I am Sorella Andersen, a writer and mixed-media artist based in Florida, a recent graduate of Eckerd College, and Associate Interviews Producer for The Creative Process.

As an interdisciplinary creator, myself, I am interested in work that resists categorization, or redefines it. I recently anchored the interview with Itamar Kubovy, Executive Director of Pilobolus Dance Company. When he says that he thinks of Pilobolus’ work as “theater, or sculpture, [the creation of] icons,” or even “movement as the manifestation of thought,” he grasps at an essentially elusive nature -- a form defined in relation to more recognizable forms, but not quite centered in any of them, always shifting and, he says, “creating its own rules” as part of the collaborative process.

I am interested in work that must be understood on its own terms, which seems to call attention to its indefinability. In my thesis exhibition at Eckerd College, titled “The Collection,” I explored the book as aesthetic object, and the process of creation as one that exists in collaboration between artist and audience. I hoped to illuminate, with my work, the dualities brought to mind when experiencing a book as, for example, both Aesthetic & Functional, Luxury & Disposable, as a Complete work left Incomplete without an audience, as something Privately experienced but (often) widely available, and as an experience Of the body (in its tangibility) and Of the mind and imagination.

Part of the intriguing nature of Pilobolus’ work is, I think, in similar dualities. In this interview, Kubovy speaks to the, quote, “central tension” between the individual voice and the group-as-author. I find Kubovy’s wording here interesting--when he speaks of dance, what one might think of as a purely visual art form, Kubovy introduces concepts of authorship and language. This is not a language of, as he says, “an agreed upon set of conventions,” but rather of the spaces between individual perspectives - a language of abandoning the known and conventional to arrive at new “rules.” This is “giving up” the self, in two senses: to contribute, to “give,” one’s voice and experience, but also to surrender to the language of the group. The audience, too, engages with the language of the dance -- even sometimes as overtly as when Pilobolus dancers form letters and words with their bodies, physically embodying the abstract.

Their words have allowed me, as I hope they will for you, to consider not only the diverse stories to be told in life, but also to embrace the various possible methods of telling.

Sorella Lark is a 2018 graduate of Eckerd College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing and Visual Art. Her written work has been published by Prime Number Magazine, Z Publishing, and Eckerd Review.

Sorella's primary works of visual art are in collage, mixed media, and printmaking, the former being the focus of her Ford Apprentice Scholars Program study at Eckerd. Her senior show, The Collection, took place in April 2018.

Self-Portrait; selected artworks from The Collection, Sorella’s senior thesis exhibition; and monotypes created during her Ford Apprentice Scholars Program