Mary B. McArdle writes about...

“Phantom Horses”

I asked Mary McArdle whether “Phantom Horses” were a “feminist manifesto.” Of course I was kidding; I just wanted to point out that it could be taken that way. Mary replies that no, it’s a depiction of artwork.

Hi, Don,

Poem looks fine. No, nothing feminist, but mysterious, yes. Fantasy — I wrote this one from a piece of watercolor pencil art I did that my granddaughter (eight-year-old Christie, who rides) snatched out of my house and took home.

I like art with unlikely combinations, like urns and horses. This one has an urn with a gray and white horse coming from behind it, red flowers, a bright blue background, and further off two roans, mother and child, and a palamino.

The flowers are awful: I can do better ones now, but my art teacher from last year said the focal point was really the palomino.

I love to draw horses, cats, flowers and still life and combine them. One of my experiments is a purple shaded teapot in a dogwood tree with an eagle sitting on it, on black matte board. Fun, fun, fun. Soon I may be ready to submit art, as soon as my daughter puts in my Kodak software on this new computer.

Mary

Copyright © 2007 by Mary Brunini McArdle

It’s great to see such a multi-talented person as yourself exploring new art media. One never knows where it will lead. And sure, when you’re ready, we’d be glad to see your pictures.

I still think “Phantom Horses” can be read as a feminist manifesto, if one wishes, even though that was not your intent. Maybe the lesson is that words can suggest forms and colors while art can depict them. And an emphasis in one medium may not have the same effect as the same emphasis in another medium.

And yet, as we always say, a picture is worth a thousand words because a thousand words may be needed to explain what the picture means.

Don