White-Lily-Art

I'm beginning a series of self-portraits. Also trying for a deeper metaphoric and symbolic meaning in my work. Some of this will be done through the use of poetry, sometimes the text of the poems will be included in the finished works.

This poem was written to accompany my most recent drawing, "Black Butterfly" completed July 20th, 2008. The text of the poem was incorporated into the drawing.


"Black Butterfly"


Bemusing muse

Black butterfly

Came through the ether

Mystical wings

Encircled me along the way

Enraptured on a summer day

Music painted on the sky

Black butterfly



Blown in from far off dust

Astral soul

Dressed in stardust

Black butterfly

Draw me perfect

Emergent from this coal black shell

Wet wings spread in joy to stand

Transformed

Flawless at the artist's hand



Evanescent passion lies

In our wavelengths intertwined

Black butterfly

Never caught

Light gently in the mind

Bring luminous thought


(c) Alice McMahon White 2008

I'm beginning a series of self-portraits. Also trying for a deeper metaphoric and symbolic meaning in my work. Some of this will be done through the use of poetry, sometimes the text of the poems will be included in the finished works.

This is the first poem I've written in decades, written July 2008:


"Fairfield Avenue"


Walking long to the essential

Lonely

Fair field



Glinting cut-crystal-challis-brilliant summer afternoon



Recalling the morning

Soul meeting soul

Hungry for Your Love touch and gaze

Yet

Found deeper

Expression in shared thought



And so

Spirit

Overflows flesh

Once

More

Joyful

In the fair field

Half-century of being

Finally down decades

Lay back childlike on perfumed grass

To lift face to vapor mist clouds

Just now masking sunshine



How many years since this child play?

Neglected play

Forgotten play



An artist's game different with maturity

No longer hunting hares and lambs in cotton candy clouds floating through opal sky

This time

More metaphoric visions

More abstract thoughts

Up on

High breezes

Painting pastel strokes

Fast and slower

Eyes entranced by wing-feather

Cloud edge wisps

Rhythmic movements

Tendrils break free and rejoin

Come Together

First meeting

First kiss

Long separated jigsaw puzzle pieces

Found again

Bliss

In the interlocking re-union

Timeless inevitable moments of

Anam Cara



Too soon

Gusts blow off the muse

Revealing blinding sun

Moments of truth lost to reality

Shared words

Music

Touch

Imagined?



Back on the path from fair field

Down Fairfield Avenue home

Mourning morning

Dove and blood red songbird

Sing requiems for

Love

Found and lost before it occurred


© Alice McMahon White 2008

The White Album, my most recent work, is literally a labor of love, twenty years in the making. A quirky "photo-realism" album of my three teenagers, it is foremost a portrait of adolescence. My youngest son is just entering his turbulent teens; middle-child daughter a promising artist at 17-going-on-27; the eldest son, an adult of 20, started his college career at Kent State University, Ohio.

I was on the threshold of my own teen years when the Beatles were the soundtrack for the hippy era. This work draws parallels between then and now, and highlights the universal, eternal character of coming of age. I have attempted to explore the similarities of each generation, despite contemporary sensibilities and recent advances in technology.

A fellow artist recently noted, "We paint to deal with life." These candid "snapshots" are one way I've found to cope with the process of letting go that all parents must make. They document my children's progress during this transitional time in their lives. Thanks to them, I am still learning.


See pastel painting demo videos at www.youtube.com/user/WhiteArtS…