Adventuresome Explorations for the Spirit

In her new collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, poet and educator Janée J. Baugher contemplates 63 paintings from the oeuvre of American realist painter Andrew Wyeth, spanning the decades from 1938 to the painter’s final work in 2008. In the poems, Baugher inhabits the perspective of the painter himself, creating an “autobiography” of how she imagines Wyeth’s creative life to have been. 

Baugher is a longtime educator, and it was in that capacity that I met her when I was 14 and a camper studying creative writing at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. I still remember the holy whisper that my fellow campers and I employed whenever we spoke her name and the sense of reverent wonder inspired by her knee-high leather boots. Janée seemed to inhabit the role of teacher without any estrangement from her identity as an artist. 

Years later, when we reconnected for “Letters to a Young Teacher,” an article for Teachers & Writers Magazine that asked veteran writing instructors to share their wisdom with new educators, Janée opened her response with a question: “Are you a teacher who writes or a writer who teaches?” Her teaching philosophy seems to bridge that gap, taking an approach to instruction that privileges the discovery of creative process, encouragement of the unconscious mind, and play—all techniques that Janée employs in her own work and that are hallmarks of what I recall from being her student 15 years ago.

In an interview conducted via email in the spring of 2026, Janée and I discussed her writing process, her approach to education across age groups, and how to practice and teach ekphrasis, the technique she exercises to contemplate Wyeth’s work in her new collection.  

Sage Behr [SB]: When did you first encounter Andrew Wyeth? What was it about his work initially that you found so compelling? 

Janée J. Baugher [JJB]: The summer of 2006 I flew to Philadelphia to meet with a fellow Interlochen Center for the Arts Camp instructor. Before we started the road trip to Michigan to teach for the summer session, he treated me to a Philadelphia Art Museum visit for the exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic. I was awestruck! The cliché is “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” but what I saw I thoroughly believed with the entirety of my body. The experience of having an ineffable and swooning feeling before a canvas is called “the Stendhal effect.” As a creative, constantly open to inspiration for my writing, here was the flint and spark and hope. Twenty years later, that single Wyeth exhibition visit would culminate in a book-length collection of persona poems. Literary artists are nothing if not patient. Furthermore, writer Julia Alvarez said something that resonated for me: “Every novel is emotionally autobiographical.” What I saw in Wyeth’s work—what still reverberates for me today—was tenderness and vulnerability. Though the poems in The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles are fictional, for me they’re indeed emotionally true.

The experience of having an ineffable and swooning feeling before a canvas is called “the Stendhal effect.” As a creative, constantly open to inspiration for my writing, here was the flint and spark and hope.

SB: My first encounter with Wyeth’s work was his 1948 painting Christina’s World, which you include in the first section of your collection. I remember finding that painting strangely arresting, wistful, almost eerie. Later I learned that it depicts Anna Christina Olson, a neighbor of Wyeth’s, who had a degenerative muscular disorder and moved by crawling. I wondered how that context might have transformed my initial felt sense of the painting. How does context and research shape your own process?

JJB: What you describe is the brilliance of Andrew Wyeth’s artistry. Intellectually (through research and gleaning context), you didn’t need to know the anatomical constraints of A. Christina Olson, for you had already felt it in your body; you had already intuited it. Wyeth is quoted as saying, “I’m not very artistic,” but self-deprecation aside, his imagination—which we can experience if we’re open enough to embark on the art of deep looking that his work begs—is evident when we approach his canvases with our imaginations. 

Early in my career I was a researcher and scientist, and I bring those skills to every page that I write. Standing before a canvas, I keep those skills at bay and instead wait to see if my imagination stirs. It’s that blossoming that I feel on a physical level that compels me to the page. Only after my unconscious mind has had its say—some call it the Muse—then I allow for the possibility of secondary research. Being a practiced literary writer means trusting your writerly instincts. When I engage in research, I keep my intellectual side in check; I only go as far as I need until I get the spark that thrusts me back into the realm of opportunities, suppositions, creativity. 

Case in point: I became enamored with a Wyeth painting called From My Window. Although I spent hours deep looking and hours writing and revising, I hadn’t found the beating heart of the poem; I hadn’t found the emotional tenor. What was at stake for the poem’s speaker (i.e. Andrew Wyeth) was missing. That’s when I turned to research. I knew that the date associated with the painting was 1974. I thought of Wyeth’s father—the famous illustrator, N. C. Wyeth—and how Wyeth’s mother didn’t get much press. I read that she passed away in 1973, and that’s when I had the a-ha moment. All of the sudden it was clear to me: From My Window became a moment in time where Wyeth could ruminate on his grief, thinking of his beloved mother as he gazed out the window at a snow-covered building in the distance. 

SB: These poems engage with paintings dating from 1938 to Wyeth’s final 2008 tempera, Goodbye, My Love, adopting, in numbered lines, the painter’s perspective. How did you approach representing such a long passage of time within the collection and sustaining the artist’s perspective across it?

JJB: When I found myself drawn to a certain Wyeth image, I’d open my notebook to a blank page and begin writing; my process is to write in a fever pitch in order to see what can happen. In a creative state, any conscious intention is lightyears away, as is a sense of time. I just flitted from image to image, landing on whatever delighted my gaze, and then I’d embark on a free write between 500 and 1,000 words. 

It wasn’t until years later that I started to see the heap of poems as a collected work with a narrative arc that reflected the conditions in which it was created—what Wallace Stevens called “the cry of its occasion,” with a singular point-of-view and a sensible chronology. In other words, a project that presented “a long passage of time” wasn’t the goal. Rather, it came about organically. Once I started to organize the poems based on the paintings’ dates, from earliest to latest, only then did my eyes open to the extended-narrative possibilities of the project.

Ekphrasis should particularize writing that not only describes the visual but also that centers visual art as its subject.

SB: How do you define the term “ekphrasis”? 

JJB: The definition of “ekphrasis,” which holds importance to rhetoricians and creative writers alike, is something I tackled in my craft book, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction. In the Oxford Classical Dictionary, ekphrasis is defined as an “extended and detailed literary description of any object, real or imagined.” In James A. W. Heffernan’s 1993 book, Museum of Words, he defines ekphrasis as “the verbal representation of visual representation.” He also suggests that ekphrasis should particularize writing that not only describes the visual but also that centers visual art as its subject. While other writers may use the term more loosely, my ekphrastic enterprise aligns with Heffernan’s philosophy.

For the Greeks, ékphrasis, meaning “to describe,” was a term of rhetoric (the art of persuasion). In ancient Greece, the standard textbook was Aphthonius’ Progymnasmata of the fourth century AD, which guided schoolchildren through description exercises. From simplest to most complex, here are the 14 modes of compositional rhetoric: fable, narration, anecdote, maxim, refutation, confirmation, common topic, encomium, invective, comparison, characterization, description (ekphrasis), argument, and proposal of law. 

In today’s classrooms, most teachers don’t emphasize to students how difficult the art of description actually is. Practiced regularly, though, it can be learned, and its applications can be taught. Beyond descriptive creative writing, in life there are instances where we need to describe in vivid and comprehensive detail in order to be victorious in a verbal appeal. For example, imagine having to detail why you aren’t at fault in a car crash, or imagine having to advocate for the rights of someone who’s in a vegetative state where the family and the hospital personnel are in conflict. Whether you call it “ekphrasis” or “description,” it’s one of the most important aspects of persuasion.

SB: For creative writing teachers interested in integrating ekphrastic practices across age levels, what practical starting points would you suggest?

JJB: I’d start with the creative process. Most students think of writing as a product. It’s incumbent upon teachers to help students find the process that allows them to access their unconscious minds. 

I begin every creative writing class with Dr. Peter Elbow’s short essay, Freewriting. In the essay, Elbow demystifies how writers tackle their first drafts. Additionally, learning the art of improvisation is useful. When speaking and writing with the “yes, and” approach, we can construct scenes and lines that we never could have imagined. Poet Paul Valéry said it best: “There is in you what is beyond you.” There are numerous videos on the internet highlighting the free-style craft of spoken-word artists and rappers. Quickly word-associating is a tough skill to learn, but it’s necessary for anyone who’s studying creative writing. 

The visual arts can be a portal to students’ imaginations, resulting in writing that illustrates their voice and their power.

Regarding engaging with the visual arts, what’s most imperative is that students should have the freedom to select art images that they’re drawn to. For a class of 20 people, for instance, I’ll display over one hundred images from students to select from. From there, students can begin to describe what they see, or they can imagine the goings-on inside the frame, or they can write about what the image reminds them of. As the ekphrastic expert, I know that the visual arts can be a portal to students’ imaginations, resulting in writing that illustrates their voice and their power.

SB: In an age of distraction, how do you encourage students who struggle with focus to practice the sustained attention they need for this responsive art?

JJB: Being acutely observant to the world around you is a skill worth honing. Yet, wonderment in quietude and stillness doesn’t suit everyone’s temperament, and not everyone loves words and visual art. For students whose attention spans are minimal, asking them to passively view art might be setting them up for failure. Instead, I’d suggest introducing them to public art, where the sculptures and installations can offer the students tactile and other bodily feedback.

Some schools still treat their students to “DEAR time,” drop-everything-and-read for 15 minutes. In other words, this interlude was designed for the unadulterated joy of reading, without any stress to regurgitate whatever factoids the teacher deemed important. Similarly, encouraging youngsters and adults alike to partake in technology-free time is prudent, though anything that teachers and parents ask children to do should also be modeled by the adults, whereby children can appreciate the shared value.

As students get older, visual art inquiry unfortunately moves from aesthetic appreciation to intellectual engagement. One way to discourage students from loving visual arts is to force them into black-and-white thinking. Here’s what not to say: Let us analyze this painting. Or Here’s exactly what this watercolor means. Or This sculpture reflects the sculptor’s biography. Or The theme in this series of photographs is. . . . Or The three symbols that exist in this still-life include . . . , etc.

Having “DEAR” time for viewing art as play is one idea. Encourage students to see for themselves their own experiences reflected in the artwork, allow them the freedom to imagine the world in which the maker created the sculpture (for example), and celebrate their kooky responses, their loose associations, their expressions of emotional connection. Art-viewing should be an adventuresome exploration for the spirit.

The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles by Janée J. Baugher is out now with Tupelo Press. 

Featured photo by Cup of Couple.