Peg Alford Pursell

She's been making some difficult paintings using yellow the shade of an aged claret. A granted favor, these interludes of solitude, the brush in the hand with its compass, the color like a chalice of bees. Her life after childhood stands as in a closet or lies under the bed, unknown revelation, ambition. Someday she will look deeply enough to recognize herself in the clouded mirror of shame. The map she is trying to follow is the back of her hand. There is an arrogance in assuming that you belong where you choose to stand. The artist and the world must strike some compromise. Perhaps she is a window, the open glass of every looking eye. Or perhaps the dreams of those who sleep on top of her like the pale fish of ancient rivers. Perhaps the light of the rounded air that shines on the missing in the meadows of yellow silence. Sometimes the sun seems an undying noise.