Art Is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees
Art Is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees Martin Willitts Jr.
Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House Los Angeles 2013
Published by Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House Copyright © 2013 All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America www.edgarallanpoet.com The cover images are public domain. Monet in His Studio Boat by Edouard Manet (1874) The Houses of Parliament, Sunset by Claude Monet (1903) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Willitts, Martin Art is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees By Martin Willitts Jr. – First Edition ISBN -13: 978-0985471514 ISBN-10: 0985471514 Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949462 Cover design by Apryl Skies Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition Written by Martin Willitts Jr.
Acknowledgements Autumn Sky Poetry: “Frieze-Like Composition” Blue Fifth: “The Harbor” The Centrifugal Eye: “Cure”, “Roses and Tulips” Cherry Blossom Review: “On the Seine at Bennecourt”, “Monet Painting His Wife on the River” Farming (anthology): “Conspiracy” Flutter: “The Boating Party”, “The Poet’s Garden”, “How Light Works Where It Is Darkest” Hotmetalpress.net: “Art and Censorship”, “Two Landscapes”, “Changing the Composition”, “The Pont des Arts, by Renoir, 1867”, “Rowing”, “Creating”, “If You Ignore What Is Bothering You”, “Understanding”, “Chance Meeting” Imperfect Tense: “Impression, Sunrise” In The Telling (anthology): “Poplars on the Bank of the Epte” Mandala: “Sweatshop” Mint Sauce and other stories and poems: “Reflected Shade & Hint of Light” Paper Boats (anthology about writing): “These Are the Unfortunate Days” Parting Gifts: “River” Punkin House Press: “Self Portrait” Queen City Review: “Continuing” River Poet’s Journal: “Lonely” Seven Circles Press: “Sewing”, “Almond Branches in Bloom” Slow Trains: “Water Lilies”, “Monet’s Greatest Painting Was His Garden”, “Painting and Gardening”. “Woman with Parasol” Smoke Anthology: “Clarity in Fog”, “Advice to an Artist”, “In the Conservatory,” “Degree of Visibility” Storm at Galesburg & other stories & poems (anthology): “The Washerwoman” World Audience: ‘The World Is a Tangible Place”, “Based on the Painting “Stonecutters” by Courbet” “On the Seine at Bennecourt” was recorded at the Out Of The Blue Gallery, in Boston, Massachusetts, YouTube video, 2010. “Woman with Parasol” was nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Award.
Art is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees by Martin Willitts Jr Sample poems include: Art & Censorship Creating Sewing Self Portrait Harbor
“Impressionism is the newspaper for the soul” — Henri Matisse “Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis... Don't be afraid of putting on colour... Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.” — Camille Pissarro “For an impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations” — Paul Cezanne
Art and Censorship There is an art to acceptance and rejection. It is the struggle to create. It is the desire to be recognized. An artist should be unable to breathe without art. I knew a poet who admits to using self-censorship by wondering what his mother might think if she read his poems. It never occurred to him that she might like them. Perhaps she had posed nude to a begging painter; or she could have taught a Jazz musician how to blow a trumpet to keep the neighbors up. She might have secretly wanted a tiny rose tattoo on her left shoulder. Her pulse may be a river of paint. Perhaps he is right. She might titter and disown him. Or maybe she would buy a copy of his book, read it at night under the small light above her head. Later, she would stash it in a secret drawer like it was forbidden as chocolate-covered cherries. She would feel warm after reading it, warm as a comforter, warm knowing it was her son who wrote as if his heart was a flaming river of words. There is an art to knowing sometimes Art is forbidden. Art can shock to become acceptable. There is a subversive voice in art. It is an uncomfortable voice no one wants to hear. If the Impressionists had listened to ridicule, life would have continued anyway. There is an art to knowing that this is a fact. 1
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The Medical Inspection, by Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894
Creating I open the window to yell to the traffic below to stop being so colorful. I need to sleep. I need to absorb what I need to create, when I notice everyone is rushing. This is why art is busy and is never finished. It is a woman waking up with a morning-satisfied smile. There is so much happening below, I am tempted to join it. My hands are birds wanting to fly above the crowd. I see you among the rapid movement, a woman assured of her direction. A woman knowing the kind of lover she wants — then you were gone. Maybe you are ascending the stairs, a woman not in a rush. Maybe you are about to knock. Like art knocks on an artist’s door, slowly, determined. I will open the door like a man opens a blouse. I will take you into my arms and carry you like my artwork, into the bedroom. 2
Boulevard des Italiens, Morning, Sunlight, by Camille Pissarro, 1897
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Sewing The mother is concentrating on her stitches staring into the eye of the needle, stitching a pattern into a darker sun. Her daughter has been tugging at her, moaning, irritated at the lack of attention. The mother does not notice this calling, small as threading a path through the woods. I understand this concentration. When I am in the middle of writing, you can talk to me and I will respond, still typing, stitching a thin veil of words. You could rest your impatience on my lap, and I would not notice. It is the same as you gardening at the last frost. When someone is embroidering silence, all anyone can do is watch. The mother is hemming the horizon to the sky while her daughter tugs at the seams to be noticed. When one is concentrating, the other tends to be ignored. This is the way things are. We can only sew so much into the quilt of the night while someone impatiently waits. 3
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Young Mother Sewing, Mary Cassatt, 1890
Self Portrait I, Vincent 4 inheriting christening clothes of sorrow, my hands belong to someone else. Night is a cradle meant for the brother I will never see. Everyone tells me relentlessly what he could have been. It is terrible to hear them talk about me the same way one talks about the dead. I, not Vincent The wind rattles tiny bones. Brother, I want my body back. What is mine? This is borrowed flesh. This is the angry hair of consumed sailor-red moons. Brother, I want my tongue back so others can hear me. The wallpaper flowers have his scolding eyes. Brother, you will have visions. He grinds his teeth into the sharpest of accusations. Brother, it is cold and damp here with no candles. I swallow sheets of darkness. Brother, the land is sleeping where fish are imagined.
Self Portrait, by Van Gogh, summer 1887, perhaps the most tormented of his many self-portraits. He was named Vincent after his still-born brother who died one year to the date before his own birth.
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Harbor The sea is dark hope. Nocturnal waves cover the low moon, for this is my blood. There is an impasse between the tides and the whisper of women wearing huddled scarves of light. In the quay boats wait for the next catch, their nests of nets are wrung dry of the quarter moon. If I wake up tomorrow at the first ship’s bell and slip into hip boots like they were a woman’ embrace, then the sails will take me to where they want to, to where there is no turning back, to where there is never a safe harbor 5 where I go.
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The Port of Boulogne in Moonlight, by Edouard Manet, 1869
About The Author In 1966, Martin Willitts Jr went to the Chicago Institute Of Art on an invitation for interviewing to enter the college program. He carried his large canvases (he had stretched his own canvases) in a portfolio, taking a train from Syracuse, New York, to Chicago, took the El to the college, and sat in a waiting room with other students. Out of curiousity, the students began showing each other’s paintings. Martin became so intimidated, he left without showing his work to the professors. He took the train back home, and ended up working with the American Friends Service Committee in Vietnam. He was like a medic, doing triage and First Aid during, bringing back the wounded, assisting in the operations, and handling the body bags. He never saw the letter from the college until almost four years later, offering him a full scholarship to become an art student. The letter said that he really did not need to show his portfolio. The professors had seen his paintings in New York State high school art shows. What they had liked was that his paintings were different. They were like Surrealism (Martin had to look up the art style), and he was using Air Brush to paint. But it was too late. Just like Renoir, he could not hold a paint brush anymore. Martin’s hands could not stop shaking from a mild form of epilepsy. Flash forward to 2005. Martin took up paper cutting and origami as methods to control his hands. He can still identify works of art and dates, by sight. He can tell you the story behind the paintings and something about the artists. He is a Librarian, after all. One time Martin was in a museum and he became so excited, he began talking about the paintings and artists. The next thing he knew, he had a crowd convinced he was a museum guide. Martin Willitts Jr never intended to become a poet. He wanted to become a Playwright. He took a Creative Writing
course in 1982 to get feedback about his plays, but the instructor insisted that they would only read poetry. From 1972-1984, Martin published hundreds of poems, and three chapbooks. Then he stopped. He did not write again until 2001. He was invited to participate in an online magazine special feature about 9/11. The editor said, "Are you the Martin Willitts Jr. Are you sure you are not dead?" He is back now; apparently from the dead. Martin Willitts Jr is a retired MLS Senior Librarian (a trainer of trainers) living in Syracuse, New York. He is currently tutoring 4th grade students, evaluates Prior Learning Evaluations for SUNY Empire State College, a professional Oral Storyteller telling stories from around the world from memory, and he is a “Science Magician” able to throw playing cards into watermelons and bounce eggs. He is a Quaker, a healer, and an organic gardener. He is a visual artist of Victorian and Chinese paper cutouts. He was nominated for 5 Pushcart and 3 Best of the Net awards. He provided his family and children’s hands-on workshop “How to Make Origami Haiku Jumping Frogs” at the 2012 Massachusetts Poetry Festival to over 90 adults and children, combining haiku and origami, teaching math, poetry, science, and even physics through the program. He has print chapbooks "Falling In and Out of Love" (Pudding House Publications, 2005), “Lowering Nets of Light” (Pudding House Publications, 2007), The Garden of French Horns” (Pudding House Publications, 2008), “Baskets of Tomorrow” (Flutter Press, 2009), “The Girl Who Sang Forth Horses” (Pudding House Publications, 2010), “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for Cezanne” (Finishing Line Press, 2010), “Why Women Are A Ribbon Around A Bomb” (Last Automat, 2011), “Protest, Petition, Write, Speak: Matilda Joslyn Gage Poems” (Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, 2011), “Secrets No One Wants To
Talk About” (Dos Madres Press, 2011), “How to Find Peace” (Kattywompus Press, 2012), “Playing The Pauses In The Absence Of Stars” (Main Street Rag, 2012), and “No Special Favors” (Green Fuse Press, 2012). He has three full length books "The Secret Language of the Universe" (March Street Press, 2006), and “The Hummingbird” (March Street Press, 2009), and “The Heart Knows, Simply, What It Needs: Poems based on Emily Dickinson, her life and poetry” (Aldrich Press, 2012). His forthcoming poetry books include “Waiting For The Day To Open Its Wings” (UNBOUND Content, 2013), “City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2013), "A Is for Aorta" (Seven Circles Press, e-book, 2013), "Swimming In the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press, 2013), “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in TakeThree” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, ebook, 2013). Martin Willitts Jr is the winner of the inaugural 2012 Wild Earth Poetry Contest for his full length collection “Searching for What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013).
More publications by Edgar & Lenore’s Publishing House include: Polyphony: Be You & Accept Me Too An Award-Winning Film by Apryl Skies & Chris Miller A Song Beneath Silence by Apryl Skies Skye the Troll & Other Fairy Tales For Children By Apryl Skies This Same Small Town In Each of Us By Wanda Morrow Clevenger In the Company of Women: An Anthology of Wit & Wisdom, Sass & Class Dialect of Dahlias By Gloria J. Wimberley Actual Tigers By William Crawford Men in the Company of Women: A Provocative Anthology of Praise & Persuasion Edgar Allan Poet Journal #1 2013 Forthcoming collections include: Back to Back: Two Poets Under One Roof By E.L. Freifeld & Lois Michal Unger Elements & Angels By Apryl Skies
“Ekphrasis poetry is tricky: it should never rely too heavily on the artwork to carry the concept, but it should also not wander so far away from the original inspiration that the reader cannot connect the two. Mr. Willitts' new collection, Art Is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees, manages just the right balance between the visual and the textual —his poems evoke the emotional color of the impressionist works upon which they are based, yet they never lose their sense of place as literary art. The poems nudge the reader toward an emotional understanding of impressionism with subtle imagery and the skilled use of poetic devices (the personification in "Frieze-Like Composition is lovely). Mr. Willitts' ability to draw the reader into his characters’ lives is particularly well done, adding an extra layer to the lush paintings which inspired the poems. For someone who loves both poetry and art, this is a collection not to be missed!” Christine Klocek-Lim 2009 Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize Winner for poetry “This is a smart book combining the muse and inspiration, light and color, lust and art, sex and color. Like the paintings described the poems are impressionistic, both lyrical and factual, the poems suggest rather than state, they allude, they use figurative language to paint what isn’t spoken. He says, “I would hold emptiness like a woman’s waist.” Read these poems with a book of Impressionist paintings to get the full impact of this rare blending.” Helen Ruggieri, author of Butterflies under a Japanese Moon (Kitsune Books) and Glimmer Girls (Mayapple Press)