Yellow Pottery from Provence It isn’t the earthenware jug the shade of overcooked ochre outlined in purple Nor is it the bold colors—background columns of hunter green, cerulean blue, alizarin shading to rust, burnt sienna, black, and baby blush pink—none fitting colour harmony but acquiring their own It’s the empty spaces devoid of paint where our eyes briefly rest and then get drawn in The unfinished parts of the painting hold us in thrall Blue Nude Could she be Matisse’s response to Picasso and his blue period, his attempt to resurrect the female, maybe in protest of Picasso’s cubes, but still failing to set her free She overpowers the canvas, bruised blue highlighting her curves, outlining her form, the painter appearing to preempt her loss, the pale pink flesh an afterthought Caught in this pose, the nude resembles a statue, not a live woman but a relic, her raised left arm a stranger to the rest of her And the expression on her face as she stares somewhere outside the picture plane is not Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile The self she has taken for granted is not her self at all but some angular arrangement more male than female in competition with the background’s hotter colors that call attention to the cooler shades of her skin and her large feet almost extending off the edge of the frame The Pewter Jug The pewter jug isn’t the focus of this still life Swirls of grey tinged with ochre spin the viewer’s eye upward and into the soft pastel wine-shaded fabric that threatens to take over the scene The staid circular serving dish holds a glass of water and two pieces of fruit whose colour the jug steals to embellish its exterior Gaping black creases in the enveloping fabric are echoed by the black strip on the painting’s left an abyss none of these objects seems aware of Bouquet of Dahlias and White Book I stumble on the words ‘still life’ that describe this painting. Nothing about it is still. The dahlias anchoring the painting swoon in the vase too small to hold their abundant blossoms. Pink blooms and green leaves swirl on the background wall and the chair behind the table teeters as if caught in motion. The pewter plate with two pieces of fruit and a half-full glass float atop the surface, next to the white book also in flight. On the right, perching on the table’s edge leans one quarter of a blue and white vase attempting to stay within the frame. Lily Iona MacKenzie Lily Iona MacKenzie: "A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long-distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities). I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 165 American and Canadian venues. My novel Fling! was published in July 2015 by Pen-L Publishing. Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was released in 2017. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. No More Kings, a poetry chapbook, came out on March 26, 2020. Currently, I’m teaching creative writing at USF’s Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning. I also blog about reading and writing at https://lilyionamackenzie.com."
1 Comment
8/17/2020 08:44:00 pm
Your poetry adds to the paintings--a twinning of artistry.
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October 2024
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