Daily Nourishment for April 14, 2024: “There are things that you cannot not know” with Kerry James Marshall
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 50 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
“A moment that’s miraculous in the context of a mundane, ordinary day.” - Kerry James Marshall
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale while looking at this art by Kerry James Marshall.
Prompt.
Here’s more from The New Yorker about the Kerry James Marshall piece linked above:
“His aim was to catch ‘a moment that’s miraculous in the context of a mundane, ordinary day.’ There are several such moments in his huge, 2012 “School of Beauty, School of Culture,” which channels his earlier “De Style” and also Velázquez’s “Las Meninas.” Here we are in a hairdressing salon, where eight or nine women talk or preen or stand and watch. The critic Peter Plagens described it as “one of the most complex orchestrations of color in contemporary painting.” A large poster of a woman with a flower in her hair, on the wall at the far right, is from Chris Ofili’s 2010 show at Tate Britain in London. (“I was absolutely floored when I saw that image,” Ofili told me. “I’m still honored when I think of it.”) Two toddlers are in the foreground, one of them a boy, who is peering at a distorted yellow-and-white shape on the floor, which no one else seems to have noticed; it is an image that can be seen only from an extreme angle, an anamorphosis, like the skull in Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors”—in Marshall’s painting, it is Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The idea of white female beauty as the impregnable standard in Western art is only one of the questions raised by this endlessly evocative painting.”
Practice.
Watch this 7-ish minute video of Kerry James Marshall. Then take a few notes or journal in response.
Return to the painting if you like. Take more notes, journal some more, or write a letter to a friend about this painting.
Want More?
If you’re in or near Birmingham, join me for this event today at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
*
Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings:
—Sunday, 4/21/2024: Thoughtful Readers Gathering with Anna Gazmarian
—Back by Popular Demand: Narrative Writing with Tanya Davis is back for another four weeks this spring. The Friday Cohort begins on Friday, 4/19. The Saturday BIPOC Cohort begins on 4/20. $49 for four sessions.
—This month’s Revision Stations Designed by Lauren Winner gathering will be on Saturday, April 27th from 10:15-noon CT. If you have something that needs revision attention, you will not regret attending. Promise.
*
An Update: I cancelled the retreats later this month because I want to work on a book proposal for my Parenting with Art book instead. So, cheers to canceling things so you can write more.
*
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
*Please help us protect our intellectual property, our creative process, and the integrity of our work. Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment is covered under the Spiritual Direction for Writers® trademark. You are welcome to share this link with others, but any other use (written or spoken) is prohibited without written permission from Charlotte Donlon.