Arms

Lesley Dill has long been fascinated by Emily Dickinson's poetry. Its precise balance of lacerating self-exposure and impenetrable reticence is a perfect analogue for Dill's own metaphoric explorations of the female mind, body, and spirit. This suite of prints takes its title and fragmentary texts from Dickinson's poem A Word made Flesh is seldom / And tremblingly partook. In it, Dill combines two seemingly unrelated sources of inspiration: Dickinson's poetry and the henna tattoos of women in India. She explains: I was very influenced by my stay in India where women paint their hands and feet in beautiful designs. I thought maybe we do have words on us, invisible text we all wear. I think of words, especially poetry and especially Emily Dickinson's as a kind of spiritual armor, a protecting skin of words that dresses the soul with inspiration of vulnerability, fear, and hope. As clothing cloaks or reveals, so does language, which can selectively present or obscure.