STOP, LOOK AND THINK #1

Dear Reader,

When entering an art gallery or museum, I decide where to spend my time after making a promise to myself. I will stop and look at an artwork that pulls me toward it and not read the wall label first. It will either list its title, the year it was made, the medium, the artist’s name and year of birth or go on to include a dissertation-like explanation. Any information could influence my initial response - I want to feel what I feel. Elation. Repulsion. Joy. Curiosity. Surprise. Emotional connection is the fuel in my tank as I stop, look and think.

I created a classroom exercise around the painting that taught me how to look at art differently (Judy’s Journal 2017 October, “GASP!”). I invite you to go back to the Judy’s Journal menu and read it.

For the next few blogs, I will extend the GASP experience by showing you one of my paintings, then ask you to STOP, LOOK AND THINK before you scroll down to the next two sections. Remember that there are no right or wrong responses, so it’s a win-win experience!

1. Here’s the painting. Remember, look at it for a few minutes without scrolling down to read about it. Take a few deep breaths and pay attention to your gut feelings. Positive? Negative? A confused mix of emotions? Nothing at all?

2. Here are a couple of facts about the painting. It’s called “Nearly”, 24” by 24”, acrylic and oil stick on canvas. I made it in 2001. Does that information affect your thinking? The title allows you to edge into my world. The title has specific meaning for me, not you, because there’s a story behind it which you don’t know. Yet. That’s okay. Before you scroll down to step 3, check in with your first response and compare your feelings.

3. “Nearly” has a story and a poem behind it. The poem came first, but when I was making the painting, I recognized that it was a reciprocal response to the event which inspired the poem. It describes an experience from my graduate school days, when I spent long, silent hours isolated at my desk and computer. The poem came soon after the incident, but weeks later when I was painting this piece, I began feeling edgy and unsafe. I knew it was my house on the day a stranger knocked on my back door. After you read the poem, recall your first response to the painting before you had any information about it. Compare those feelings.


JUXTAPOSITION

Maybe it was the hollowness in his eyes
or the shabbiness of his jacket.
He came to the back door

of my too quiet house and knocked.
I surprised him by coming quickly
from my desk, glad to be unhooked

from work. Are you the lady
who wanted some tiling done?
I said no.

He turned and walked off
the porch, the handle of a hammer
poking from his jacket pocket.

The child in the passenger seat of his pickup
stretched to look out. Her eyes flickered
over me: a stranger in a window frame.

I watched the afternoon sun visit
the hubcap of his pickup and spill a pattern
on the asphalt, as his wheels spun backward.

This poem appeared in Reciprocity: An Artist’s Book and was reprinted in A Brush with Words: Poems by Judith Ferrara.