Early Pattern Drawing

Carole Itter's use of text, drawing and word play emphasizes language and form as building blocks for the creation of meaning. Her explorations include early ink studies that connect patterns and the alphabet, her engagement with visual poetry and her prose writing practice that has resulted in numerous publications. Itter’s poetry and alphabet drawings convey ideas of inheritance and motherhood, blurring boundaries between visual art and poetry. Like poet Judith Copithorne, a colleague of Itter’s in Vancouver, Itter turned away from the more mechanical or male-dominated forms of writing – especially in concrete poetry – to use handwriting (and the hand-hewn) as a counter-strategy.