by Jennifer Blesso and Christina Wiseman
Editor’s Note: This pair of work is part of Follow Your Art Community Studios’ 5th annual Art of Words exhibit. For the exhibit, artist Jennifer shared her mixed media work, titled “Soup for 8,” with writer Christina, who created a written piece in response. The exhibit, which features the work of 28 FYA artists and writers, is on view through October 2025.
Soup for 8
by Jennifer Blesso
by Christina Wiseman
(Prompt)
(Response)
We come inside from the cold, ladle hot soup into bowls, cradle them in our thawing pink hands.
Outside the crescent moon hangs uncertain in the night sky, waiting for us to come back and play. It searches the hardened snowbanks for our footprints, vessels of their own holding the light.
The warmth of our home is a celebration; the air feels thick with color. We sit around the table, four siblings and four mirror images, reflected in the glass of the window darkened by the night just beyond it. We eat in the company of these other versions of ourselves: the selves we present to the outside world, refracted and a little muted. Versions that aren’t so weird, so us. Versions we’ll have to work harder not to embody as the crush of adulthood infiltrates like the dark outside the window.
But here, together? We’re safely in the womb of our childhood. We take deep, nourishing drinks from our bowls in an act of affirmation.
We stack the empty bowls in the middle of the table, see them, too, reflected in the window. We balance them with friction and luck, pretending we don’t know what’s at stake.
We lie on the rug, nestled together like small, smooth moons.
There are so many moon phases yet to come.
Jennifer Blesso is a mixed media artist. She has considered herself an artist since her first group show at the age of 4. For nearly 10 years, she taught art to toddlers through adults with an emphasis on the enjoyment of the process. During the lockdown, she began making art with whatever materials she had in the house and took advantage of the world of online classes. She has continued her art making working primarily in acrylics, layering, and working up colors with a variety of mark-making tools and collage material. Using symbols, such as ladders, soup bowls, or wings, Jennifer explores personal themes such as escape, female empowerment, and the absurd. She exhibits her work locally. Her influences are kitsch, early abstract expressionism, street art, and the alphabet. Jennifer resides in Melrose, MA with her family and her poodle. She is the curator and owner of the Free for All Little Art Gallery where anyone can share art, take art, or see art.
Christina Wiseman works for an environmental nonprofit in Massachusetts but has always considered herself a writer first. She’s had flash fiction pieces published in Crack the Spine, Sky Island Journal, and Mindless Mag, and has taken several courses through Boston’s GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing. She lives in Melrose and enjoys running, reading about sustainability and interior design, and exploring her beautiful home state with her husband and daughter. Read Christina’s work at www.christinawiseman.com.