The space between word and image
A fabric book by Claire Davies ’25, CDP ’26, and Beverly Peterson ’26.
Text & Image, taught jointly by English and Creative Writing Professor Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez and Visual and Performing Arts Professor Jan Johnson, asks students to work across writing, sewing, printing, drawing, and animation — often for the first time. Students built individual accordion books, then paired up to research and embroider fiber books, spending a full day at the American Antiquarian Society to ground their work in archival research.
The course’s final project brings the whole class together to make a cameraless experimental film, divided into production, text and sound, and installation teams. “The energy created through these intellectual collisions was very exciting to witness,” says Gutmann-Gonzalez. Many students had never threaded a needle before the course began.
