This was an attempt to merge my poetry with my art, so I painted a picture and then spray painted a poem on top of the work. At the time, I was very interested in painting "nets," since we are just caught up in these nets in our lives, be them society, networks of friends, whatever. We live in nets that both trap us within them, but also keep us together as though we would just disintegrate into a billion atoms with out them holding us together. The dripped paint is supposed to represent rain, which goes along with some of the symbolism of the poem.
The poem to me is about letting go of control, and just accepting that you are adrift in a river that is carrying you where ever it wants to take you. That's life. You are caught up in this river, and most people try to fight against it, but if you just drift, if you just let go of this false belief of trying to control things, the river will carry you far far far away. I suppose the river is fate.
"I drift"
Go through my Doorway,
And see them smiling.
See them dreaming at their lives,
They want it all,
clenching it in their fists
Suck down everything,
drink it up like a fairy tale.
I float in rivers too Deep to swim,
too broad to escape.
And who wants to be dry anyways?
The cold river is where I Belong,
where we all Belong.
The undertow is murder, and
no lifeguard is on duty.
They all say to get out, “You’ll drown!” they yell.
Waving their arms like I can’t see them.
Running along the edge,
till they can’t keep up.
I drift.
They cannot stop me.
I sort of feel like this work is a failure. It doesn't really resonate what I had intended. To me, the protagonist in the poem has transcended the need to fight against the current, to struggle against the push of the water. The push of fate. To me, the protagonist is letting go, not trying to escape the net of their life, just accepting it. Some people have looked at it, and thought it was about suicide but that was not my intention. If I painted this now they would probably lock me up. The big thing about this work is that it pushed me into working less with canvas. In making this work, I damaged the canvas and decided it was time to look at new materials such as plywoods
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