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I paint with my hands

Cover by Rebecca Purdum

Rebecca Purdum’s notes on “Making Paintings” appeared in NER 28.4 (2007):

I have lived in Vermont for fourteen years, the longest I have lived in any one place. Before moving to Vermont, I painted in thirteen different studios. I had two more in Middlebury. The one I have now in Ripton is by far the best.

It’s quiet. I don’t hit my head on the ceiling when I climb a ladder to work on the top of a painting and I can walk out the door and in under an hour be in wilderness, the Breadloaf Wilderness. There’s nothing to compare with that, not even painting. I think the distinction is important.

It may help to know that I paint with my hands. Originally it was just a matter of economics. I couldn’t afford brushes and I’d started to paint wall size paintings, so I just scooped the paint up one day and put it on.

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Filed Under: NER Classics Tagged With: Making Paintings, Rebecca Purdum

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Writer’s Notebook—Field Dress Portal

Sarah Audsley

Writer’s Notebook—Field Dress Portal

Writing this poem was not a commentary on a rivalry between the sister arts—poetry and painting—but more an experiment in the ekphrastic poetic mode.

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