Happy Thanksgiving week, folks. Let’s continue our scrub, scrub theme and this week spend some time in the bath. Especially those of us heading to large family gatherings – we can’t afford to show up extra-odorous, now, can we?
I can hear that faucet drip already.
Bo Bartlett, Soap, 2010. Oil on panel. www.bobartlett.com
Lee Price, Self Portrait in Tub with Chinese Food, circa 2007-09. Oil on linen. www.leepricestudio.com
Andrew Wyeth, Spring Fed, 1967. Tempera on masonite. Private collection.
It’s late at night, and I should be sleeping. Instead, I’m sitting at my computer, staring at art. So why not make the best of it? This week, let’s all write about sleep.
As for tonight, I’ll consider my sleep-art collecting to be a little precursor to the real thing. Look out, bed, here I come.
Egon Schiele, Sleeping Figure with Blanket, 1910. Watercolor and charcoal on paper. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Garden of Selves, 2001. Photograph. . www.parkeharrison.com
Andrew Wyeth, Marriage, 1993. Tempera on panel. Private collection.
Three Things: The Salt Machine Edition
Happy Monday, dear writers! And welcome to the start of Worth Your Salt: A Fiction Contest!
Beginning today, you have until Friday, January 31st to submit your contest entry: up to 2,000 words of fiction based on one of three prompts (below), each an excerpt from Jeff Smieding’s serial ebook, And In Their Passing, A Darkness: The Salt Machine (Red Sofa Books).
Winning submissions (up to three) will be chosen by judges David Oppegaard (author of The Ragged Mountains), and Esther Porter (Revolver editor). Entry is free!
More contest information, and submission form can be found here.
This week, I’ve paired each contest prompt with a piece of art. Makes you wanna write, no?
One night, near the end of an unusually cool and cloudy summer, it was George’s turn to cry.
Andrew Wyeth, Airborne, 1996. Tempera on panel. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas.
She was tall and thin, with watery eyes and fishbelly white skin.
John Batho, effacés 06, 1998. Photograph. www.johnbatho.com
“Vera?” he called out again. All he could hear was the ratatatat of rain on the leaves and the ground.
Cole Rise, Iceland, 2012. Photograph. Via flickr.
Remember, up to 2,000 words of fiction, submitted before the end of Friday, January 31!
I’ve written before on the beauty of solitude, and I think it’s time for another moment of solitary reflection.
Last time, I featured the work of Edward Hopper to showcase those lost-in-thought moments. This week, I’ve pulled from a few of his contemporaries; behold: three mid-century solo thinkers. Let’s join them with our own wandering minds, yes?
Andrew Wyeth, Sandspit, 1953. Egg tempera on masonite. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Esther Bubley for the OWI, April 1943, Washington D.C. Photograph. Via Shorpy.
Alex Colville, Man on Verandah, 1953. Glazed tempera on board.
