poetry

“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

I have this quote in mind frequently, in fact I have a printed scrap with this quote cut out of a newspaper article pinned to my bulletin board in the studio.

As I worked on this oil painting  from a Michigan beach this summer I thought about how I wanted to convey a visual poem. The time of day is late, before sunset, but toward the end of a long summer afternoon stretching towards evening and thoughts of what is for dinner tonight. The sky is brilliant, the sun is too bright and low making all the shadows deep and people stand out as silhouettes. It's what the lakeside dwellers call the diamond hour, that sparkling moment when it is still hot and light but very much the end of a long day in the sun. 

so new

 

babies

"A baby is God's opinion that life should go on."
Carl Sandburg

every baby born

"It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last."
Charles Dickens Nicholas Nickleby

Chapter One. I am born

CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. DAVID COPPERFIELD By Charles Dickens