By Sawyer Philips
While walking throughout the galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, I noticed that I was creating stories behind the various paintings. The stories could stem from a simple expression on a subject’s face or seemingly unimportant details. “The Artist” is the first piece in a series of reflective poetry inspired by three paintings at the MFA. “The Artist” will be followed by “The Subject” and lastly “The Audience.”
Based on John Singer Sargent’s painting “An Artist in His Studio” (1904) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
Morning or perhaps afternoon light streams
Into your reticent room
Lingers on your shoulders
And brushes across your current conception
How isolated you seem while painting this pastoral scene
Did it emerge from the cavern of your memory?
Did it awaken you at an inconvenient hour?
An image so persistent it is careless of the clock?
Is that why you sleep where you create?
Scattered canvases across an unmade bed
As if you know there lies no boundary between art and reveries
You, the artist, in this cluttered quaint studio
As light seeps through open windows
Illuminating your unfolding mind
You, the dream catcher, the storyteller
Seeking beauty in the mundane
You, the onlooker, the forager
Finding mosaics in scattered remains
How fixated you sit, staring, unwilling to abandon
Your work, disregarded by the idle passerby
But you, framed eternally, by another artist’s eye
Sawyer is a freshman journalism major. She loves slam poetry, playing the bongos, and finding awesome deals at the Garment District.
While walking throughout the galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, I noticed that I was creating stories behind the various paintings. The stories could stem from a simple expression on a subject’s face or seemingly unimportant details. “The Artist” is the first piece in a series of reflective poetry inspired by three paintings at the MFA. “The Artist” will be followed by “The Subject” and lastly “The Audience.”
Based on John Singer Sargent’s painting “An Artist in His Studio” (1904) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
Morning or perhaps afternoon light streams
Into your reticent room
Lingers on your shoulders
And brushes across your current conception
How isolated you seem while painting this pastoral scene
Did it emerge from the cavern of your memory?
Did it awaken you at an inconvenient hour?
An image so persistent it is careless of the clock?
Is that why you sleep where you create?
Scattered canvases across an unmade bed
As if you know there lies no boundary between art and reveries
You, the artist, in this cluttered quaint studio
As light seeps through open windows
Illuminating your unfolding mind
You, the dream catcher, the storyteller
Seeking beauty in the mundane
You, the onlooker, the forager
Finding mosaics in scattered remains
How fixated you sit, staring, unwilling to abandon
Your work, disregarded by the idle passerby
But you, framed eternally, by another artist’s eye
Sawyer is a freshman journalism major. She loves slam poetry, playing the bongos, and finding awesome deals at the Garment District.