3/17/2016

A Powerful Print




This print - The Artists Studio by Raoul Dufy - 1935
startled me when I saw it set out on an upper display shelf in the shop at the Phillips Gallery last Sunday. It startled me because it brought back a flood of memories. I had a copy of this print torn from a magazine that I hung in my dorm room when I lived in Hampton House, the nurses home at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1954-56. 

At the time I had not studied art or art history at all. I was drawn to the piece because it was bright and airy and free.

After Jim and I married I used the print in our first apartment in Baltimore, then in our two apartments in Brooklyn, and in two flat 1950s Texas ranch style houses in San Antonio. Once we reached Chapel Hill I think I retired it - but I never let it go. I bet if I went into the studio right now I would find it, faded and a bit beaten up - but still among my things.

It is layered in memories for me - not that I can tell you specifics but the piece brings back feelings an visuals of those place we lived.

So this post is part memoir and maybe someday I will take the time to recall more; to be more specific with what I see and remember. Maybe - at the moment that does not seem needed. The feeling is light and airy just like the image as well as young and happy. What more can I ask for?

1 comment:

Still the Lucky Few said...

Isn't it amazing how life circles us back to our early days? How I enjoy your posts, and your comments on Facebook! You seem to have boundless energy, Ellouise!