Early Morning in Wilson

There is a painting by Matisse, made in in 1947 just after the war  called The Silence that lives in Houses. It’s a very strange painting, and I have always loved it, and my interpretation of the image is pretty straightforward. Here we are, a mother and child, perhaps being taught how to read, in a seemingly airless room. The room’s monochromatic palette alludes to the boredom  conjured up by the homework session at hand. A canned death is going one, (though is rather delicious Matissean colours!) Outside, through the window, the world is wild, blowy and unpredictable. There might be pollen in the air, and there sure is noise of the breeze in the trees. It’s as if he is saying… Outside = alive/ Inside = death. 

But, of course any inside/outside combo is bound to offer up this narrative. 

So when an Elk one early morning  visits our host Turner Resor’s  garden on the edge of Wilson Wyoming, and glides past the kitchen window as I am trying to find filters for the coffee machine, I am blown over by the sheer gaiting scale  and majesty of this creature. It passes through in a hush, our respective  worlds of sterile air-conditioned interior versus fecund  intermingled chaos ( what Darwin called the tangled bank) in the natural world are starkly at odds, separated by glass and a sliding double glazed barrier. The experience of wonder and separateness  immediately reminds me of Matisse’s painting. I know where I’d rather be, just like the boy being force-fed that book….  The experience filled my heart with 'rainbow, rainbow rainbow' to steal from Elizabeth Bishop in her poem The Fish.  And I decided to try and make a woodcut about the experience - which was pretty foolish and ever so longwinded.