Week 2: MEANDER

Adrian Stokes, Still Life (Last Eleven: No. 7), 1972

Adrian Stokes was an English painter and critic. It's interesting here to see something so clearly specific in subject and at the same time, so fluid in how he arrives at the painting itself. Caught my eye in somebody's snapshot from the Tate when I was looking into Stokes' work. The image above is truer in color--it's from the Tate Gallery website. One of Stokes' ideas had to do with the distinction between carving and modelling. His phrase, "carved to flower..." Letting what's already present in the stone emerge in the making...


The Waking
Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.