I wrote this poem about the transcendental joy of creating art – and meaning – from handmade paint:
Crushed lapis;
pulverised azurite;
ground malachite;
powdered ochres.
You are deconstructed,
broken down,
so that you can be made
whole again.
Terra rosa, terre verte:
colours of the earth
take form on my canvas.
This is the soil, this is the grass:
is art imitating nature,
Or nature imitating art?
Like the paint I love to make,
I take my essence apart
so that I can put it back together
in new and novel ways.
For to be something,
I must first be nothing,
to be reinvented,
lovingly coaxed
into existence.
Strange Forms & Fancy 