Ekphrasis IX 2023 Virtual Exhibition
SET 5. Visual Artist Initiators and their Writer Responders
N. MARALEE GREENE, On a Journey. Response by author ROWEN HAWTHORN: Title.
O. SHANTI BENOIT, Patience. Response by ERIKA LUTZ: In the Pause
P. DEBRA LENNOX, Memories of Days Gone By. Response by poet NOTTY BUMBO Pandora's Dilemma
SET 5. Visual Artist Initiators and their Writer Responders
N. MARALEE GREENE, On a Journey. Response by author ROWEN HAWTHORN: Title.
O. SHANTI BENOIT, Patience. Response by ERIKA LUTZ: In the Pause
P. DEBRA LENNOX, Memories of Days Gone By. Response by poet NOTTY BUMBO Pandora's Dilemma
N. Initiating artist MARALEE GREENE:
On a Journey
On a Journey
Ceramic figure
N. Response by author ROWAN HAWTHORN:
"The Bird"
"The Bird"
|
May lit a candle and sat at the window, watching the yard as the sky darkened. She hoped to see the bear that had been breaking into people’s trash cans. Even just seeing the neighbor’s cats streak by would lift her spirits. It thrilled her to see animals in the yard, making the place seem more alive. Nothing came.
In truth, May was looking for a distraction from her thoughts. May felt entangled by too many mundane things. She could not unwind them. She couldn’t separate them out, prioritize, and address them. There were too many. She wound up in knots every time. She wondered what it was like to feel instinct more than anything else. That’s how it worked with animals, wasn’t it? Animals did not lose themselves in thought-spirals as they hunted for food or evaded predators. They didn’t worry about being “good enough.” Animals survived, had tenacity. It was built into them. There was no entanglement. Just Life. A bird alighted on the porch and seemed to look through the window. It was nearly dark, and this was an unusual bird with blue feathers and an orange beak. May was sure it was late for such a bird to be out, yet here it was, looking at her. She wondered what instinct brought this little bird into her yard. |
“What are you doing out there, little bird?” she asked, knowing it would not answer.
Was the bird lonely the way she was lonely? So many friendly acquaintances but no friends. A love of animals but no pets. She knew she was projecting yet it seemed that yes, the bird was lonely. It tilted its head, then turned and looked at her with one dark eye. The bird opened its beak and sang. Its song even sounded lonely. It made her feel less alone, seeing the bird, watching it watch her. She felt connected to it somehow. The bird sang again. A question. “I can’t sing,” May said. “You’ll never forgive me if I sing back.” She didn’t really believe it understood her, but it was fun to pretend. May and the bird stared at each other for a long time, then the bird flew up into the dark trees. A skunk ambled across the yard. May wondered if the bird felt less alone for having seen her and doubted it. She had not answered the bird’s song. |
O. Initiating artist, SHANTI BENOIT:
Patience
Patience
O. Responding author, ERICKA LUTZ:
"In the Pause"
"In the Pause"
|
Mama-cat rests above her four kits,
five felines in a small closed room amid florals and fabrics, cozy and precise, a strawberry-dotted cloth on a round table. A perfect room: A pot of fervent blooming flowers, a splash of vibrant yellow in Grandma’s knotted rag rug, a window hiding green behind a gossamer curtain. Weary Mama-cat sleeps safe, unreachable, on the emerald pillow, on the deep blue chair. Sleeps in deep respite from the endless suckle, the kneading, pressing, cactus-spine claws, the pink demanding mouths and needle teeth. Mama-cat breathes and melts, curls into a brush stroke of infinity. Now her tabby kit begins his first climb. The brown one raises her head, poised… One infinite second before kitten chaos: climb, pounce, wrestle, claw, crash, chew, shed, fluff-fur-dander… In the pause before the chair’s scaled, rug’s shredded, flower pot’s smashed, table’s upended, the diaphanous curtains have already begun their swirl. |
P. Initiating artist DEBRA LENNOX:
Memories of Days Gone By
Oil painting.
P. Response by poet NOTTY BUMBO:
"Pandora’s Dilemma"
.
|
Epimetheus, as an afterthought,
raised the stopper from the pithos; his wife hereafter assigned the blame. That hope remains at all, inaccessible though it seems, humanity owes to her hand. returning the violated lid to its place, barely in time, holding safe that one, small, thing. Is elpis then always held - as protected, or prisoner? Are the dregs inside that inexplicable decanter poison, or elixir? What virtues gods extend, prideful ignorance casts aside. If she removes her hand, raises the cap, will its essence emerge again, to raise our spirits? Or will it take flight, flee into bona universa, squander hard-earned wisdom, leave us bereft on a dying Earth, refusing the smallest comfort of hope? |
