What Do You Have to Lose?

Elisabeth Howland

 

 

‘What Do You Have To Lose?’ is a collaborative canvas time capsule initiated by Elisabeth Howland in 2006. Using collage and graffiti techniques, as well as traditional and non-traditional painting media, the project solicits the audience to directly interact with the canvas. Participants are encouraged to use the space for unregulated creative expression, as well as engage in respectful conversation with previous members of this visual community.

It is the dynamic nature of this project to constantly evolve, which has made a sister project out of its photographic and video documentation. While WDYHTL is generally an event-based installation, contributions are encouraged via postal mail or the web – photographs, magazine clippings, buttons – anything that is essentially two-dimensional and helps tell our story. Email contributions will be printed out and collaged on; all hard copies will be adhered onto the canvas as is.

 

Send submissions to:

VIDABIERTA
Re: WDYHTL
70 S. Winooski Av. #283
Burlington, VT 05401

email

Chapter 1 (Burlington, VT 2007)

Chapter 2 (Prospect Park, New York City 2007)

Canvas Details

 

Dear friend,

What do you have to lose?

Some days I say I have nothing
To lose
(If I give it all
Away);
Other days I make lists
And write letters.
Think about people,
Numbers lost,
Successive cell phones.
My favorite red sweater
(Never made it from
Point A
To point B).

Some days I picture her sitting,
Crumpled
Sheets and features aged
Too young.
She has a photograph
Of her daughter;
Clutching reflection,
Innocence
Inebriated.
Cigarettes and memories,
Smoke and mirrors,
She sat,
With herself.

What do you have to lose?

He wasn’t listening, turned his back.
It’s me,
She said softly, me.
Mirror,
She asks, what have you to
Lose? Your father,
Perhaps, the one you
Never had.
Or your child, laughing,
(The one you never had)
Mirror, mirror on
The wall,
Are you lost?

Fires were coming, she had to leave;
She knew
There was much to lose.
They said
She had to make choices;
What would she choose?
Love letters, jewelry,
Recipes;
Journals, photographs,
A sun-lit afternoon.
Shooting star moments
Left behind,
Turned to dust.

What do you have to lose?

 

 

 

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