The Power Of Words At The Clare Gallery
I believe that words have power—to inspire and comfort us and to increase our awareness and affect both personal and communal change. In the late 16th century, Michel de Montaigne wrote, “I quote others to better express myself.” Here in the early 21st century, I take great sustenance from a beautifully phrased expression of a universal truth. I feel a deep connection across time and space with my fellow inhabitants of this earth. I have chosen quotes that are a continuing source of renewal for me. Each time I read them, they speak to me with fresh energy. I hope their immediacy and power will speak to you as well. The lettering was done on site at the Clare Gallery before an audience with black liquid acrylic, a 1.25" flat brush, and paper with no guidelines or prior sketching on the paper.
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The Power of Words--Clare Gallery—Franciscan Center for Urban Ministry—285 Church Street—Hartford, CT—January 15-March 10, 2017
Maya Angelou
1928-2014 from Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, 1993 "The New Testament informs the reader that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. The size and substance of the gift should be important to the recipient, but not to the donor save that the best thing one can give is that which is appreciated. The giver is as enriched as is the recipient, and more important, that intangible but very real psychic force of good in the world is increased." When I think of Maya Angelou, I think of her voice almost as much as her words. Even if I’ve never heard her speak these particular words, I can hear her voice reading them. This quote expresses so well the deep effect of giving on the giver. |
Albert Camus
1913–1960 from The Rebel, 1951 "La vraie générosité envers l'avenir consiste à tout donner au présent." I read Camus in French Literature classes in high school and college and always loved his philosophy and language. He expressed an earthy humility and tenderness as he grappled with existential questions. |
Emily Dickinson
1830-1886 Poem 466 "I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise –" I love the poetry of Emily Dickinson—the crystalline ambiguity of her language and her connection to nature. I take to heart her call to “dwell in possibility.” |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882 from Lectures and Biographical Sketches: Education "Now the correction of this quack practice is to import into Education the wisdom of life. Leave this military hurry and adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience. Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river-bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log. These creatures have no value for their time, and he must put as low a rate on his. " Emerson was referring to the education of children when he wrote this, but I think this quote speaks to us all. My other favorite quote on patience comes from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. The passage ends with “Patience is all,” which was too short for this project and best understood in context with the rest of the paragraph. |
Jack Kerouac
1922-1969 from 30 Beliefs and Techniques for Writing Modern Prose 1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy 2. Submissive to everything, open, listening 3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house 4. Be in love with yr life 5. Something that you feel will find its own form 6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind 7. Blow as deep as you want to blow 8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind 9. The unspeakable visions of the individual 10. No time for poetry but exactly what is 11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest 12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you 13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition 14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time 15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog 16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye 17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself 18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea 19. Accept loss forever 20. Believe in the holy contour of life ... When I moved to the Lowell area in 1978, I became immersed in Kerouac's books, especially the ones set in Lowell. I felt his spirit in the streets and canals of the mill city. What makes his work so powerful to me is the tender and spiritual soul at the core of his driving prose. |
Mary Oliver
1935-2019 from Evidence: Poems, 2010 It Was Early "It was early, which has always been my hour to begin looking at the world and of course, even in the darkness, to begin listening into it, especially under the pines where the owl lives and sometimes calls out as I walk by, as he did on this morning. So many gifts! What do they mean? In the marshes where the pink light was just arriving the mink with his bristle tail was stalking the soft-eared mice, and in the pines the cones were heavy, each one ordained to open. Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed. Little mink, let me watch you. Little mice, run and run. Dear pine cone, let me hold you as you open." While Mary Oliver wrote these words about her experience in nature, I like to think of this as my supermarket line quote. We can be blessed anywhere and everywhere. |
Eleanor Roosevelt
1884-1962 This quote was first attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt in an issue of Reader’s Digest in 1940. No evidence of it has been found in her writings or speeches. However, the Quote Investigator has written this: The Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration was invited to give a speech at the University of California, Berkeley on the Charter Day of the school. The customary host of the event was unhappy because she felt that the chosen speaker should not have been a political figure. She refused to serve as the host and several newspaper commentators viewed her action as a rebuff and an insult. Eleanor Roosevelt was asked at a White House press conference whether the Secretary had been snubbed, and her response was widely disseminated in newspapers. Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press article [ERNC]: “A snub” defined the first lady, “is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.” I included it because I think it is an expression of her thoughts and it has been inspirational to me. Quote Investigator is an excellent place to check the authenticity of quotations. |
Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862 Walden, last lines, 1854 “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” Thoreau is one of the most quotable writers. He says profound things with great economy. It would be easy to have a similar exhibition with only quotes from the Concord Transcendentalist. |
Eudora Welty
1909-2001 One Writer’s Beginnings, 1983, last paragraph “As you have seen, I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.” I read One Writer’s Beginnings when I was just beginning to feel comfortable calling myself an artist. I took strength from her deep commitment to writing and her reflections on her childhood. |
John Greenleaf Whittier
1807-1892 My Psalm, 1859 I MOURN no more my vanished years: Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. The west-winds blow, and, singing low, I hear the glad streams run; The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun. No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. ... I am a latecomer to the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier which I discovered when I did an outdoor piece at Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay State Park where he had spent time when it was an estate. Through membership in the Whittier Home Association in Amesbury, I have come to learn more about his poetry, both political (abolitionist) and lyrical (nature). |
Click here to see Hartford Courant article about the exhibition.
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Contact Susan to find out how to bring Susan's performance calligraphy to your location.