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Making the Visual Verbal
This article in Communication Arts by John Paul Caponigro is kind of like the flip side of this blog's focus on making words into pictures. Talks about how working with words, a process avoided by many visual artists, can make one better at working with images.
"'Pictures should be seen and not heard.' 'If we could communicate what we want to communicate with words, then we’d be writers not artists.' The words had rained down on me so many times that my mind had been saturated with the idea. While it reflects some truth, chiefly that a text (written or verbal) can never be a substitute for an image, it can also be misleading. Pictures have always been, continue to be, and will always be talked about—particularly by artists."
"Artists approach the process of making the visual verbal with mixed feelings; part trepidation, part confirmation, part validation. To be sure, while there are many pitfalls to be avoided, there are many positive byproducts to making the visual verbal."