Choosing Paintings for an Exhibition 

An afternoon in the studio.
Sun in the windows.
A wet canvas on an easel.

It is time to choose.
art for a new show,
unsure

which to choose from your museum
of wordless history.
Which palette? Greens and yellows
of growth and hope,

angry reds or deep blues of lostness.
Small and intimate.
Large and bold?
Do you want to sell
or tell your story,
or make a statement?

Does it matter to anyone else
except you?

You breath.
It does not matter.
All you have ever wanted was to empty your heart
and touch others.

Any of them will do.

About this poem

I spent time in the studio yesterday. One of the things I  had to do was pick a group of pictures for a new local show.

I’ve been at this long enough I can create themes, or color washes of paintings, or stories. But I have a tendency to overthink this, so in the end I do the same thing that I do when I paint. I pick what moves me on that particular day.

Perhaps not the most profitable way, but the most honest.

Tom

PS: I blatantly stole the title from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”