This is my first week of the semester, I am not in the routine of being swamped with work, yet. I went to the library before watching the Real World with my room mate, Jasmine. I glanced at the art section on the second floor of the Cressmen Library by the windows. I pulled out books on N.C. Wyeth and Charles Demuth. I am glad to say I went to the BrandyWine River museum this summer, and I loved it. I feel as though my own work is heading to the more natural tones of Andrew Wyeth. I also want to paint still lifes like Demuth. As I searched more, behind a biography of De Kooning, I saw her.
I saw on a book cover, a ghost who escaped the hellish ruin in the background. She wore a top hat and long black jacket; she stood tall and confident. Maybe it is human nature to be curious about hell and ruin. I held the book with two hands as I tried to see into the eyes of the ghost. A black shadow casted by her top hat conceals her icy stare. I could barely see the whites of her eyes. The heavy, charred, blue sky behind her gave me an unexpected heaviness. The feeling of Apocalypse has the same crushing weight. This is Romaine Brooks. As I flipped through the first chapter, this is a portrait of a forever scarred soul emerging from the Holocaust. I felt the power of strength, and will, by looking at the straightness of someone who emerged out of ash and ember. She's not a ghost at all, she's a survivor. This must be the epitome of endurance and perservance of the human heart. I put the Wyeth books back on the shelf.
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