In a world where written prose and fine art are seen as distinct creative forms, the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art’s (CLMA) new exhibition dares its visitors to blur the line between them.
On Feb. 21, six writers stood beside nine contemporary artists and read works that directly responded to the physical artworks on display at the CLMA. All of their work is part of the newest exhibition, “She Opens the Door: Women Artists and Writers Shape Language and Space,” curated by Chloe Martinez, poet-in-residence and Claremont McKenna lecturer in religious studies.
The exhibition, supported by the Pasadena Art Alliance, gathers artists from Claremont and the greater Los Angeles area who challenge inherited ideas of ‘women’s work’ and examine how women’s labor has been historically dismissed or overlooked. Many of the artists chose to use materials typically categorized as craft to question the invented binary between real art and women’s hobbies. Historically, as columnist Meiya Rollins wrote in her article on the CLMA exhibit, crafting was seen as inferior to ‘real’ artwork.
Pomona Professor of English Prageeta Sharma was one of the six writers who crafted poetry in relation to the CLMA’s newest exhibit. Her work translates the exhibition’s focus on overlooked labor into lyric form, examining grief, caregiving and racial tension through the lens of her personal experiences. She chose to respond to paintings by Kari Gatzke, a longtime friend, and began working months before the exhibition opened, returning repeatedly to the canvases in Gatzke’s studio.
Sharma’s work aligns with her newly released poetry collection, Onement Won, a manuscript written over the past eight years. The book emerged from Sharma’s sustained engagement with abstract expressionist painter Barnett Newman, whose vertical ‘zips’ — narrow bands of color cutting through the canvases — became a formal and emotional touchstone in her work. In her newest volume, she uses this artistic inspiration to structure poems about widowhood, the labor of caregiving and the strain that racism can place on friendship.
“I found the zips as beacons of healing and of wonder,” Sharma said.
This inspiration took shape gradually, in the galleries she visited while writing the book. Newman’s paintings often surfaced in museums, and Sharma began researching his writing and theory, asking whether poems could absorb his ideas while still holding her own experiences of grief, identity, and intimacy.
At the time, she was navigating widowhood — an experience that would become central to Onement Won. She described the collection as an attempt to give shape to the disparate parts of her life.
“The poems explore grief, caregiving, friendship, the difficulty in negotiating Hinduism and philosophy,” Sharma said. “They also examine racial grief and lateral violence within friendships.”
Sharma acknowledged that these themes do not align neatly, but she wanted to make them complementary. One poem in particular, “A One Won,” seamlessly brings together art and writing.
“I realized that I was stepping into a new life for myself, and the poem [“A One Won”] taught me that I could have a new collection,” she said. “It taught me how to put this book together because it revealed the symbolism I needed to continue writing the poems.”
Sharma noted that it was the first poem that made her think she could synthesize Newman’s paintings, reflect on her own identity and include commentary. Inside the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, within view of Kari Gatzke’s paintings, she read “A One Won” at the Feb. 21 reading — the same physical space that had shaped her thinking during the writing process.
For Museum Director Seth Pringle, the pairing of poetry and visual art was central to the exhibition’s design. He also noted that the collaboration between writers and visual artists was foundational to the exhibition’s conception.
“Having the poems read aloud next to the artworks that inspired them was a truly unique experience that activated our galleries in an exciting new way,” Pringle said. “We believe that having visual art and poetry exist side by side provides insights into each and illuminates both art forms in creatively productive new ways.”
This blend between art, writing and dialogue was evident in the way audience members shifted their gaze between the canvases and readers, lingering after each poem before turning back to the paintings.
For Arie Lewis Pugh, PO ’26, currently enrolled in Sharma’s poetry workshop, the setting altered how she understood both the poem and the poet.
“In the classroom, Professor Sharma is focused on our work and instructing us on how we might become better poets,” Pugh said. “I loved hearing her read from her own work and listening to poetry outside of the classroom context.”
By the end of the evening, the exhibition’s premise had been tested in real time. Visitors did not simply walk past the paintings, but understood them through Sharma’s voice — through the cadence of “A One Won” and the inquiry that shaped Onement Won.
Facebook Comments