I consider Art – in any form – a painting, embroidery, poem, book, to mean the same thing, a way to express or recieve emotions.  This pre-class exercise involved writing about a randomly chosen painting.  Write a scene that takes place inside a painting for 15 minutes. No research.  Here’s my take, where a painting and words express feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

Maaloula by Louay Kayyali (1964).  Style: Expressionism.  Genre: Cityscape.

A steady stream of soft gray smoke flows out of the opening in the wood-timbered roof.  I watch our spiritual leader climb down a strapped branch ladder which leans into another roof opening.  The room, where I sit upon a neatly swept dirt floor, is made of the soft red and gray clays found in our land and from which we make our Maaloula cliff dwellings.  Father tends to a small fire at the center of the room, making sure the smoke flows out to the gray sky.  The spiritual leader kneels near a small, rectangular opening in the floor near the fire.  This is where our ancestors’ spirits race into the room and into our souls.  His presence takes over the room and stills my family into statues.  He readies for the religious ceremony, whispers prayers to himself, closes his eyes, and fingers a buffalo horn hanging on a leather strap around his strong neck.  A belt made of eagle feathers, colorful beads, and rings of gold, wrap his waist.  The belt was made by Mother, along with the shimmery gold band clinging to his upper arm.  Father gives me a harsh look which means that I should take my spellbound eyes off of the spiritual leader.  Ashamedly, I bow my head and wait for grandparents and great-grandparents to meet me.