STOP, LOOK AND THINK #7

Dear Reader,

This is the seventh blog in a series written to offer another way to experience art. I hope that you can give yourself several minutes to do this activity. One of my paintings is below, followed by a set of instructions.

STOP, LOOK AND THINK before you scroll down to each section. There are no right or wrong responses.
1. Here is the painting. STOP and LOOK at it for a few minutes. Stay with the image. Take a few deep breaths and pay attention to your feelings and thoughts. Positive? Negative? A confused mix of emotions? Nothing at all? What’s going on in your gut? Is there anything in the painting that you can recognize or relate to?

2. Here are a few facts about my painting: Title: “Energy.” It is acrylic on canvas, 30” by 24” and was created in 2001. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Now that you have some added information, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only). Is there anything about the title and painting that clicks?

3. Here is the story. Music choices play a role in my art making. Inspired by George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, I did not hold back mixing colors and creating fantastic shapes. Days later, during an extended June heat wave, I began the poem. My early drafts explored the memory of seeing director Vincent Minnelli’s film at a neighborhood theater when I was eight years old. I walked home, stunned by the beauty of the final ballet segment. Poems go where they go. Memory and imagination collided with self-knowledge: I have been a worrier since childhood. The poem was a burst of energy to free myself from a constant burden. (How I wish it would have worked.) There is a reference to the legend of the Catherine wheel. St. Catherine, who lived in the 4th century, was ordered by the pagan Roman emperor Maximinus to defend the Christian faith in a public debate. She won, unfortunately, and he ordered that she be tied onto a chaff-cutter wheel. As it began turning, her bonds miraculously broke. She was subsequently beheaded. The Catholic Church named her patron saint of wheelwrights. St. Catherine’s plight became as popular a subject for artists as St. Sebastian’s.

JOURNAL ENTRY

This house will burst with the heat of worry.

Two words sit in the back of my throat: Want joy.
No subject, so it stays in the trap.

Birds of pure red, blue and yellow
catch themselves in flight. Makes me think

of the ballet from An American in Paris. Minnelli
took a chance we would sit through all that

dancing. Try finding the fountain now. To wash off
this heat of worry. I will open the door

make myself into a ball, roll down
the hill to the river. I have been a Catherine wheel

of imagination long enough. If I hurt my shoulder
I will keep going. Get to the river. Uncoil. Bark. Dive in.