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Late to The Party Source material from Gabrielle Carlo, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Zoom Interview. 27 March 2026. view of Marisol’s New York studio, Buffalo AKG Art Museum https://buffaloakg.org/art/collection/major-gifts-collection/marisol-bequest The Party by Marisol (USA, b. Venezuela) 1965-1966 https://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/61754/the-party “Has anyone proposed marriage?” they asked you. You married yourself, had a Baby Boy and a Baby Girl, a Family with a sweet dog. The answers are in your art. They say we have only one lifetime here. You lived hundreds before the Archivist held a small box from the depths of your tiny closet, tipped its lid only to find your ashes, still at home. No wonder her reflection looked like yours in the mirror at mid- night. The countless random feet and hands scattered around your loft. I’m imagining some lost. Who am I? Others balled up like my mother, trying to bottle it in. A couple cracked & ashy. A few high-five alive. That’s not counting your million faces or the number of lines tracing your body round and round—just another journey around…. You are still here, Marisol. The Party is touring. They hung a “No Kissing” sign next “Kiss.” All the Artists wrinkle with spirit. Georgia O’Keefe’s dogs growl. I see your self-portrait ring near yet another of your hands and a shoe-foot. My shoulders are thinking about sky. Your hand on my back, a sunset in St. Maarten. May we make this silence between us a marathon. I am all two million ears. ** Kiss after Marisol, with source material from her works on paper and countless interviews Kiss, by Marisol (USA, b. Venezuela) 1966 https://buffaloakg.org/artworks/202134-kiss When I open my eyes, there is only electricity / hold it like this. Warmth of cinnamon, scent of smoked cherry / open your mouth. I want more of that. The gentle tease of tongue, coming out and going back. Graze the edge of his waist- band, dip fingers to brush the opening of your / He shutters an exhale into me. “ “ “ breasts / more of that, an experiment. From my shoulder down my back, be patient, making this collage / to have somebody. His hands songbirds. And then the crayons. cover cover everything / + black tears A sweet smile crosses my lips. Don’t talk it away. ** Baby Girl after Marisol Baby Girl, by Marisol (USA, b. Venezuela) 1963 https://buffaloakg.org/artworks/k19648-baby-girl Crayon scribble ruins what could have been a frameable gift for my father. Always longing for the perfect Baby Girl: white dress, white bow, quiet, still as a statue, enough for adults. My father nods with the crowd, admires craftsmanship, a life-sized doll (pat, pat, pat, “no touching, sir”), then he boards a plane as if he is a Swiss banker about to—. His expectation the exact same, in place every night. I am the statue reviews claim as “hysterical,” “Pop,” “cartoonish”. King Kong Baby Girl, a monster, with an action figure on my knee, meanings he never saw (but you did). It takes all- hands-on deck, pulleys, and levers to assemble and disassemble me. I am a baby girl, like every woman who came before me. Once this, now that. Hear how we Magic-Wanded metaphors, redefined “gender and social politics,” not to be undermined by our makers who makes me cringe wish instead I was tracking lines across a funny page, an unseen Family Circus kid. Wouldn’t it be fun to retrace our steps, dear reader? Let your finger follow my invisible body, my little footsteps, my pages full of failure- filled scribbles, sketches, words I misspell/mispronounce, my dashes crisscrossing, stopping here for ice cream and there to pat a dog? Could you please tell my father his baby girl is long gone? ** Face and Hand with Coco-Cola Bottle after Marisol Face and Hand with Coco-Cola Bottle, by Marisol USA, b. Venezuela) 1974 https://buffaloakg.org/artworks/202235-face-and-hand-coca-cola-bottle Love is a pop in the mouth Snow on the radio (how do Fuzz face rearranged My hands made this These are my hands making this Your hands are plastered in museums Lovely to meet you (how do Pop is a way of liking things ** Ruth after Marisol, for Ruth Kligman Ruth, by Marisol (USA, b. Venezuela) 1961 https://wirthsculpture.wordpress.com/2018/09/16/ruth/ Your breasts are landscape sky, cloud-like pucker-pepper bottoms. Not a still life, but a good time girl. Back in the day, when people lost their clothes or death-dropped down the Niagara Falls, they wore a barrel. How fitting now my thoughts circular, looping the curve of your body, once thrown from Jackson Pollock’s fast car. Your hands cupping, Come here. Pucker up. This is the sky, desire’s wood hair. Amanda McGuire Amanda McGuire was awarded a 2026 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her ekphrastic poems. Her work appears in Hotel Amerika, Kestrel, NOON: journal of the short poem, This Quarantine Life: A COVID-19 Era Comics Anthology, the Toledo Museum of Art, and other literary spaces.
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