These are Things a Woman Notices

These are things a woman notices:

Whether or not she is appreciated

Art that is about something

Death in art,

a ruptured thing, decapitated by a streak of green

handless arms dressed in bright orange

knitted by missing hands.

A flower dying gracefully in the presence of acid rain

Discards from a world too hurried

to see the patterns of life in each cast-off.

The land already filled with itself

in no need of our refuse

The purple tinged toes, barren of life

hanging above the crumpled earth

The earth ground colors of soil

-after rain

- after too much sun

- after a hanging.

 

Personal politics;

The defiance of a naked form

seen through the eyes of a woman,

The places where courage has seeped through

the cracks of patriarchal strongholds

to explode onto canvas in bright, harlot lipstick, red

leaving some places completely untouched, raw and wild.

 

Fabric,

yarn,

thread,

things that curl and coil onto one another

- fall into one another

- hold one another

separate from one another – at the seams

bringing together burlapsack beings

in communion.

 

The rising bald black spheres of the unconscious

shiny with their secrets.

Pink plastic rose-strewn chairs

among standing room only men.

The pale, pink, flush of a child’s cheek about to

feel the first sharpness of teeth

The soft dewy redness of raspberries fresh from the field

The round heft of a melon

A small swish of bright yellow chiffon hem brushing

through a child’s world

-       as she rises

-       imperceptibly

to feel the passing waft of an angel robe.

 

The solid warmth of polished stone

Shoes

Pain

Skin

The way skin stretches and folds over pain

- and age

The wistful froth of lace

at the neck

covering the rising breastplate

Eyebrows opening

Windows viewing

the places where bodies break and

wings fall to earth.

 

The way a hand rests upon an open page

- waiting

For words to turn the page, to reveal

-       to astonish.

The power of words to break

-       to inspire

-       to heal

The bright round moon luminescence of pearls

 

Fear

-       released, unable to stop

a woman burning with desire

to paint, to mold, to sculpt,

to create.

Hope

            - enacted

The fragility of bold ideas

- who considered the purple star underside of open crocus petals?

The need for luck

           - and monofilament line

The color of light

 

The diaspora of art

The brevity of beauty

The line of orange against grey

The crumble of white polystyrene against solid bronze

The crease of hair against skin

Shoulders, clavicles, bone and tendon, flesh and tissue that hold

the weight of breasts.

 

These things are sign of Woman

walking through a world

where She sees herself

into Being.

 

 

Written in the National Museum for Women in the Arts

September 5, 2009