I heard word back in the last couple of weeks that I will be having a couple of shows in summer 2011. The good people at the Knoxville Arts & Culture Alliance were kind enough to take me back as a member and now they have decided to hang a show highlighting my work and the work of another artist in June 2011. Exciting news! Here’s a link to the most recent arts alliance notification http://artsmagazine.info/calendar.php?view=detail&id=201004182220425467 for the members show that includes one of my paintings called The Lollipop, shown on the front page of the website
The second show will be hung at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville and will begin in July 2011.
As for my recent work, I can only say that there is too much gardening and weeding in spring and early summer for my liking. Still I keep my hand on the brush or pen, depending upon the day. In this post, I’ve included one of the first paintings from the Salt of the Earth series, a local girl with piercing blue eyes, and another poem written recently that I call The Bird Candle.
The Bird Candle
The evening sky settles as a fine blue dust on the surface of the lake.
A small boy holds to the boathouse rail
and looks out where an osprey pair hang
in the void of white light
hunting along the darkening shore.
The boy’s face is slightly pink with a fever.
“Where do the birds go at night?” he asks quietly.
“to their nests, to their beds,”
says the child’s mother
who is pulled away,
yet again,
from the page
where she has been concentrating her words.
“They go to their beds at evening
which is where we must bend ourselves,”
she says again as she reaches toward his dodging hand.
He pulls back and then leans
into her leg and takes her hand.
“I’m not tired,” he says
and turns to watch one of the ospreys
take a fish at dusk.
Silver
out of the lake
bird and fish rise
to flicker for a moment in the top of the tallest pine.
Pouting House Studios 