It’s starting to feel like ground hog day - but in a good way. Walked back the village, sketching and stopping at the local pub for a Guinness. It was good to be around the chatter of families, dogs men at the bar.
Here at the Center it is very quiet. I am assuming these fellow artists are Gen Zs or Millennials as they sit pugged into their electronics, working. On Friday night, the Center invited us to a happy hour. It was a delight to learn more about their interests ranging from teaching school kids about UK Black classical composers, promoting the Queer Asian community in Glasgow through food and choreographing a dance piece around Isaeli heritage (that one has gotten for complicated this week). They are all engaged in the world, doing important work. I particularly like how it is making me re-think why I paint and what’s my contribution.
Which leads me to acknowledge Nobel-winning poet Louise Gluck who died on Friday. From The Guardian:
Glück’s poems face truths that most people, most poets, deny: the way old age comes for us if we’re lucky; the way we make promises we cannot keep; the way disappointment infiltrates even the most fortunate of adult timelines. She’s not a poet you read to cheer yourself up. She is, however, a poet of wisdom. And her declarations, her decisions, her conclusions, build and displace one another as the poems go on: even the sharpest claims require their poetic frames and contrasts……… We can say, though, that Glück’s plain lines and wide views address experience common to many: feeling neglected, feeling too young or too old, and – sometimes – loving the life we find.
A year ago - this week - I walked into The Red Wheelbarrow bookstore near Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and bought one of her books. She is my go-to-poet. She paints with words.
So my lucky life goes on here as the weather continues to flirt with me. I am going to put Louise Gluck in my back pocket with Frank Auerbach. I am in good company.