Unbreakable Glass - March 12 2026

 

Unbreakable Glass

March 12 2026

In a watercolour world

colours would be muted

and boundaries soften,

the light would be more misty afternoon

than washed-and-rinsed

and hung-out to dry.

Easy on the eyes,

and a place exposing the fallacy 

of the hard lines

that keep us apart.

Perhaps a pointillist painting

that makes no sense up close

but with distance does;

the image resolving

as the tiny points of light

coalesce.

Because it always helps 

to stand back 

  . . . take some time 

       . . . and reassess.

And impressions

can be more indelible

than faithful depiction.

And what about impasto?

A heavy hand with the paint,

slathered on in thick layers

without restraint or apology.

A world of bold statements

without compromise;

a place

where you needn’t be shy

no matter what you care to say.

But the world I think I prefer

is a pencil drawing.

Its careful shading

in gradations of grey,

fine detail

sharply etched,

and abundance of empty space

where imagination can play

and the eye rest.

An ascetic form

where less is more.

Where colour would be a happy drunk

ranting loudly

over the librarian’s dark glare

and pointed shhhh’s.

Not that I’m adept.

I draw stick-men — at best,

have no sense of colour,

and perspective baffles me.

So never good at art

I resorted to words.

And so while the paintings on my walls

may be windows into other worlds

they’re under unbreakable glass

and I’m unable to enter.

I can only stand back and look

with longing and envy.

Directly in front of me, from the chair in which I customarily sit, is a beautifully muted watercolour in the Japanese tradition by Marjorie Pickett. It hung in my parent’s home, and was really one of the very few things I hoped would be handed down. To my left is one of the other hand-me-downs (a generation too soon to qualify as an heirloom!): a bold brightly panted scene in a more primitivist style by an Haitian artist called Philippe Auguste. Such contrasting styles! Such different moods! 

I’m terrible at the visual arts. My only means of expression is words, and language — even at its most effective — can seem inadequate next to an image. Could it be too precise, too detached, too linear? You can disappear into a painting. Same for music.  But you have to process words. And it’s that friction that gets in the way.