Jane Birdsall-Lander's "ride"
Jane Birdsall-Lander
Jane Birdsall-Lander's "new year"
Jane Birdsall-Lander's "solar eclipse"
Jane Birdsall-Lander's "thank you"
Jane Birdsall-Lander's "fingerprint"
Jane Birdsall-Lander's "their story"
Artist and poet Jane Birdsall-Lander has always loved words, writing and art.
“I was that kid who read the dictionary. I know. That’s weird; and I read encyclopedias. So, when a word seems important to me, or there’s a word that tweaks my curiosity, I look it up in different dictionaries. I like to see the origin first, to start right from the beginning with a word,” Birdsall-Lander says.
Words weren’t the only thing that thrilled her. “I’ve always made art, ever since I was a child,” she says. It seemed perfectly logical she would major in English and minor in art at the University of Michigan.
Birdsall-Lander united her two loves in the sculptures she’s exhibited at local galleries and in shows. “My sculptures and three-dimensional work always involved language,” she says. “I’m thankful to have been represented by Elliot Smith first, and then Duane Reed with those sculptures,” she says.
Writer’s block • Artists are often asked to donate works to fundraisers and charity auctions and Birdsall-Lander was no exception. “I was finishing up making a piece called ‘Writer’s Block’ for a fundraiser for the literary magazine River Styx.
“I was thinking, I wish I had something easily reproducible that I could share with people that took less time. Then I grabbed a dictionary and looked up ‘writer’ and ‘block.’ And that’s how dictionary poems started, and the project rolled off from there,” she says.
Presented like a dictionary definition, a word or phrase evolves through associations and meanings. She set parameters on size and style for the process. “They would not be precious, and they would be available at a very reasonable cost. I am not showing them in galleries,” she says. Instead she sells the artworks online through the project’s website.
Editions 1 and 2 • She’s produced two editions of dictionary poems, with a third waiting in the wings. The poems are available as 17-inch-by-22-inch giclee prints and as notecards with envelopes with six different designs in a set. Her sales are split evenly between prints and cards.
Birdsall-Lander begins each poem with a deep dive into a word, words that connect, divide and illuminate. “The poems start out literal and then it drifts off into the metaphorical. I think of it more like jazz. They start out much more literally and then riff off into poetry, into my thoughts, what I’ve taken in from the culture. And then it’s fun to put the graphics with them. It’s great for me,” she says.
“If you break it down, with the cards, you can have a piece of artwork for less than the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I like that, and people send them, too. People are still sending cards through the mail as well as keeping them for themselves,” she says.
Pandemic dictionary poems • “On March 6, 2020, I had an opening of the Dictionary Poems at the High Low, a literary cafe in the Grand Center Arts Districts. We were just at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone was tapping elbows, and laughing a bit, but the following Wednesday, the shutdown happened,” she says.
During the pandemic, Birdsall-Lander produced a third, pandemic edition of the project, which has not yet been released. “It was very conscious on my part. It was therapeutic: a way to contain all my feelings and thoughts about everything that was going on. I tackled hard words that really made me search myself, as well as the roots of the of the language, she says. “I’m part of the culture. I’m part of a bigger whole, and it’s not just me in isolation. I was reading all the newspapers and watching the news and yes, it affected me and my family.”
The Missouri Historical Society has taken six of her prints into their collection. “They will have an exhibition in the future, probably scheduled out a few years,” she says. “The curator felt the words, and the poems, would be good jumping off points for discussions about this time,” she says.
The Dictionary Poem Project
Artist • Jane Birdsall-Lander
Age • 75
Family • Birdsall-Lander and her husband, Rob Lander, have been married for 52 years. They have two adult children, Noah and Samantha Lander.
Home • St. Louis
Where to buy • Dictionary Poem Project posters and cards from Editions 1 and 2 are available at dictionarypoemproject.com. Watch the website for the release of a new edition, created during the pandemic, in the near future.
How much • Dictionary Poem Project unframed 17-inch-by-22-inch prints giclee prints are printed with light-fast ink on 100% cotton mould-made paper. They are priced at $250 each. Birdsall-Lander also offers cards. Two sets of six different images from Editions 1 and 2 are available for purchase. The 5-inch-by-7-inch blank cards with envelopes are $25 per 6-card set.
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