This is how we paint.

 

Appearance, in the end is everything.

We give a product of hard work

One glance at most.

 

If it happens to be shiny, it may

Catch our eye, may

Capture our attention.

 

And yet, don’t you feel that

Art originates from much more

Visceral, much more satisfying selves?

 

I wonder how wordless thoughts

Can make their meaning clear.

Technique tapers in expression.

 

Emotion should be captured:

Not in the eyes of our viewer,

But hidden in the piece itself;

 

Not cryptic enigma: Lacking

Pretense, melodrama that is

Sickly reminiscent to

Billboard propaganda.

 

Waxy paint, paper-thin,

A scrap of ‘art’ will be expected to

Lay out, universally: the nuances of life.

 

How then can art be practiced without

The integrity, the sloppy indignation that

Seamlessly will weave the fullest lives?

 

An awful waste, to spend a moment not

Fully embalmed in this experience, the

Strangeness of this artist’s ‘life.’