Monday, July 19, 2010

Poignant Phrases

Most of my life was spent in very large cities. Bumper-to-bumper traffic, pollution, crime, Big Box stores - you know the scene. I now live in a rather rural part of the country. After 6 years, I still get a thrill on the way to the market. Looking across the valley's farmlands to the ever-changing colors of the Holyoke Range makes me think, Lord, it's really gorgeous here! I guess I'm not so hurried now. If I'm going somewhere that's about 25 miles away, I can pretty much count on it taking the same amount of time every single trip. There's simply no such thing as "traffic"!

Well, the following happens to me, not infrequently, when driving around here. My mind will wander just a bit, and something I see will (for lack of better description) simply put a few words, or a complete phrase, into my head, and I must pull off the road and write it down in my ever-present Art Journal!

I'm thinking this image I'm getting is maybe going to be a poem someday and I must get it onto paper or it'll be lost forever. The thing is - I'm not really a poet, and the poems I do try to force out of these phrases are always rather lame. Just the same, I can't help myself.

Maybe someday, I'll share a few here. maybe...

Friday, July 16, 2010

Poetry of Art

SOLD

We installed a new "Group" show at the Shelburne Arts Co-op Monday, titled "Poetry of Art". These group shows are deliberately given somewhat vague titles so our artists can at once be inspired, yet not be restricted, when creating new pieces to hang in our gallery. For years, when our Publicity Chairperson placed announcements in regional newspapers, our post read something like, "Shelburne Arts Co-op, Group Show - July 13-August...". We decided that certainly wouldn't attract any repeat attendance to the gallery, and thus began brainstorming titles for upcoming shows a year out.

I fell in love with poetry when I was a small child. There weren't many kids my age to play with, so books became an early friend. I returned many times to a brittle volume of poetry passed down from one of my ancestors. When the "Poetry of Art" show was coming up and I began to mull over what I wanted to create, I first thought I'd be inspired by Emily Dickinson (note my blog header and earlier blog posts). However, after reading over hundreds of Emily's poems, nothing spoke to my artist's soul right away. Then I spotted my dear, old Treasury of Favorite Poems c.1891.

Quickly scanning the Contents page, I realized I can still recite first stanzas of many of my favorite poems. It took only a few minutes to find what I needed. And then, two, nearly completely formed works, came right into my head! Here is one, and the other will come later.

"gently, Time" $275. SOLD
(framed 21 1/2" x 25 1/2")