Imagining an Artist's Motivation

Girl at Night by Howard Hodgkin, 1932-2017

Hello Poetry Friends,

I am back at my writing desk — I was gone last week on a wonderful trip with my hubby. I unplugged, except for a few necessary texts from the kids, taking photos, and Google Maps.

Thank you, Tricia, at the Miss Rumphius Effect for hosting this week’s round-up. I will try to make up reading posts that I missed last week, too!

Sometimes, I find an artist who created a painting just as fascinating as the work itself. I start googling questions or dropping by Wikipedia to learn more about the person who created a work of art.

This is so with Girl at Night (1966. Wikiart) by Howard Hodgkin. Learning a tiny bit about this artist led to a haibun and tanka below.

Girl at Night by Howard Hodgkin
The only way an artist can communicate with the world at large is on the level of feeling. ~ Howard Hodgkin

What it must have been like, eight-year-old Howard living in London during the 1940 Blitz. To be packed up and evacuated to America, and offered a chance to survive. The responsibility of that could weigh heavily on a young boy. He already shouldered a bit of pressure…being the progeny of minor nobility, and born an artist. What else could he do but land in a home away from home, grow up, attend school, and sort out feelings later? What children born today survive bombings, war, refugee diaspora, and the expectation that their lives will mean more in a future that cannot yet be imagined? What ‘Girl at Night’ might turn to us someday with her very large feelings?

abstract night-shapes shift
giving no word or clue to
a yoke of red dress,
bright twirl of a girl beneath
night, reminding us — we feel