Solitary, melancholy, misunderstood. . . that is how I feel today. I do not want to go outside. I do not want to paint this morning. I am profoundly uninspired. So I look out the window and see flat black tar roofs of squat apartment buildings rimmed with melting snow. But the snow is turning gray and dismal and the sun can’t cheer things up. And I know it’s still cold, in spite of how the sun creates the pretense of warmth. The trees are bare, sparse, and futile. They are that nasty color of old cement, so faint that they barely seem to exist. Now that they’re dead and have no leaves, they don’t seem to matter anymore. And the sky is trying hard to be blue, but it seems sick and pale to me.
And that’s why I can’t paint today. Today I feel exiled. Today I feel sequestered. Today I feel trapped. And all I can do is write about it. Today it just seems like there is nothing to paint. Why reproduce the ugliness outside? I’ve had enough of dead trees, of buildings with all their color drained from them by the feeble rays of a tired winter sun. And the snow pretends to melt, trying to fool us all. But everyone knows it will come back again, to slow down traffic, to cover the ground like a cold white scab that’s only pretty for the first hour or so and then the dogs pee in it and the drunks puke in it and everyone dents its smooth surface with muddy boots and it gets all gray and nasty around the edges.
And the sky tries so hard to be a nice poster-colored non-photo cerulean blue, or azure, or some other color you’d buy in a tube of paint or colored pencil. But a rampart of clouds between its midsection and its horizon spread a sickly grayness and defeat it all. That’s what a winter sky is, defeated. It is there to let a little sun through, to illuminate the dirty snow, to distinguish night from day. But it doesn’t inspire me to paint.
So I sit here in bed on sheets of true azure. And the radiator pipes clang in their usual annoying way. I sit here not wanting to go and not wanting to stay.
©2000 Tiffany Gholar
10 comments:
I love the imagery in this. Well written!
Well written. Terrific imagery in this piece.
Tiffany, this is so lovely and skillful. Your writing is very sophisticated. Thank you. I enjoyed this.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your comments. This was my first time participating in Sunday Scribblings and I am so glad I did. Also, I really enjoyed reading your posts for this week as well.
I feel exactly the same way about winter! Beautifully written:)
Thanks so much, Angel. I had some time to take a look at your blog and I really like it. I love the artwork.
Your lovely description creates a painting for me of bright azure sheets tumbled on a bed with those gray heating pipes clanking in one corner, perhaps the gray walls on two sides. Yes, an empty painting, filled with angles, but the delight of blue (and your post) remains.
Very well written !! Imagination is endless.....
Thanks so much! I am glad you liked this piece. I wrote it while I was in college. It was a long winter and I was having a bad day.
Hi Tiffany,
I think this is wonderful. Not only is it well written, but your piece truly captures the bleak feelings that artists (of all kinds) relate to when un-inspired.
Sincerely,
Pandora Parker
And I'd like to thank you for visiting my website skirttales.com and leaving your generous and kind comments. It means a lot.
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