first girlfriend they ran
a finger over it saying it’s why I felt
so much—their fingers
slim, cool, moon-blue I hear
them graze as I call the cut cartilage.
This submission features the first excerpt from a process-based work-in-progress, tentatively titled “some sundays/ I AM born again,” which explores identities that “haunt” Master Narratives through contradiction and community. Originally intended as a flipbook, our collaboration instead led to this video.
The video poem is a timelapse of CR using ProCreate to learn to draw using the “master” tool for Atelier sketching, Bargue Plates. They document struggling with the queer and disabled (CR’s disabilities include hand tremors) intersections between art and poetry’s ideas of Mastery. Around each sketch, CR writes lines from a pre-drafted poem about religious trauma, “Some Sundays,” which they then erase and replace by a failed to attempt to narrate a memoir, “I AM born again.”
Megan developed a soundscape and score in response to watching the timelapses while the two were hiking and sharing stories of growing up queer in religious spaces. This prompted shifting the project format to a video that includes music. The project, which is now a longer-term collaboration of caring for one another, shapes the content. Together we work toward finessing the video editing and music while still honoring how “process” inherently reflects the ruptures and illegibility of perceived “Mastery.”
