July 7, 2025
Dotty Wassily Kandinsky, #3: Pencil and Pastel
Looking Out the Family Room Window on My Way to Make Breakfast
you know
those hokey wooden-plaque
garden tchotchkes,
the ones painted with an image
of a woman’s
exaggerated fat bottom
broadside to the world
as she bends over
to pluck weeds,
her bright blue bloomers
pocked with oversized
bright white polka dots?
this is not that.
this is betty,
upright, present,
at one with her perennial garden,
attractive with a fresh stylish haircut,
wearing crisp ecru bermuda shorts
and a lovely floral top in soft coral.
her back towards me,
sturdy cane in one hand,
garden hose in the other,
john gone two months now,
she embodies plainspoken elegance
in the early-hours dapple
of a sleeveless june morning.
i drink in the sight of her
from across the space
of the hip-to-hip back yards
that have linked us now
for 46 of her 91 years.
a steady spray flares and arcs
from her garden hose
turns light into dazzle,
alchemizes my heart
into vibrant kaleidoscopic chips
of uncomplicated joy.
just that.
just
all of that.
that’s what
this is.
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8 x 8″; watercolor pencil, acrylic, and oil pastel on paper
concentric circles and squares after Wassily Kandinsky
2025
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Notes About Poem and Painting:
• I saw Betty as I walked through the family room, stood mesmerized for several minutes, then turned around and went right back upstairs to scribble a draft of “Looking Out.” Breakfast had to wait. I had to catch the emerging poem by the tail right then and there.
• I’m having fun channeling Kandinsky. In this piece, I used Stabilo woodies to pencil back-and-forth-and-up-and-down in empty squares; brushed the pencil markings with water; faded them back with several diluted washes of white, on top of which I stenciled white acrylic hatch marks. From there, freeplay with oil pastels softened by smudging, some blending of hues with woodies, and some roughing up with fingernail scribble-scratches.
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16 responses to “Dotty Wassily Kandinsky, #3: Pencil and Pastel”
Thanks for your poem and art! Such an inspiring way to start my day!
Your poem brings joy, how strong life can be. Betty, vs a not so elegant me, almost 90, watering my vines,on my concrete block, to hide its ugly facade and purpose.
So glad you caught the poem by its tail. Bet you had the bestest breakfast.
Thanks for describing your process, now I have a great new exercise to try this afternoon.
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Carol, you are Betty also, elegantly watering your vines on your concrete block to elevate and transform “its ugly façade and purpose.” Thanks for letting me know that my description of process for today’s Kandinsky exercise gives you a great new exercise to try this afternoon. Yay! Would love to see : )
LOL at your description—some sort of super mad genius writer mode—but that’s kinda how it feels. My daughter texted me back in May: “Damn, mom … were you only painting because you weren’t ready to write yet??” All of a sudden, poetry was yanking hard saying let’s get GOING, girl!, and so I did : ) The unexpected part was how the painting part of my creative life suddenly came awake in a major way also. Poetry and painting—the energy of each feeds the other. Lucky me!
And I LOVE your echoing today’s poem with your closing comment, i.e. This!!!!!!!
Thank you, Lola, dear friend.
Geez, Dotty…This poem paints a picture clear as anything. I can see Betty so fleshed out in my mind’s eye. I wonder, does she read your blog? I see a gracefulness and a stoicism in the way you write what you see.
And your art piece? Frame for sure. Now you have a triptych. I opened it very wide and can make out and enjoy some of the texture lying under there. Brava! ♥️
Roseanne, such valuable feedback—very helpful to hear you say this poem paints a clear picture that lets you see Betty so fleshed out in your mind’s eye. I’m intrigued by your commenting that you see “a gracefulness and a stoicism” in the way I write what I see. Tell me more! Could you give me an example of a word or phrase that exemplifies?
Now I have a triptych! Thank you for reminding me!
Thank you, thank you!
It was good for me to come back to read and reread your poem. Betty is the antithesis of the yard tchotchkes in every way. It is probably “upright, present, … at one with her garden.” Her unpretentious (plainspoken, your word) manner evoking for me someone who has seen much, suffered some sadnesses (the recent passing of her husband) and is still able to take in the beauty around her. A salt of the earth quality. There is grace there, is there not? I see these qualities in my mother, too – an acceptance and serenity (and sadness, too) of what life brings.
I can see her too! The early morning light. Patches of shadow under the trees, and behind bushes. I can hear the water flow. Morning in the garden, so delightful!
Your medallions made me think of macaroons. Then I thought about what fun throw pillows they would make. Kandinsky on the couch!
Thank you for this wonderful post, Dotty! Great catch! ;o)
Sheila! Such specific welcome feedback re “Looking Out”! Your observations have me feeling like I’m drinking directly from Betty’s hose, nourished and stimulated as a newly re-engaged writer of poems. Thank you!
Macaroons! Throw pillows! Love these alternative perceptions. Way fun!
Your closing thought—great catch!—has me smiling : )
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