“Every act of feeding, digging, and pruning will reveal a new truth.”
Cortney Cassidy is an artist using text, image, and horticulture to write poetry.
“I knew that something was wrong with the way I used my body.” from Growing Beyond the Computer Are.na x Dark Properties, 2024 A Pious Work of Salvage is an ongoing project to build a singular portrait using found fragments. first presented in a Virginia Commonwealth University grad seminar guest lecture, 2024 “A maker of images that abandons true nature for false beauty is unable to make anyone see.” from Authentic Type Specimens AUTHENTIC, 2024 “The future of accessing visual media is not only about who or what makes the images, it’s also about how we describe them.” from Ambient Music Plays Google, 2024 “There doesn’t seem to be any way to represent smell other than to describe what kind of attention it attracts.” from Cherry Chapstick Are.na, 2024 “I can’t think of a more comfortable, self-reliant life for myself than that of a woman who holds onto her autonomy” from Notable Spinsters included in Korte Metten at Kieken Centrale, Antwerp, Belgium 2024 and an earlier version was published as I Just Need Space in The Smudge, July 2019 “The useless is useful even after it’s gone.” from All the flowers in May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude Third edition in the Everything I know about...so far series published by The Institute for the Study of the Urtext’s Urditions imprint, 2024 “It seems possible that [feelings] are essential tools in both the construction of our world and our understanding of it.” from Poetry’s So Common Hardly Anyone Can Find It Are.na Annual 2022, and the final graduating thesis for the completion of my DIY MFA “Pretending I am “normal” while my internal reality slowly bleeds through to the external reality of a very long work meeting.” from The Circus Tent is a Good Metaphor for the Whole Show Going on Inside Mixed-media essay published in the anthology, Our Red Book, Simon & Schuster, 2022 “This system defines who gets to be an artist and when.” from Can I Be An Artist Here American Institute of Graphic Arts, 2021 “The gain is my revolutionized vocabulary of art in a softer space.” from A Soft Manifesto The Creative Independent, 2020 “[Colors] will always in some way share their brilliance.” from Everyday Color Theory Google, 2020 “With self-awareness, we’re in a much better place to understand where we can be most effective.” from Finding Ethical Design Google, 2020
Inquiries
As a writer and researcher, I use sustained inquiry and critical analysis to transform complex ideas into clear, structured forms. My background is in visual and systems design, where I contributed to the modern dark mode standards, dynamic theming systems, an ethics framework, and editorial direction for Google Design. I later worked as a horticulturist for the High Line, and am currently on sabbatical, conducting independent research with the support of the Vartan Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities.
For professional inquiries related to writing and research, please reach out at cortneyvcassidy@gmail.com.
Correspondence
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Reading Log
See also: A Pious Work of Salvage
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Nourishment
Alternate the seasonal veggies and proteins and adjust quantities based on your nutritional needs and meal sharing responsibilities.
Shopping list
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© Copyleft 2026 Cortney Cassidy