‘Poets are not to blame for how things are’
Telemachus to his mama, Penelope, in The Odyssey
The Poet's Chair, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30inches
Another morning in the kitchen. Writing about this piece will be a bit of free verse.
Slanting glow flowing through limbos and strainers -
Edges and contours,
The architecture of home,
Coffee cups piled on a metal chair
A table leg that rhymes with the posts on my front porch.
The geometry of shadows
Of linoleum
Floor trim, air vent, and window sill
Woven into a corner by the morning
A thin curtain made blue by the light outside
This one continued a process of starting with the observed and veering into the improvised; I'm trying to loosen up. It may seem strange but I feel that much of my work has been like doing music in a studio, and these pieces (I think/feel/hope) are trying to be 'performed' live. I've included a brief video showing moments towards the end of the painting.
When painting The Poet’s Chair, I was thinking about Homer and Edward Hopper, the latter being the one who made me ‘see’ what was going on. I’ve had a long time admiration for Andrew Wyeth and how he wanted to be a disembodied eye peering into corners and through windows at the slanted-light worlds he inhabited in Maine and Pennsylvania. My world may be more soaked in light.