Malleable Forms

For 30 years Meeka Walsh has been the Editor of the Canadian art magazine, Border Crossings. A selection of her much-admired essays published in each issue of that magazine have been selected for this substantial book.

Malleable Forms is a book of 47 essays, rich and broad in ideas and subjects as far-ranging as art, architecture, literature, family, place, dogs, spirituality, birds, rabbits, and whimsy. But it isn’t just about the subjects presented in the essays but the way in which Walsh has made connections inside the essays.

“Kim Gordon: Star Turns” examines the memoir of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon takes the reader on a trip that includes surprising links between Gordon and Ab Ex painter Robert Motherwell. “Rilke: Speaking Longing” measures the poetic sensibilities of Rainer Maria Rilke, Cynthia Ozick, and Vladimir Nabokov. “Say Bird: A Consideration of Interspecies Romance” describes the romantic tale of a courtship between a woman and a blue jay.

Noted international critic and art writer, Barry Schwabsky, has written an introductory essay. The persistent engagement of memory winds through the book and resonant is EM Forster’s dictum, “Only connect.” Walsh makes her particular kind of connections throughout.