Eating Promises Like Seeds

Eating Promises Like Seeds and Expecting Them to Grow

60″ x 40″ acrylic on mixed media
sami Peterson 2018

One year has lapsed since the work’s beginning, which is of course also an end. Paper forcefully tangled one January ago has become heavy with paint. Evidence of these initial movements hang like ghosts. These structures at times break the lines of the subject, while the subject seeks to organize or comprehend the chaotic topography.

Progress 18 (Eating Promises)

“it doesn’t rain as much here
I have to make my own”

The detail phase is the last chance to slow down before the work is finished. Unexpected discoveries still introduce new textures and marks, this near to the end. These colors are for her wife.

Progress 17 (Eating Seeds)

I caught a blue over you and it’s been almost a year. (It could have been almost 4 years.) Yet in the end I have to admit less is undone than is done. The meniscus is broken and clarity spills over the piece. Color considerations quicken as the final composition solidifies. I post this progress…

Progress 13, 14, 15, 16 (Eating Promises)

Today, I wrote a letter to your best friend instead of to you March 10, 2017 Lies we tell ourselves March 22, 2017 I will you to disappear from my broken reflection April 19, 2017 painted husk rolling out before me like so many hills rains and their bows overflowing canyons with color I never…

Progress 12 (Eating Promises)

3 years ago, today you mailed an envelope containing 1 Buddha statue encased in clay. “Without the crack, you never would have known the gold was there.” Kintsugi, I evoke, and say, my clay is broken. Who will fill my fault lines with gold?

Progress 11 (Eating Promises)

Numbness like this isn’t the feeling of nothing. It is every color painted on a silent and motionless wave peaceful in its cacophony.