Photograph . Beth & Peg . 1984 |
|
|
A Spirit, Rose
Twenty years have passed since Elizabeth came to me. Her name is Rose, too. Painters first, we became friends, a blend of linseed oil and pigment washed with spirits. Her middle name became Munch, mine became Mondrian. The compliment was in the contrast, somewhere between hard edge and swirl, primary and tertiary. I remember longing to lose the masking, become the oil that never looked flat. I liked my illusions but they were hard to figure. Her teal blue cat rests on a chair, monochromatic with imagined ochre eyes. It compels me to sit and I do. It hangs there, above the landing, and as much as Escher moved, even he would have stopped to notice, and kept it a cat. Twenty years later the paint is dry. It is tiring to fool the eye, prove there’s fluidity in my geometry. 1982 was optical, 2002 is tactile. My hands have touched spirits - One of them is Rose. ©2002 Peggy Putnam Owen |