Week Six
Gilded Summer, Week Six
"Happy Birthday Maryann"
Oil Paint, Layered Glass and Mirror, Gilded Frame
8" x 10"
This painting stems from the edges of fleeting moments, instances that pass quickly but leave a lasting emotional trace. As the weather shifted between extremes, the atmosphere held both distance and closeness, tension and relief.
In holding onto memory that flickers just beyond reach, the layered imagery creates friction between opposing emotional currents. The contrast throughout the piece shapes an unsettling narrative where memory, belonging, and truth remain unstable, revealing how time and circumstance, like the weather, deeply influence perception.
It’s Maryann’s 70th birthday.
The medicine is dying.
Little flies swarmed desperately.
A couple drowned in my tear ducts.
Even grief is small sometimes.
And other times it's huge.
Another family reunion.
The air moves thick with the same old voices.
Everything is sticking to me,
the heat, the sound, the sweat.
Everything but memory.
Memory always slips.
I hear it shatter as delicate as glass.
But water and oil don’t mix.
I had to leave before the storm.
The clouds were dark until they let go,
the next day blessed me with light.
After the clear skies cracked open brightly,
I realized both days will always be with me.
Yet the scenes flicker.
Overlapping moments blur until I try to make sense of them.
I try to hold still,
but maybe they won't ever stay.
Everything is impermanent.
I walked to the end of the path,
and there it was again.
The ache.
Not an ending, just more.
So much more.
It's inevitable,
and always just past reach.