Pools of pigment
little fingers and wandering eyes glide by
as we sit among the ferns
returning to the present
each mark an act of resistance
to the here and now
until we part
January 9, 2020
Garfield Park Conservatory
7/26/18
I love that great camping table setup. So elegant, so efficient!
All the colors are pulled out. The colors are already perfect before we paint with them. Leslie keeps them bright and separate. I muck it all together and try to dig the image back out.
The lily pads are moving, and they go faster than we expect. I can’t remember if they were opening or closing over the course of our session. (I made a painting about them later.)
I forgot almost everything that we talked about, except that we kept switching between narrating our experiences of making and talking Chicago in the 90’s. 7/26/18
We got rained on just after we set up. I didn’t try to make anything good, and I don’t remember what either of us made at all. It’s just a relief to be outside with no distractions. Leslie was tired from travel. The weather was exciting and unpredictable. We were thwarted but that was fine. 5/9/20
I’m looking into the backyard and Leslie is painting cut flowers. My six year old son is painting with us too. We’re staring out the window and spacing out, having kid-centered conversations. I’m trying to simulate the weird colors of the trees. I’m noticing Leslie’s eyebrows. She really has amazing eyebrows. We’re sharing our experiences of being homebound, and our fears. I finally feel like I am getting the hang of watercolors, even though I still can’t leave things be.
July 26, 2018
Humboldt Park
August 13, 2019
Humboldt Park
May 9, 2020
Remote Normal Illinois
I hadn’t painted since I was an undergrad. Unless you count the painting I did alongside my kids when they were toddlers. So it as with a little bit of trepidation that I accompanied Leslie out for our painting date. I had campaigned pretty hard to get her to come down to Urbana—but it was mostly to enjoy her company, no so much the actual painting. We scouted for sites at the big prairie park, but it was boiling hot and too sunny for the prairie. We settled on the cool shade of the Japan House gardens at the UIUC arboretum, and the coolness of my own front garden, under trees. Those fabulous pots of paint, and the astounding magentas and brick reds! The shared conversation and quiet intensity of looking closely—what a lovely thing that was. Bliss.
July 13, 2019
Champaign Urbana Illinios
A dab of color
A gaze of contemplation
A little smile
February 15, 2019
Edgewater Pink Building Chicago
What can be better than spending time with a friend, painting, in nature on a glorious
summer day
September 2, 2019
Humboldt Park
I’m so grateful that Leslie shared this meditative, creative and social practice with me! I’ve since moved to Los Angeles, but I love the idea of carrying on this tradition as a way to nurture imagination, build community – and of course stay connected to my thoughtful friend.
October 21, 2017
Humboldt Park
: dust, dirt, mud, air, heat, sun
February 20, 2020
Tucson Saguaro National Monument Arizona
For four years I watered and cared for a gifted perennial to no avail. I became used to the plant as an unblooming specimen, acclimated to its bright green leaves and stems as the only color expected from the healthy and stubborn plant.
It lived with me and my two roommates, and when I decided to move out and into an apartment on my own in March of 2019, I left the bloomless flower behind, my attachment apparently not warranted without the promised blossom. Within two weeks of my departure from the apartment, twin blooms slowly began to develop, light pink buds darkening into blood red as their stamen pushed out like tongues from slowly parting lips.
I don’t remember what I painted with Leslie last March, but I do remember the curiosity of bustling onlookers within the humid Fern Room, her deft classification of the my stubborn and sudden bloom (amaryllis), and that we sat side-by-side on a bench dedicated to Ann Marie Pianka with the inscription “May Her Love Bloom Eternal.”
April 20, 2019
Garfield Park Conservatory
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
-Wallace Stevens
December 13, 2017
Garfield Park Conservatory
April 16, 2020
Remote Evanston
