The good thing about having studio space away from home is that I get to spend a lot of time painting with minimal distraction (meaning time on the internet!), which is lovely…the bad thing about having minimal internet time is - my blog is sorely neglected. This morning I am up early to get a jump on preparing a proper Sunday dinner for my two youngest children and their friends who are in town for the weekend. While I'm waiting for the boiled eggs to cool enough so that I can peel them, I thought I'd chronicle the evolution of my most recent painting, Anastasia.
Anastasia by Stacy Wills, 2015
(20" x 24" acrylic on canvas)
My other passion is poetry…sometimes the writing of it…but always the reading. I delight in pairing word and image…always in search of the right wine to accompany the meal…for this painting, a fine Pablo Neruda.
Poetry
And it was at that age…poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets
palpitating plantations,
the darkness perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
-Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)
