Monday Morning Musings:
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
–Leonardo da Vinci
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”
–Vincent Van Gogh
My sisters and I call each other
“No one’s dead,” we quickly chirp,
a macabre affirmation of life,
a precaution for my perpetually panicked sister-niece,
(she answers the phone expecting disaster)
we laugh—because what can you do?
but then comes news of two deaths over the weekend,
my husband’s former colleague and a college friend,
we’re of a certain age now,
most of our friends have lost at least one parent,
some both,
middle-aged orphans,
I think about links to the past,
disappearing the way beads slide off string one by one
and I watch a miniseries about the Gay Rights Movement
see again the AIDS quilt,
memories squared and love-knotted,
blanketing the National Mall,
a memorial, a declaration
we protest with poetry and art,
against wars, against injustice,
fighting for the right to live
and to die in dignity,
(love is love is love is love)
in the epic story of our lives,
we are the heroes,
and its tragic victims
We dream and we create,
our lives, like intricately folded origami
unfolded in a split second,
a discovery that the crane
is now simply a wrinkled bit of paper
We take my mother to our daughter’s house for brunch,
my mother, once a child, now the matriarch,
a ninety-four-year-old orphan
her parents, her brother, and many of her friends are gone,
she can barely see, but still she paints
the vision must be in her mind and hands
felt, rather than seen,
poetry in paint,
tactile sensibility,
she has her first mimosa
and we talk of this and that
old hairstyles, Dallas nightclubs,
stories my daughter has never heard before
of a world and people that no longer exist,
I imagine a mirror with endless reflections
and the world through the looking glass
We’re through the looking glass in a mirrored room, transported to an 18th century French palace. Philadelphia Museum of Art
we laugh over misunderstood words
the kind of laughter that brings tears,
and we are entertained by pets,
sitting in the kitchen,
a domestic scene,
that could come from the past,
generations sitting around a table
My husband and I go to an exhibition of watercolors
an amazing show, 175 paintings on display,
the show traces the history–
how watercolor became an American medium
from what was essentially work done in the home,
by women, decorative artists, as well as illustrators
becomes much more after the Civil War
and Philadelphia,
with publications and art schools
becomes a center
The exhibition describes the painters’ techniques
the importance of the paper in the watercolors,
various textures and colors
watercolors are luminous, but fragile
reflecting light,
but also, fading in light,
the picture dies
the image no longer exists,
and I think of the building, landscapes, and people in the paintings
that no longer exist
except in these depictions
where the sun still shines and wind still blows
and alligators huddle together in the mud,
lethargic beasts with deadly grins
at night, I dream of light and art,
I paint my dream into a poem,
a dream of misty luminosity with opaque spots
brushed by the artist
(look there closely at the strokes)
on an unusual type of paper, with texture both rough and smooth
folded over and over,
to form different creases,
like wrinkles on faces in time
endless, like reflections in a mirror
Information:
We watched the miniseries, When We Rise
We saw the exhibition, “American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent”
You can see a trailer on the Philadelphia Museum of Art Website.
It is a stunning exhibition, but because watercolors are fragile, it will only be seen in Philadelphia. No photography is permitted.
