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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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Vol. 43, No. 1

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Rosalie Moffett

Writer’s Notebook—Hysterosalpingography

Rosalie Moffett

Many of the poems I’ve been writing lately are trying to figure out how to think about the future, how to reasonably hope, and what we must be resigned to. How can you imagine the future when the present is so slippery, so ready to dissolve?

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