Always At My Back

Always At My Back

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Always At My Back
oil on canvas
28 x 31.75 x .75 inches
This item is unframed but ready to hang.
(click on the link to purchase)

"It is always at my back,” he continued, “and sometimes it grows bold and its teeth are at my throat. It drags me down, and if I did not carry a shield against it, I could not get up from beneath its weight."
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Elder Race

There are things that loom over us, lurk behind us, peer over our shoulders. And sometimes engulf us.

Tchaikovsky's quote is from a book which includes a character  struggling with clinical depression.  His description is haunting.

For me, the thing which is always at my back is, well, my back.​ My spine, to be exact.

And here's the thing about bones - they are always at your back (and your front, and your limbs, and well, in your head). I have an ongoing conversation with my own bones, osteoporotic and sinking. It goes something like this:

You doing ok in there?
Yep, just don't bend over, or look up, or look down, or lift anything, or fall down or bang into things.
Hmmm, well that is awfully restrictive! How about if I just lift this thing?
Well, ok, but tomorrow could be iffy.
Iffy?
Uh huh. You might be in some pain.
Might be?
Yes, I can never say for sure.
And why not? I mean, you are the actual bones, right?
Yes, well, I am also prone to sudden mood changes. 

Don't get. me wrong, I love my bones! I am grateful for their reslience and tenacity. But I sometimes delight in portraying my bones as unpredictibly monstrous.  Somehow it feels better to imagine a moody monster within than a slowly crumbling structure of minerals. And my bones like being seen as sassy, anyway.

How about you, dear reader - what is always ​at your back?

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​About the art:  another paint-over of a murdered piece of art. Once more the underpainting adds texture and depth to the new work. For the new piece, a rough sketch into the new, wet background paint using a long handled brush with thinned darks. A long drying time. Then working from the faces outward, adding layer upon layer of flesh tones with pinks and oranges and reds. More drying, followed by layers of darks. The suckers on the tentacles were a blast to add layers upon layers to. Finally, the unexpected yellow embellishment on the girl's clothing. Some darkly whimsical fun!

The painting underneath the painting!

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Here is the final installment of the wonderful and surprising Questions Exchange with Dotty Seiter.
My last question for Dotty, and her response in poetry:


Aperitif - when you look back at your body of work,
written and painted/drawn/scribbled/collaged
​ and the life you have lived making all of that, what do you see and feel?

digestif

after yoga class, the poet-artist gives her friend
a ride home and her friend says, wanna join me for lunch?
sure!, she says, and they poke
around her kitchen and cobble together
what they decide to upgrade to a “luncheon," finding
a little of this and a little of that to fill the roles
of appetizer (tortilla chips), soup (tomato juice), 
salad (celery sticks), main course (tuna sandwich), 
and dessert (frozen thin mint cookies), 
at which point her friend says with mock solemnity
and a faux haughty voice, 
would you care for an aperitif?
uh, the poet-artist hesitates, 
isn't the drink at the end 
of a meal called a digestif ? 
which hits their funny-bones
and sets them to laughing hilariously.
still laughing, the poet-artist stands up 
and asserts, what do we care what it's called!, 
i don't want a drink anyway, 
best digestif to my way of thinking
is a post-prandial passeggiata. 
perfect, says her friend, and she adds  
as they begin walking, i have a question
i've been wanting to run past you— 
you've been painting for almost 12 years now, and writing
blog posts for all those years and now poetry as well.
when you look back at your body of work, 
written and painted and drawn 
and scribbled and collaged and wordsmithed, 
and you look at the life you have lived making all of that, 
what do you see and feel?
the poet-artist takes only a few steps 
before she replies:
i remember in first grade having to color a mimeographed page
of circles with color words printed below them. you know, like
BROWN PURPLE GREEN, and so forth. 
i began coloring, easy-peasy, 
and then before i could even finish coloring 
the second circle my teacher
walked by and told me i was coloring 
the circles the wrong way--
the RIGHT way was to move my crayon round
and round and not
from side to side. 
which i knew was just plain stupid.
the writing and painting and 
drawing and scribbling and 
collaging and wordsmithing i've done
for the past dozen years, 
and the life i have lived making 
all that art and all those poems
feels like i went back to the day 
before 
the mimeograph page landed on my desk
and shifted my body just one degree 
in a different direction 
and scribbled my way into the best 
whole-arted life ever.

--dotty seiter
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And here is the final question from Dotty to me:
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 Position your hands to form a viewfinder, roughly fist sized; point it somewhere in your home—what is the/a story of what you see?


My viewfinder has been a camera lens since I was young.
Taking family photos (which I was seldom, if ever, in) was how I made a place for myself where I did not belong.
But, when you spend a lifetime taking photos, your internal viewfinder becomes well-honed.
Composition, light and shadow - now comfortable friends.
Over 58,000 photos are stored in my phone.
Another gajillion on my computer, in the cloud, on flash drives.
And yet, what I am most drawn to now are the faces around me - my husband, our dog, our crow family. 
I belong here.