My Own Desert Places

My own Desert Places, a photo by megan_n_smith_99 on Flickr.

I mentioned a few days ago that I had been trying to work on a series of autobiographic paintings and had gotten hijacked by a cute little owl. Well, that happened. However, having appeased the owl, if only briefly, I was able to make a foray into my own depths. Ok, the shallow end, anyway. Or I stood on-shore and got splashed a tiny bit and called it good.

I knew these paintings were not going to be autobiographical in a narrative way - or possibly in a way that anyone but me could actually understand. I think they are more visual expressions of some things it's hard to even find words for.

This is the second one, My Own Desert Places, inspired by a poem from Robert Frost.

My Own Desert Places
9 x 12"
Available on Etsy.

The inspiration:


Desert Places
by Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.