The Beauty of the Object: Megan Barron’s wrack line

The grains shall be collected
from the thousand shores
to which they found their way

--Kay Ryan, from “All Shall Be Restored”

Sometime in her early twenties, Megan Barron took some slides, one of which “was intriguing but sadly underexposed.”

It occurred to me to remedy the mistake by trying to make a painting of the image, which I did by peering through the slide held between my fingers.  . . . While I probably gave myself a headache, I was surprised at its turning out well & thought, “Maybe I can do this—paint.”

In her current project, wrack line:  one year of beach finds, illustrated, Barron demonstrates her considerable artistic talent every single day.  The wrack line project, as described by Barron, is “a daily visual journal of what washes ashore.  Every day for a year I will post a new painting or drawing of treasures found during beach walks.”

Riding the Magic Carpet: Daily Painting on the Internet

“Elizabeth says the internet is like a magic carpet,” our artist-friend Barbara reported.  That took me aback.  I’m on the computer all day, every day, for work.  So when it comes to time behind a screen, magic carpet isn’t the phrase that comes to mind.

Things As They Are

"Things as they are/Are changed upon the blue guitar."

-Wallace Stevens

I’ve been troubled by computer problems and an inconstant internet these past few days.  I had to remind myself there was a time when such things were not only unnecessary, but not even available.  I had to think:  what, then, were the things I used to use?

I no longer own a typewriter, so I looked around for a notebook and a pen.  I found them foreign objects, and inefficient.  I looked for a dictionary, but had only a small paperback that didn’t contain what I required.  I wanted confirmation of something I’d been told:  that the etymological root of the word “poet” was “maker.”  Without my usual tools to search, I was thrown back on my own experience for proof.