Paris Blue, Rose Red, Napels Yellow - colors that stir something in me with just their names. Three blues are first to be laid out. Then four reds, yellows, purples, violets, and greens follow, filling up my palette. Dipping a brush in turpentine and loading it with color, a poem begins to form on the white canvas.
Unwritten, I begin with thoughts from my heart and my head. I will it to reveal itself to me. A landscape, a nude, a window... A lone figure is taking shape from running colors. Red, flowing into the green as violet merges with other fading reds. The figure of a woman in a print skirt? I push it aside with a stroke of my brush and a strange flower appears.
The poem is now my garden. Fading from my thoughts, the figure waits for me as I let more flowers come forward. For now, chaos is everywhere, design and composition are set aside. Later, more confident in where I am headed and how I will get there, I set this canvas aside and, on a small panel, I introduce myself again to the lady in the print skirt. For the next month I grow my garden poem, while introducing myself to young ladies that pass by.
