In the absence of verbal or written words, communication prevails but often in ways that must be inferred through subtle behaviors: the direction of a gaze, the absence or presence of a touch, a felt tension, a sigh— even silence itself says something. This exhibit explores non-verbal communication and connection through poetry and calligraphic imagery. The predominant images, however, are not letters but rather the shapes between and inside letterforms—a metaphor for all the things that fill the silence between two people, but still carry a sharp charge.

Visual artist, calligrapher, and poet, Cheryl Dyer, uses a technique called pressure printing (or low-relief collagraph) to imprint scaled-up images of physical negative shapes that “dropped out” of hand-cut, calligraphed text.