Apr 27, 2011

Rush Hour on Burnside: from the archives


I am afraid to be all alone here, watching the seagulls float above the swollen, branch-twisting river. The metal, glass, and paved crushing of careers and homes and promises, fading behind me into the silence of wings lifting.

I painted this even before my large tempera paintings, so I’ve been attempting to paint poems for my whole adult life, it’s nice to know there is some consistency to me. I feel like I flit around from one experiment to another without a lot of development. But if I have a common theme then it’s just one really long experiment.

This painting is in acrylic. I lived a few blocks from the Burnside bridge at the time and would walk downtown almost daily. I loved being that close to the river.

3 comments:

Hunter said...

"paved crushing of careers" This feels familiar.

The busyness of the painting conveys the feel of the city.

Is that you in green on the bridge?

Alexandra said...

It would have been me, but the moment a moment becomes a poem I am supplanted by a poetic character :)

Miles said...

Ah, the city.