Gesso

I used to watch my dad apply this stuff to a canvas before painting. I didn't really understand, then, the need to prepare the surface. This chalky white goo stiffened the canvas and gave it a "tooth" as dad would say -- a foundation on which to create.

* * *

More than wants, we all have needs in our own blank canvases that are seldom painted by asking.

Undoubtedly, I have my own but it is important to recognize what they are in those around me. Classic behavioral rhetoric emphasizes that it is imperative to express what we need from others but sometimes the magic of creation is lost by simply its mere expression.


* * *

They whisper warm days of hope unspoken
in a gallery of lost chords and undrawn lines
where works are the torment of desperate laments
touching so close to the country undiscovered
and yet returning - precocious, fertile and alive
to an abundance of water-ice, this cool night air

Watch on YouTube