yellow

coyotes by David C Schultz

 

yellow is closest to white

the color of the snows of winter –

the closest to white fur

of coyotes –

which turns yellow

in the winter –

to stand out in the snow –

to glow gold in the light –

the blue light of winter, water and wonder.

Yellow

yellow bellows by Neil Waldman

.

bold red steps forward;

blue walks through; while yellow looks

at you and smiles wide

Vincent Van Gogh

collage by Jeanne Poland (Quicksilver)

Vincent Van Gogh

March 30 is the birthday of the artist who wrote, “To do good work, one must eat well, be well housed, have one’s fling from time to time, smoke one’s pipe, and drink one’s coffee in peace”: Vincent van Gogh, born in Groot-Zundert, Holland, in 1853. Not much is known about his childhood, except that he was one of six children, a quiet boy, not especially drawn to artistic pursuits. He worked for a time in an art gallery in The Hague as a young man, then left to follow in his clergyman father’s footsteps as a sort of missionary to the poor. His behavior was erratic, but his family supported him as best they could. And while he didn’t last too long as an evangelist, he felt a kinship with the working classes — an affinity demonstrated again and again in his painting.

It was his brother Theo who urged Vincent to become an artist. Vincent had never had any formal training, nor displayed any overt talent, and he was doubtful about his chances for success, as were his parents. But Theo was persistent, and he would prove to be Vincent’s unfailing source of financial, emotional, and artistic support. Vincent taught himself to draw, and later took lessons. By 1886, he moved to Paris to live with Theo, and discovered that the muted palette he had used in his early work was woefully out of date. He adapted without too much trouble to the more vibrant hues of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and it wasn’t long before he began to view color as the chief conveyer of emotion, even using it to illustrate abstract themes.

In 1888, he moved to the south of France, to Arles, in search of light and sun, hoping to form an artists’ colony with his friend Paul Gauguin. He began painting sunflowers to decorate Gauguin’s bedroom, and later, Gauguin would write of their time together: “In my yellow room, sunflowers with purple eyes stand out against a yellow background; the ends of their stalks bathe in a yellow pot on a yellow table. In one corner of the painting, the painter’s signature: Vincent. And the yellow  sun, coming through the yellow curtains of my room, floods all this flowering with gold, and in the morning, when I wake up in my bed, I have the impression that it all smells very good. Oh yes! he loved yellow, did good Vincent, the painter from Holland, gleams of sunlight warming his soul, which detested fog. A craving for warmth. When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion? He, taking his yellowest brush, wrote on the suddenly purple wall: I am whole in spirit. I am the Holy Spirit.”

He wrote to Theo constantly from Arles, describing the landscape and his work in vivid terms. In 1888, he described his work on his painting “Night Café”: “I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can destroy oneself, go mad, or commit a crime. In short, I have tried, by contrasting soft pink with blood-red and wine-red, soft Louis XV-green and Veronese green with yellow-greens and harsh blue-greens, all this in an atmosphere of an infernal furnace in pale sulphur, to express the powers of darkness in a common tavern.”

Van Gogh committed himself to an asylum in 1888. His behavior is consistent with what we now call manic depression or bipolar disorder, and he also suffered seizures due to temporal lobe epilepsy. He worked at an incredible pace during this time, although painting for long stretches was difficult for him, and he produced “Starry Night,” one of his most famous works. Two years later, he left the asylum but his frenetic pace continued, and he produced a painting almost daily. He believed himself a failure, although he never gave up hope of success; he wrote to Theo: “What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.” He walked out one July afternoon in 1890 and shot himself, dying of the wound two days later. Theo died six months later, and the two are buried side by side in Auvers-sur-Oise.

Definition 355 Atmosphere

Equinox

by Barbara Crooker

Another October. The maples have done their slick trick
of turning yellow almost overnight; summer’s hazy skies
are cobalt blue. My friend has come in from the West,
where it’s been a year of no mercy: chemotherapy, bone
marrow transplant, more chemotherapy, and her hair
came out in fistfuls, twice. Bald as a pumpkin.
And then, the surgeon’s knife.
But she’s come through it all, annealed by fire,
calm settled in her bones like the morning mist in valleys
and low places, and her hair’s returned, glossy
as a horse chestnut kept in a shirt pocket.
Today a red fox ran down through the corn stubble;
he vanished like smoke. I want to praise things
that cannot last. The scarlet and orange leaves
are already gone, blown down by a cold rain,
crushed and trampled. They rise again in leaf meal
and wood smoke. The Great Blue Heron’s returned to the pond,
settles in the reeds like a steady flame.
Geese cut a wedge out of the sky, drag the gray days
behind them like a skein of old wool.
I want to praise everything brief and finite.
Overhead, the Pleiades fall into place; Orion rises.
Great Horned Owls muffle the night with their calls;
night falls swiftly, tucking us in her black velvet robe,
the stitches showing through, all those little lights,
our little lives, rising and falling.

“Equinox” by Barbara Crooker from Selected Poems. © Future Cycle Press, 2015. Reprinted with permission.

Definition #334 Crayola Explosion

                                          Glue crayons and melt with a hair dryer on canvas

red orange yellow

green blue indigo violet

rainbow spectrum dance

Definition #252 Ultra-violet

Bell Rock Reflection
watercolor by Jeanne

cool rainbow:  yellow,

green washed out; ultra-violet:

spiritual hues!

Day One: Definition #241 rainbow arches

rainbow arches

point-leap-reach-touch-down

red-orange-yellow-green-blue-

indigo-violet

Wild

Haiku to Wild

thousands of wild buds
purple, yellow, white wild wisps
deer food in the wild

Riddle#36 Orange

Orange

Which is the fungus from Halloween?
Which is the fun guy from Easter morn?

Which has the yolk as yellow as corn?
Which has the shape of sweet candy-corn?

Which has the sun’s glow orange and warm?
Which has the ruffles that fan out when born?

These are the riddles all orange and bright
Sunny and funny and scary a sight!

Vernal Equinox

Lonely in the vastness?

Rotate round renew!
Faith unfolds
To hold you fast:
Magnetic field of daisy arms.

Lonely in the field?

Face the sun;
Drink the rays,
Yellow to green
To violet light:
Spirits joined!

Lonely ’til you pray!