Something New…

red balloon
escapes the child’s grasp
sunrise floats away

New Day, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“Poetry is good for unleashing images.”

– Paula Rego

I am planning on periodically adding short haiku poems I’ve written to my postings, as this is a poetic form I’ve become interested in. Traditionally the pairing of haiku with painting is known as haiga which appeared almost simultaneously with the first recorded haiku. Not surprising, since Japanese painting and haiku are made with the same brush. I’m afraid many of my paintings will not fit the typical character of a haiga painting, which tends to have subdued colors and very simple motifs.

We all know that words, like images, have tremendous power. But writing about a piece of art often seems to drain away some of it’s life. Pairing it with words which themselves aspire to an aesthetic grace can add another dimension to the work, infusing it with more spirit, not less. The way in which the words and the images coexist creates an exciting dynamic.

The juxtaposition will alter your experience of both the painting and the poem. By composing these haiku before, during or after the painting process, I suspect also that the brush will behave differently in my hand.