Drawn from Within
Exhibit at The Oxbow Gallery
40 Cottage Street, Easthampton, MA
May 5-29, 2022
Opening: May 13, 5-8 pm
Images gleaned from dreams and intuitions
In memory of Alan Monasch, 1952-2021
These images arose in the time surrounding the death of my partner, Alan Monasch. They took shape in the protected, informal space of my sketchbook where marks, forms, and colors have freedom to just show up and surprise. I enjoyed letting them happen without too much trying, judgement or interpretation. As with the dreams many of them came from, the images remain mysterious to me but have provided definite nourishment, a path to follow through grief.
All images are colored pencil or graphite pencil on paper. Originals are 9×12” or 15×33”. Archival prints shown in gallery are 19” x 25.”
Installation at Oxbow Gallery
IMAGES IN SHOW:
Many selves
Stirring the Sky
Floating World
The Old Grove
A Strange Place
The Bell
Improbable Doorway
Carrying the Moon
Just So
First Dream of the White Tree
White Tree 2
Out Here on Cloud Street, twigs, silk, found objects
In a very old deathbed poem by the Japanese poet Getsudo, “the earth was buoyant, marvelous,” and then “the void galloped into Cloud Street.” This inspired Alan, as a young man, to write his own “Cloud Street” anthem, a modern one, where “another car pulls into Cloud Street,” with “another lonely fool in the back seat.” In the course of the song this traveler becomes “a former fool” and “takes his chances with the rain.” At the end of Alan’s life, a cloud settled in his brain, his brain tree, and a big storm shook away the leaves of awareness and memory almost all at once. In this piece, made after his death, I tried to imagine this process so I could give it back to him, and perhaps find some gift in it.
Detail: Out Here on Cloud Street
Detail: Out Here on Cloud Street
Detail: Out Here on Cloud Street
Tandem Process
Self/self
