A poet must work on the material which makes most demands on him, or he will arrive at a false position. One is always learning, and it probably takes a lifetime to know what one is born to write, but at least its characteristics recur, and one recognizes what belongs to one’s own ground. — Vernon Watkins (1906-1967)
I remember painting this picture of clover in a cheap factory-made blue and white bowl. It’s oil on canvas glued to a masonite panel. I had gathered some clover flowers and set them on some concrete steps maybe twenty years ago …? The light cast strong shadows that changed quickly and I painted this sketchy image very rapidly. It has hung around in my thoughts over the years as a particular (peculiar) favorite and I don’t know why.
It’s not an obviously pretty image. In fact, it’s the kind of picture that seems to require an explanation. It is not finished, and yet I can think of absolutely nothing I would do to change it. The white streak on the left, otherwise incomprehensible, is a patch of light that reflected off the back of the step above where the flowers were sitting.
If any picture I painted were a self-portrait, I think it is this one. If anyone wished to understand me, well here I am.
You probably never would have guessed, but even I cannot paint night and day. No! It’s true. (Well, I can understand you’re incredulous.)
Anyway, sometimes I must resort to raiding my storage boxes for old works so that I can keep writing a painting blog. Thank goodness, I squirreled away lots of pictures for a rainy day. Well, not that it’s raining. Actually we’re having perfect pre-autumn weather in the Washington, DC, region. I digress.
As I was saying, this is an old painting. Don’t know when I painted it. It’s that old. (Not me, it.) I set some green stuff into a jar, set the jar on a yellow pot holder and the pot holder was already setting on a pink cloth. I started painting. Painted this.
Afterwards it seemed to me like a metaphor for creating a whole little world in a jar. Water, held in glass, green things growing, light and air, and more light. My little jar of the microcosmos. And here’s a virtue of painting. The thought is still there.
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