An intimacy I did not realize, accumulated over hours and days as I felt around for the missing piece–sometimes cursing, sometimes crying, sometimes in quiet joy–listening for the right color or word. Will this wax fuse to this oil? Will this image bond with this substrate? Will I use acrylic and sacrifice the luminosity of wax or use wax and sacrifice the dexterity of acrylic? Each piece took days, weeks–most of them–months, to come together. I have not, do not count the hours spent. They take the time they require. And through this process an intimacy developed, unbeknownst me.
Now, as I am hanging them in LeBonnton, Northampton, I am taken by surprise when a stranger peeks over my shoulder and says, ‘I love that’. A flurry of emotions, a jumbled cacophony of small voices: What do you like? What do you see? How can you love this one I’ve slept with, impressed with my thoughts, soldered in the heats of my mood, bent to the odd cadence of my being, for all these weeks and months? What have I revealed?
I smile and thank him.
Such a strange thing. These creatures birthed within the cave of myself, cauldrons of all that has touched me, children of my encounters. There they sit, in this new place, gathered about by foreign things. They have left my nest and I listen, Do they sing? Will they fly?