I Ask You
In 2014, I shared the website of artist Ann Marquis with my friend Sylvia who said, Ask her if she’d do a workshop with us and then, before I could even blink, asked Ann herself. Long story short, Ann boarded a plane in NM, I boarded one in MA, and we joined Sylvia at her home in IL for a four-day self-created painting retreat over Memorial Day weekend 2014. WAY fun, and—I ask you, can this be true?—my painting adventure is now just shy of being ten years old!
After that retreat I wrote an appropriation to capture the feeling of that retreat. I provide here both a verbal snapshot—my poem—to mark the beginning of my painting adventure and a visual snapshop—my most recent CutUp—to mark what I’m up to today, ten years later.
I Ask You
In what scene would I want to be enveloped more than this one,
a sunny morning in May at Sylvia’s kitchen table,
floor-to-ceiling window panes letting in light,
pale walls cocooning our makeshift studio space,
no keyboard or iPhone in sight,
my hand held high on a paint brush?
It gives me entrée into here and now—
the play of light and reflection on the glass table,
cadmium yellow and mars black yielding to my palette knife—
while beyond the backyard-oaks the world spins,
ideas, thoughts, chores, and projects swirling in a frenzy.
Beyond this table there is nothing that I need,
not even a perfectly-tailored-to-me hands-off job with passive income,
nor a house by the ocean with an enormous front porch.
No, it’s all here,
muddied rinse water in a plastic container,
a glazed vase holding dried lotus pods,
a nine-inch color wheel,
not to mention Ruth’s still life leaning against the wall,
and the way three hearts—each a different hue and value—
are painting together in perfect harmony.
So forgive me if I cock my head now
and watch Ann bring acrylics to life on her canvas
while my eyes light up in my hand—
sparklers after dark on a summer evening—
and my attention lasers to a whole universe made of one small canvas
and roughly a million possibilities.
Dotty Seiter, May 2014
an appropriation, with gratitude to Billy Collins
for writing the original that gave me the structure
3.5 x 4.5; acrylic, watercolor pencil, and collage on card stock
CutUp
2024
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9 responses to “I Ask You”
Dotty ~ I can’t EVEN imagine the happiness you must have felt to be able to make art with an artist you admired and one of your friends. I’ve had moments similar to this – once, meeting a famous journalist I’d long admired, and another, going to an opera with one of my dearest, bestest friends and mouthing the words to the libretto together. Just now, remembering both these times, pulling them from the back of my memories gives me such happiness. I didn’t know about the mechanism of appropriation then. It would have been wonderful to honor those experiences in that way.
Your appropriation/appreciation of that weekend brought it all to life. I felt as though I were sitting in Sylvia’s kitchen with you.
Your anniversary CutUp is balanced and the colors sing to me.
(What a post!)Roseanne! Thank you for the gift of hopping on to enjoy the ride of my post here! You milked it for all it was worth : )
I’m delighted that it triggered some specially held experiential memories of yours.
I had fun playing with the colors here and the pieces of past art and experience from which I harvested them.
That meetup was life changing. I wouldn’t be writing to you right now, dear friend, if not for that weekend.
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xoxo
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