Rockland, Maine. Art Walk, July, 2013.

                                                Gallery Night

I tumbled through the door—

a force field between the heavy, wet heat of that July evening

and the cool, jazz-filled art space.

It used to be a high-end stationery and art supply store;

now, all dressed up.

I shook off the heat and breathed in the cool air,

looking around to choose a direction to begin my inspection.

The vast oil painting to my left sucked that deep breath right back out of my chest—

I stumbled toward it,

tripping on a fellow gallery hopper,

and forgetting my companions.
It filled the wall, and my heart.

This is art.

This is art!

The joy welled up within as though I had found a long lost question,

One with no answer, and limitless answers.

I breathed again, softly, reverently.

The light, the forms—

the eyes!

I stood so long, my friends moved on,

tucked into the flow of patrons consuming the rest of the images.

Unwillingly,

I stepped away from that beautiful pair of women

dancing on a wide, flat rock by my beloved sea.

I stepped up carefully (wide-eyed) to the next piece,

and the next—

each one more plainly portraying love between the women

caught by the paintbrush of this marvelous man.

Their eyes glowing with life,

their hearts on their proverbial sleeves.

My friend's friend circled back to me at one point 

and asked if I liked them.

I breathed out a mumble of affirmations, unwilling to look away.

The androgyny is captivating, I said.

The way some of the women seem to have a whisper of a five o'clock shadow, a masculine jaw and eyebrows…

No, she said, pressing her authority as an art professor down hard upon me.

They're women, she said, like a door slamming.

I thought art was the beginning, not the end,

The question, not the answer.

I thought art was supposed to be whatever the viewer takes from it.

~~~~~

The paintings are here, if you're interested in seeing for yourself (and I hope you see whatever you see, and that I haven't influenced you unduly).

The artist was interviewed for a Huff Po article and its author nailed my reaction exactly (emphasis added): "If you don't "get" Bartlett you may find his work excessively earnest, but if his paintings pull you in there is a chance you may find yourself wordless and gaping in their presence. That would please the artist very much."