Redtree Times

Hope is the thing...- Coming to West End Gallery

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

–Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers (1861)

I have had a proclivity for painting snowy landscape as of late. I wrote and spoke recently about the immersion of the process of painting these pieces, how it focuses my attention and distracts me from the world outside my field of vision. That might well explain why I am drawn to painting these paintings lately, but it might be more than that.

I have simply been in a wintry mood in recent weeks. I don’t know that I can describe what I mean by that. Silent and cooly distant? Pensive, maybe even a little melancholy? In survival mode, just trying to get by?

Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling for me, one of those for which words often come up short for me.

I struggled to find a title for this new painting that is part of my upcoming West End Gallery show. It’s one of the last paintings completed for the show, a small piece, only 6″ by 8″ on canvas.  it was not large in size but seemed to have much to express. Nothing I came up with for its title seemed to capture the feel that I was taking from it.

I finally got to listen to the title track from the new album from Rhiannon Giddens and knew that it was right for this piece. The song is her musical take on the Emily Dickinson poem, Hope is the thing with feathers, written in the opening months of the Civil War. The words from Dickinson and their delicate yet powerful treatment by Rhiannon hit me pretty hard. And though Dickinson’s bird was a songbird and not a crow or raven, I knew it had to be the title for this little piece.

The caw of the crow and the croak of the raven are music to my ears.

Below is a video of the song from Rhiannon Giddens showing collage artist Uzoma Samuel Anyanwu working on the large portrait of her that graces the new album. Watching his progress is fascinating.

Hope is the thing… is included in The Jubilee Dance, my 25th solo exhibit at the West End Gallery that opens two weeks from tomorrow, Friday, October 16. There is an opening reception at the gallery on October 16 that runs from 5-7 PM.

Hope– there’s that word again– you can make it.