noun
the use of detailed description of a work of visual art as a literary device.
ek·phra·sis
/ˈekfrəsəs/
HAVING A WEB SITE IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO ME, NOT ONLY FOR KEEPING CLIENTS, FRIENDS, COLLECTORS AND GALLERIES , JURORS AND ASSOCIATIONS UPDATED, BUT IT GIVES ME A PLACE TO HOUSE MY WORKS AND THE DEVELOPMENTS IN MANY OF THE PIECES AND SERIES I CREATE. BUT AS ANY ARTIST OR BUSINESS MODEL WILL TELL YOU, UPDATING A CREATIVE AND EVER CHANGING ARTISTIC WEBSITE IS A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF INPUT AND WORK. COMBINED WITH STUDIO TIME, DEVELOPING ARTISTS STATEMENTS, ENTERING AND EXHIBITING NEW WORK, WELL LETS SAY THE WEBSITE NEVER FEELS TIMELY ENOUGH.
ITS NOW OCTOBER 2026, LOTS GOING ON- THE RIVER VALLEY ART TOUR IS THIS WEEKEND OCT 9-1 AND MY EKPHRASTIC WORKSHOP AT MERCY BY THE SEA IS ON OCTOBER 22- SIGN UP NOW, SE ON THE MERCY BY THE SEA WEBSITE- LOOK UNDER PROGRAMS-SEATS ARE LIMITED AND I TELL YOU, ITS A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE IN THAT BEAUTIFUL PLACE BY THE SEA.
THIS IS MY RECENT UPDATE, BUT I ENCOURAGE VISITORS TO EMAIL ME (EDWARDLENT@ICLOUD.COM) TO SET UP A GALLERY/STUDIO VISIT AS WELL AS FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM- (@Poetry Trust_EzraLovecroft) WHAT BEGAN AS A POETRY CONTENT HAS NOW SWITCHED OVER TO MORE OF AN ART AND OCCASIONALLY POETRY AND ALL THINGS ED INFORMATION PAGE. THIS WEBSITE IS WHERE POETRY AND ART COMBINE EASIEST AS I DEVELOP PIECES FOR MY STUDIO, STUDENTS, COLLECTORS AND LOCAL ART EXHIBITIONS SO, WELCOME TO MY ART, HERE ARE MY CURRENT WORKS AND UPDATES. ENJOY! I LOOK FORWARD TO MEETING YOU AT ONE OF MY SHOWS OR EVENTS.
BIGGEST UPDATE OF 2026 WAS BEING SELECTED FOR AND EXHIBITING AT THE FLORENCE GRISWOLD ART MUSEUM IN OLD LYME, CONNECTICUT, I am number 18 in the show and it runs until November 4th. go and have lunch in the cafe or try the Old Lyme Inn, across the street.
AND
ART HEALS 2 IS BACK ON 0CT 22 AT MECY BY THE SEA.
Thursday, October 22, 2026, 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
MERCY BY THE SEA, MADISON, CT. REGISTRATION IS CURRENTLY OPEN, YOU CAN REGISTER DIRECTLY ON THEIR WEBSITE.
$90 includes lunch
About this offering
In the serene, shoreline setting of Mercy by the Sea, learn Ekphrastic writing, the art of writing in response to visual art with multifaceted experience of artistic appreciation, writing prompts, guided observances and healing practices. The Ekphrastic approach opens a fresh way into writing: starting from seeing → feeling → writing, rather than beginning with the blank page. It combines visual art (assorted art pieces, art processes, art of nature observances) with creative writing; engaging participants on multiple sensory levels – visual and visceral.
The workshop is for beginners, creative artists and writers who will all find entry points. Visual artists may respond with images and then find words; writers may deepen their craft via art; beginners will be guided to learn a structured yet open-ended practice of how visual prompts affect our memories, feelings and how to write from there. The dialogue between art and writing fosters reflection, observation, metaphor and voice, helping participants move from what I see to what I feel to what this means.
This offering is meant to build community by sharing experience in viewing + writing + discussion and through awareness of nature as well as awareness of self and others.
About the presenters
The day-program will be co-facilitated by Sarah Grote, award-winning artist and gallery director of Essex Art Association and president of Connecticut Women Artists with Ed Lent, Madison, Conn’s first Poet Laureate. Ed is a published poet, Ekphrastic poetry expert and artist.
MADISON 200/AMERICA 250 CELEBRATION AT THE MADISON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
I WAS VERY HAPPY TO CELEBRATE WITH MANY OF OUR TOWNS PRESTIGIOUS DIRECTORS AND CREATE A SPECIAL ORIGINAL POEM FOR THE OCCASION. IT WAS A GLORIOUS DAY AND THE KICK-OFF TO SO MANY OTHER WONDERFUL EVENTS FOR OUR LOVELY AND HISTORIC TOWN OF MADISON, CONNECTICUT 1826-2026
For this poem I wanted a dignified, commemorative tone that focuses on community, continuity, stewardship, and the passage of two centuries. Rather than a generic anniversary title, I leaned toward something that sounds timeless and worthy of a bicentennial celebration. By Many Hands, By Many Hearts written by Edward Alan Lent, THE FIRST POET LAUREATE OF MADISON, June 2026 in honor of Madison’s 200th Celebration. Presented at the Madison Historical Society, June 13, 2026.
BY MANY HANDS, BY MANY HEARTS
Before the maps and boundary lines,
Before the harbor’s frame,
The Hammonasset people thrived
And knew this land by name.
They shared their wisdom of these shores,
Its seasons, tides, and way;
Without their guidance and their care,
Some newcomers might not have stayed.
They knew the rivers, fields, and tides,
The gifts each season gave;
Their knowledge helped these “new neighbors” learn
And offered paths to brave.
Where wooded hills met tidal light
And salt first touched the field,
A town took shape in studied sight
From all that earth would yield.
With carried tools and simple bread,
With hope and prayer under this new world sun,
They cleared the land, raised homes, soon spread,
And learned to live as one.
From schoolhouse bell to shoreline breeze,
From furrowed rows to sail,
Each generation sought to please
The promise they couldn’t allow to fail.
Through times of change and times of doubt,
Through sorrow, joy, and care,
The town held fast, then reached back out
To welcome those who’d dare.
So stands the name Madison, Connecticut, the land of many parts
Two hundred seasons grown—
By many hands, by many hearts
That called this place their own.
Not born of one, but shaped by all
Who planned, who built, who came,
By every rise and every fall
That taught us why we name
This town a home, this shore a trust, we keep their sacred vow
This future ours to tend
A living thread of then and now
That time will not unbend.
May kindness be our legacy,
May service be our art,
May every soul who walks these streets walk open and be free,
Feel history in their heart.
So, as we mark two hundred years
From looking back while living forward, each in grateful view,
We honor all who brought us here
And all who’ll lead us through.
LIBERTAS ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD 48” X 48” ON VIEW NOW AT THE FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM TILL NOVEMBER 8TH 2026.
I WAS VERY HAPPY TO BE ONE OF 85 ARTISTS SELECTED FROM CONNECTICUT TO EXHIBIT IN THIS BICENTENNIAL SHOW. BELOW: FRIENDS AND FELLOW EXHIBITED ARTISTS, ANDRIA ALEX AND SARA GROTE.
A SECOND MOST WONDERFUL EVENT WAS BEING JURIED INTO THE ESSEX ART ASSOCIATION SUMMER SHOW; “SAIL AWAY” AND WINING BEST MIXED MEDIA BY JUROR KERRY KINCY FOR MY
36X 24 PIECE
A THOUSAND SMALL BEARINGS; A MAP FOR BECOMING
MIXED MEDIA OF ACRYLIC, COTTON FABRICS, OIL CHALKS, THREAD. 2026 950.00
THIS PIECE WAS ALSO SELECTED TO BE IN THE 51ST JURIED SHOW AT THE MADISON ART SOCIETY AND WILL BE ON EXHIBIT FROM AUGUST 3RD TILL AUGUST 28TH. THE RECEPTION WILL BE HELD ON THURSDAY AUGUST 20TH FROM 5;50-7;30 AT THE MADISON LIBRARY GALLERY, ALL WELCOME, NO RSVP REQUIRED.
NEW WORK 2026 a selection of things to come
8th Annual River Valley Art Tour
October 10 -12, 2026
10 am - 5 pm Saturday & Sunday
10 am - 3 pm Monday
I am one of 8 artist showing and selling at the ESSEX ART ASSOCIATION GALLERY AT 10 NORTH MAIN STREET IN ESSEX. THE OPENIUNG RECEPTION IS FRIDAY OCT 9TH FROM 5-7 AND THE SHOW RUNS ALL WEEKEND. ILL HAVE SPECIAL SALE PRICES ON MY NEW AND ARCHIVAL WORKS SO. ITS A VERY GOOD TIME TO PURCHASE A GREAT NEW PIECE OF ART FROM MY COLLECTION TO YOURS. THE 44 MEMBERS WILL ALSO HAVE 1 PIECE ON DISPLAY AS WELL. IY LOOKS TO BE A HIGHLIGHT OF VARIETY OF THE SHOW.
The annual River Valley Art Tour winds through the three enchanting riverside towns of Essex, Chester and Deep River. Visit the work spaces, studios and galleries of local artists in a wide variety of media.
The tour features local River Valley Artists who will all be on hand at different locations where they create to show you their work and explain their process. In some incidences artists are sharing a space so you will be able to see the diverse work of several artists under one roof. All art will be for sale, much of it at particularly reasonable prices, and in many locations, beverages and snacks will be served.
If you live further afield and would like us to mail you a brochure that includes a map, list of artists and images for each artist, please email: claudiavannes@aol.com.
We can’t wait to meet you. Please come by, say hi and see and or purchase some great art from EALENT. My work often includes an artists statement as well as an ekphrastic poem I wrote on the work. This is a very important part of the provenance of the piece for its overall value, not just today but decades from now.
Below are several examples that will be at the show and available to collectors
Where the Blue Begins
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artistic Statement
Where the Blue Begins explores that luminous place where sea and sky nearly dissolve into one another. Soft passages of white, blue and gray suggest movement, distance, and the quiet optimism of an open horizon. Rather than describing a specific landscape, the painting offers a feeling: the promise that beyond what we can see, something beautiful is beginning.
Where the Blue Begins
The sea keeps no hard border,
only a blue suggestion
beneath the light.
Clouds loosen themselves
into distance,
and somewhere beyond seeing,
the day opens
wide enough
for hope to enter.
At the Edge of Something Vast: 41°21’N, 72°25’W
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas
Here,
where the river remembers
its longing for the sea,
I stand.
The coordinates are known. The horizon is not.
Light gathers
along the distant line as if the world
is thinking of beginning again.
Clouds drift across the sky’s unwritten page,
their shapes dissolving before they can be named.
Nothing asks to be certain.
Not the tide. Not the wind. Not the future.
Only this invitation: to look
Beyond what you can measure. Beyond what you can hold.
There is a widening.
A blue distance calling itself possibility.
The water keeps no map of what comes next.
Still, every voyage begins here—
at the threshold, at the turning,
at the place where courage and curiosity become the same thing.
And somewhere beyond sight, beyond weather, beyond knowing,
the vastness waits not as an ending but as an opening.
These two poems mirror the relationship between the paintings. The first is about navigation and becoming; the second is about threshold and possibility. Together they create the same arc that thge titles do: first finding one’s bearings, then standing at the edge of the unknown and choosing to move toward it
Modern Interior with Orange Chair
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artist Statement
Modern Interior with Orange Chair uses bold architectural divisions, luminous color, and graphic marks to create an interior that feels both constructed and imagined. The orange chair becomes the emotional center of the composition, set against deep black and electric blue. Window-like grids and abstract white forms suggest order, while irregular marks and shifting surfaces interrupt that stability. The result is a room that exists somewhere between memory, design, and psychological space.
Orange Chair
The room has divided itself
into blue and night.
A white window
counts the darkness
into squares.
Below it,
an orange chair
burns
quietly
not waiting,
not lonely,
simply certain
of its own color.
Around it
the walls keep secrets,
the marks refuse explanation,
and still the chair remains:
a small bright declaration
that someone belongs here.
Modern Interior with Red Chair
36 X 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artist Statement
Modern Interior with Red Chair explores the emotional life of an interior through simplified forms, saturated color, and suggestion rather than realism. The chair becomes more than furniture: it is a stand-in for presence, memory, and the person who may have just left or perhaps may still be expected. The window grid, painted floor, and bright surrounding color create a room that feels both playful and slightly unsettled, hovering between domestic comfort and private mystery.
The Red Chair
Someone was here.
The room remembers.
A red chair waits
beneath a window
that opens only into black.
Green presses against the walls,
yellow holds its square of light,
and even the little blue stool
seems to listen.
Nothing moves
yet the room
is full
of someone
who has just stepped away.
WE WERENT ALWAYS BROKEN
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Based on the painting
We Weren’t Always Broken
By Edward Lent, Poet Laureate Madison, Ct.
We weren’t always broken
ONCE there was a space
Wide breathing,
COLOR without conflict,
a SELF that didn’t need to be held together so tightly.
Somewhere
along the way
the lines came in sharp necessary
drawn to make sense of what didn’t.
They multiplied
overlapping crossing
turning feeling into framework
turning survival into structure.
And still beneath it all something kept moving.
Soft greens remembered long walks
blues refused to fade along the calm shoreline
in quiet currents that never fully left.
This is how it begins again:
not with sudden wholeness,
but with small openings
a line that ebbs and flows,
a breath that deepens,
a moment that doesn’t collapse under its own weight.
You don’t have to tear it all down.
You don’t have to rush the change.
Just find ONE place
where the structure softens,
where the color comes through,
where YOU can stand without bracing.
That is enough
for now.
Because even here,
even like this
healing is just a few steps away.
Slow Fragility
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artist Statement
Slow Fragility reflects the quiet, cumulative violence of a warming world. The pale vertical drips suggest ice, rain, thaw, and erosion—forms that appear delicate even as they record environmental instability. A fractured horizon divides the composition, while scattered blue marks and submerged color hint at what remains beneath a changing surface.
Hand-sewn threads protrude from the painting like fragile fibers, cracks, veins, or remnants of something once held together. Their physical presence extends the work beyond the painted surface, suggesting that climate change is not distant or abstract, but material, tactile, and already entering our lived world.
The work is less about catastrophe than about vulnerability: the slow disappearance of boundaries, the weakening of structures, and the unsettling beauty of a landscape in the process of becoming something else.
Melting
It does not happen
all at once.
First, a line loosens.
Then another.
White becomes water,
water becomes distance.
Threads lift
from the surface
like nerves exposed to air.
The horizon softens.
Something once solid
forgets its shape.
And still
the world glistens
beautiful even as it disappears.
The Sea Kept the Message
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artist Statement
The Sea Kept the Message explores communication that exists beyond literal language. A vertical field of calligraphic marks suggests a message, letter, or fragment of memory, yet its meaning remains intentionally uncertain. Around it, deep blues, turbulent white passages, and flashes of yellow create the sensation of something carried through water, weather, and time.
The work considers the possibility that not everything meaningful needs to be understood intellectually. Some messages are felt before they are known. Like the sea itself, emotion can hold what language cannot fully contain. The painting asks us to trust what we recognize inwardly, even when we cannot translate it into words.
The Sea Kept the Message
I found your words
after the tide had touched them.
Not readable,
not lost.
The sea had taken
what could be explained
and left behind
what could only be felt.
I held the page
without understanding,
and still
my heart knew
it was meant for me.
The Language Between Us
36 × 24 acrylic on canvas 2026
Artist Statement
The Language Between Us reflects on the imperfect ways we try to understand one another. The central white field resembles a page, tablet, or private alphabet, surrounded by layers of color, marks, fragments, and visual noise. Some symbols feel almost familiar, yet resist translation.
The painting suggests that our deepest connections often exist beyond ordinary speech. We communicate through gesture, memory, intuition, silence, and feeling. There are truths we may never be able to explain completely, but somehow recognize within ourselves. The work embraces that mysterious territory between knowing and understanding — the place where meaning lives before language gives it a name.
The Language Between Us
There were words
we never learned to say.
Signs without grammar,
marks without names,
a language made
of pauses, glances,
and what remained
after speaking failed.
I could not translate you.
You could not translate me.
And yet, somewhere
beneath all that noise,
something understood.
The heart, perhaps,
reading fluently
what the mind
could not.
End of 2025 input-
HARD TO BELIEVE THAT 2025 IS ENDING, WHAT A YEAR OF AMAZING EXPERIENCES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. SOME WERE SET AND SOME JUST SORT OF SHOWED UP AND I FOLLOWED THE BREAD CRUMBS I GUESS.
THAT SORT OF IS A MUSING ON LIFE IN GENERAL- THAT OLD SAYING THAT YOU MAKE PLANS AND THEN LIFE HAPPENS.
GLASS HOUSES ‘BLUEPRINT’ SERIES, EACH IS 36H BY 24 W, LIQUIDTEX ACRYLIC,
650.00 EACH- EA LENT 2025
LEFT; TOWN OF TRANSCENDENCE. SOLD
MIDDLE; THE CATHEDRAL. SOLD
RIGHT; TOWN OF RENEWAL.
Artist’s Spotlight
SOME NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN 2025 THAT I SEE CONTINUING ON IN 2026 IN MY ARTISTIC JOURNEY. THE GALLERY/STUDIO IN LYME IS OPEN-! JUST CALL 203-807-0194 TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT. ALTHOUGH STILL MUCH WORK AHEAD, I CAN NO LONGER ONLY SHOW AT THE THE GUILFORD, MADISON, ESSEX AND LYME ART ASSOCIATION SHOWS TO REACH COLLECTORS AND THE PUBLIC.
CONTINUING ON THE SUCCESS OF THE WATER LILY SERIES, ITS EVOLVED TO WATER GARDEN SERIES WITH THE ADDITION OF GELATOS PIGMENT OVER SKETCH TO THE LIQUIDTEX ACRYLIC COLOR BASE AND A REFLECTIVE SORT OF ROOT SYSTEM IN THE WHITE DRIP EFFECT.
The WATER Garden- far right has been accepted to the Lyme Art Association first juried show of 2026- THE ARTISTS GARDEN. the Show opens on Sunday jan 11- from 2 pm-4 pm and runs till Feb 20th.
THE WATER LILY SERIES STARTED AS AN ABSTRACTED COLOR STUDY AND THEN BECAME A WAY OF ENTERING INTO A FLORAL MOTIF, ONE I TEND TO REJECT, YET MAKING SOMETHING ‘PRETTY’ IS ONLY AN END RESULT. COLOR IN ITS SELF IS EITHER PRETTY, BLUE GREEN AND PINK ARE SOFT AND NATURAL COLOR STORIES- ADD IN A LEAF OR FLOWER SHAPE AND YOU GET A RATHER RECOGNIZABLE IMAGE THA THE EYE WANTS TO SEE AS ‘FLORAL’. ID MUCH LIKE TO PAINT THE FEELING OF WATER LILLIES THAN ACTUAL REPRESENTATIVE IMAGES OR DETAILS OF A WATER LILY BUT PROOF THAT NOT ONLY IS BEAUTY IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER BUT STRENGTH. THE EVOLUTION TO WATER GARDEN ALLOWS ME TO USE THE SAME PALETTE BUT PLAY WITH AN ILLUSION OF REFLECTION AND TRANSPARENCY. EACH IS 36 H BY 24 WIDE. $550.00 LIQUIDTEX ACRYLIC WITH FARBER-CASTELL GELATOS PIGMENT.
Artist’s Spotlight
“SPRINGING OUT OF THE EARTH
ACRYLIC, CRAY-PAS, CHALK
36 X 30 $525.00
Lilies began in 2024 but it wasn’t a subject that I wanted to explore until I found my voice in a more abstract and expressionist way. Although I personally enjoy nature, gardening, plants and flowers realism certainly is the norm for most artists. I was seeking a more abstract way to represent both the floral concept as well as the painterly expression of the materials I use, acrylic for flow, tempera for accentuating colors and cray-pas, an oil base material which resists the water based acrylic but gets layered into the backdrop as an almost textural and highlighted pattern, the black spatter is an almost calligraphic accent which adds an almost asian inspired detail. Inspired by Asiatic Lilies and the perfection of the imperfection of a Casa- Blanca lily ( my favorite) I’m very happy top continue this series.
Other themes in 2025 works will be
CALLIGRAPHY,
Ameobas
and the very popular-
Sky Mirror Series
WATER LILLIES,
details
RAINY DAY SAMURAI SAKE ON THE BULLET TRAIN TO KYOTO- ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 2025 WITH CUSTOM FRAME, POEM ON REVERSE SIDE. APPROX 26 X 28. COLLECTION OF THE ARTIST. AVAILABLE FOR SALE $850.00
THIS PIECE REPRESENTS A NEW DIRECTION IN MY WORK. BORDERING ON A SURREALIST APPROACH WHERE THE SUBJECT AND CONTENT EVOLVE FROM A DISTANT MEMORY OF AN EXPERIENCE. THERE IS A CALLIGRAPHIC IMAGE REPRESENTED THAT IS ONLY TO EVOKE AN ASAIN SENSE. IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD BUT RATHER TO ACCENT THE PIECE AS WELL AS DISTANCE THE VIEWER FROM ACTUALLY KNOWING THE SUBJECT. I WANT THE VIEWER TO HAVE A VISCERAL UNDERSTANDING FROM THE VISUAL LANGUAGE OF COLOR, FORM AND SYMBOLISM. THIS PIECE IS CURRENTLY ON EXHIBIT WITH THE MAS- MADISON ART SOCIETY 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW FEB- MARCH 2025
ARTIST RECEPTION, OPENING AT SALE IS FEB 27, 2025 FROM 5-7 PM AT THE MADISON LIBRARY, MADISON, CONNECTICUT
FOR INSTANCE THE WHITE “FAN LIKE SHAPE”, THE FAUX CALLIGRAPHY ACCENTS AND EVEN THE FRAME STYLED TO EKOKE THE ARMOR OF EDO ERA SAMURAI ALL MIX WITH THE RIPPLE LIKE CIRCULAR SHAPES THAT REFERENCE THE RIPPLES ON THE SURFACE OF THE PUDDLE THAT THE POEMS CHARACTER HAS PULLED HIS FOOT FROM.
Walking like a crab, I step sideways to avoid the run off rounding the curb. Suddenly my umbrella punches another, cold spray slaps my face, it tastes like dirty metal.
My foot submerges into a lake of a puddle.
My foot pulls up and ripples appear from the dripping below my shoe.
a foil label swims by a button, a torn gum wrapper, a drowned weed. The neon sign is reflected on the surface, it wiggles.
I arrive at the train and shape myself to a seat. Glossy girls in plastic ponchos squeeze past me as I squirm to sit.
Later I get two hot sakes to stay warm.
The illustration of a samurai on the label has a helmet on that’s stylized after a great octopus. A blurry landscape whizzes by at 120 miles an hour. I feel I am in an aquarium and the flashing street lights make me think it’s feeding time or something is getting close to my tank. Im tired, wet and the seat is too small. I tip my head back close my eyes and sleep. I dream I will be a giant squid by the time we reach Tokyo. No one can stop me.
SEVERAL DECADES AGO WHEN I WOULD SPEND WEEKS IN JAPAN I WOULD FEEL, ALONE, LOST AND ALIENATED. I WAS THE VISUAL DIRECTOR OF THE GREAT CHINA MANUFACTURER, NORITAKE CHINA COMPANY. THEY WERE WONDERFUL AND INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO TOOK GREAT CARE OF ME WHEN I WAS THERE WORKING WITH CREATING SHOWROOMS IN TOKYO OR NAGOYA. YET, ON MY DAYS OUT ALONE, IT WOULD BE OBVIOUS THAT I WAS A FOREIGN VISITOR. UNLIKE OTHER LANGUAGES THAT USE OUR ALPHABET, OR LATIN ORIGINS, CALLIGRAPHY MAKES EVEN SIMPLE UNDERSTANDINGS IMPOSSIBLE. SO I WOULD DRIFT THROUGH STREETS AND SHOPS AND RESTAURANTS AND FEEL LIKE I WAS CHILD AT TIMES. YET THE GREAT MUSEMS AND CULTURAL SITES NEEDED NO WORDS TO ME. I VISUALLY ABSORBED THE CRAFT, THE STYLES, THE DETAILS AND WORKMANSHIP OF IT ALL. FROM BONSAI GARDENS TO IKEBANA DISPLAYS TO SHINTO TEMPLES, JAPAN IS A VISUAL EXPLOSION OF ARTISTIC DESIGN. MANY OF THE RESTAURANTS HAVE PLASTIC REPRESENTATIONS ON DISPLAY OF THE FOODS ON THE MENU, SO EATING WAS JUST A MATTER OF POINTING AND A FEW LINES OF JAPANESE I COULD SPEAK ( WATER PLEASE-MIZU KUDASI-THANKS-DOMO. DOMO IS LIKE ARIGATO BUT A SHORTER SLANG. IT TRANSLATES TO ‘VERY MUCH’ BUT LIKE ARIGATO MEANS THANKS. ANYWAY!- I WOULD DRINK SAKE AND NOT THAT I WOULD OVER INDULGE, BUT I ADMIT, THE EDGES WERE SOFTENED.. SO FROM THIS SORT OF FRAGMENTED MEMORY, THIS PAINTING AND THIS POEM ARRIVED.
CATCHING MY REFLECTION AT THE WINDOW AT BERGDOF’S
2004 ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, CUSTOM HAND MADE FRAME, APPROX 27 X 29
$850.00
THIS NEW PIECE FROM SUMMER OF 2024 IS STILL ANOTHER ABSTRACTION WITH A SURREALIST INTENT. IMAGES OF COLORFUL AND ABSTRACT SHAPES ARE SOMEWHAT CAPTURED BEHIND BARS OF BLACK PAINT. SOMETHING IS GOING ON IN THE EARLY LAYERS OF THE PAINTING WHICH VIEWERS NEED TO WONDER ABOUT. LIKE EXOTIC CREATURES AT A ZOO OR LIKE FASHION UNDER GLASS, WE ARE ABLE TO LOOK AND NOT TOUCH, THE SEPARATION WORKS TO NOT LET SOMETHING OUT OR ANOTHER THING IN. BERGDORF GOODMAN TO ME IS ONE OF THE FINEST RETAILERS FOR USING THEIR WINDOWS TO CREATE A SPECTACLE, AN ILLUSTRIOUS SETTING FOR A RARE OR LIMITED ITEM OF CLOTHING. THE UNIQUE DISPLAY OR SITUATION CREATES A FANTASY OR SURREAL ENVIRONMENT. THIS MAKES THE VIEWER STOP AND WONDER WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? OF COURSE THE STAR OF THE SCENE IS THE DRESS OR THE FASHION EXHIBITED SO THE VIEWER MUST IMAGINE WHAT MIGHT IT FEEL LIKE TO WEAR THIS? WILL I FEEL AS UNIQUE OR SPECIAL AS THIS SUBJECT DOES? ITS NOT A MATTER OF “HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGY IN THE WINDOW?” IN A SENSE, BUT HOW DO I GET THAT ITEM THAT WILL MAKE ME FEEL LIKE THE MOST WONDERFUL AND AMAZING BEING ON EARTH?
AGAIN, THE SUBJECT IS COMPLETELY IMAGINED FROM AN INSTANTANEOUS MEMORY OF SEEING MY REFECTION IN THE WINDOW OF THIS HIGHLY CREATIVE AND PRESTIGIOUS RETAILER THAT TAKES THE SPECIAL TO SUBLIME.
Catching My Reflection in the Window at Bergdorf’s -
It is the place of dreams under glass.
A reality from another wonderland.
Alices in $10,000.00 dresses,
mad hatters in Tom Ford tuxedos
going to a midnight party
at the penthouse of Aladdin
on New Year’s Eve.
You can ride an ostrich
to a tea party.
The forest is covered
in tiny mirror tiles.
Typewriters
can fly.
People pass behind me.
We are all just shadows and glimmers
stuck in a world of noisy skies
of dirty air.
They remind me how thick the glass really is.
Yet I stare in for just a few seconds more,
imagining the secret password
is on the tip of my
brightly polished
sterling silver
tongue.
As Above, So Below
As Above, So Below
"As Above, So Below" by Ed Lent, writing as Ezra Lovecroft, is a collection of poems that transform ordinary moments into extraordinary psychological and visual experiences. The poems are inspired by a miraculous encounter Ezra had after a mobility scooter accident, wherein the fantastical meets the mundane. This book invites readers to explore the profound and often unseen connections between everyday life and the mystical.