POEM
is this week's theme at Illustration Friday. By odd coincidence I have been working on writing poems for some of my paintings. Here's one with the most seasonal subject matter. You can click on the painting to enlarge it. My son H is the model, enjoying a moment at one of his favorite places in the world: the lake near my parent's house. I used to love it too...so it's a joy to watch the boys basking in the same feelings the lake always awoke in me. Time stands still for a heartbeat.

Edge of the Lake, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas

Fruit and Water oil on canvas 8 x 10 inches

PAINTING & POETRY SHOW
Happy National Poetry Month! Well, the artist's reception in Chelsea for this show was yesterday. Lots of fun: wine, chocolate, poets, friends. I was thrilled that an art hero of mine, Jules Feiffer, came to see the show! (I was too shy to ask him to pose for a photo, more's the pity.)

The show was written up in The Village Voice as "A group show illuminating the relationship between text and image." Sounds very cool, doesn't it? Maybe not everybody likes the idea of pairing art with writing...fearing the dread "illustration" but I am completely fine with it. I love illustration, I love art, I love poetry, and I feel the boundaries between all forms of creativity are actually very blurred. The artists in the exhibition were directed to pair our paintings with poems, and so I asked a poet friend, Cathy Cohen, if she had a poem in her files that had any relation to this image. She didn't, but then she went ahead and wrote one! I was blown away. Here it is:

Still Moment

We balance near the edge
like crystal,
ready to embrace.

If we stare long enough
we enter fragrance,
vibrating color.

But a still moment will burst
and skim its soul
from thing to thing,
from vessel to vessel.

~Cathleen Cohen