between the whites

my husband, ian, is an artist.  his current work is a series of charcoal self portraits – intense and magnificent - that are 7 feet high and 5 feet wide.  he starts with a big white paper and spends 3 focused months creating each piece. using his hands or sponges or self-made tools, he rubs and grinds charcoal into the paper’s surface.  I am continually astonished by what he can create out of burnt wood and white paper.

what mystifies me is that he’ll sometimes take a black lump of eraser in his hand and remove days of hard work in order to start over.  but he says that the paper has a memory.  though he can take it back to white, the grit of the paper has changed, inevitable altering the piece.  and what was in fact important was what was learned between white and white.

I’ve been thinking of my new year, my fresh start.  I can wipe my slate clean every year so that the surface is pure as the driven snow, but underneath I am still marked by my past.  the old me informs the new me.

it seems that life - the love, the pain, the growth - lies between the whites.

> > divining < <

birth

ian’s first new york show.  chelsea.  barry friedman.

a few hours before my husband’s art opening, ian and i got to spend a half hour alone with all of his self portraits.  each piece of ian’s leaves his studio once it is finished so we had never before seen all of his pieces in conversation with each other.  strolling through the gallery felt like walking through ian’s memoir.  the past 2 and a half years of our lives are written on those faces.  our move to texas, our marriage, my pregnancy, the birth of koruna….

for a few dreamy moments, it was just me and all of the ians. and i was spellbound.  reluctant to leave, i turned my gaze toward the present ian, the flesh and blood ian.   i took his hand and we stepped from our reverie back out on to the new york city street.  and now we move on….