“Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water” 90” x 196” oil and acrylic on canvas, 2019. My titles are often snippets from larger texts: poems, prose, little fragments I find while reading or researching... I then try to match them with the paintings and sculptures, so that when the title and artwork are paired together, they might expand or create a richer narrative; that they might open up possibilities for new meaning or context. “Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water” is a fragment from Crystal Williams’ “The Voice of God” (2018) an extrordinary poem that touches on the ways in which the "divine" flowed through Aretha Franklin's voice. The writer described Franklin's voice as an "aggregation of the choruses of the natural world—all of their harmony, complexity, and distinctiveness". Together, that description, and the poem itself, resonated so deeply with what I was attempting to convey in my paintings. The Voice of God by Crystal Williams Poem for Aretha Franklin when she opens her mouth our world swells like dawn on the pond when the sun licks the water & the jay garbles, the whole quiet thing coming into tune, the gnats, frogs, the dandelion pollen, the pebbles & leaves & the whole world of us sitting at the throat of the jay dancing in the throat of the jay all of us on the lip of the jay singing doowop, doowop, do. Copyright © 2018 by Crystal Williams. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 8, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets. #titles #poetry #arethafranklin #poetryhomage #crystalwilliams #americanacademyofpoets #ourworldswllslikedawnwhenthesunlicksthewater #painting #feministutopia #angelafraleigh #inmangallery On view @inmangallery through October 31st. (at Inman Gallery) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGPjx07l-oU/?igshid=aez4ie27u0at
