Wednesday 19 December 2007

Flood Tide - painting with poetry

Joan Eardley, Flood Tide, 1962
Oil on board, 120.5x183cm
Lillie Art Gallery, East Dunbartonshire Council


The Scottish poet Edwin Morgan wrote this poem ten years ago in honour of Eardley and in response to her painting Flood Tide.


JOAN EARDLEY: FLOOD-TIDE

Edwin Morgan


Lonely people are drawn to the sea.

Not for this artist the surge and glitter of salons,

Clutch of a sherry or making polite conversation.

See her when she is free: –

Striding into the salty bluster of a cliff-top

In her paint-splashed corduroys,

Humming as she recalls the wild shy boys

She sketched in the city, allowing nature’s nations

Of grasses and wild shy flowers to stick

To the canvas they were blown against

By the mighty Catterline wind –

All becomes art, and as if it was incensed

By the painter’s brush the sea growls up

In a white flood.

The artist’s cup

Is overflowing with what she dares

To think is joy, caught unawares

As if on the wing. A solitary clover,

Unable to read WET PAINT, rolls over

Once, twice, and then it’s fixed,

Part of a field more human than the one

That took the gale and is now

As she is, beyond the sun.


You can find a reading of the poem by Morgan on the Glasgow Herald website here.
Enjoy...

With this little find I'll love you and leave you for a wee while as I venture towards my parents' temperamental internet connection in rural Germany.

.

5 comments:

Casey Klahn said...

I share your love of this ocean scene. Then again, I grew up "on the beach", myself.

vivien said...

This is one of hers I haven't seen before and I love it! It could almost be Cornwall where I lived as a child :)

Lindsay said...

Lovely solstice sentiment. Thanks for the beauty of word and picture together

Gesa said...

Yes, it's a great one. It's also one where I'm pleased it's in a public collection and not privately held. So there'll always be the chance to go back and take another peek at it again...

bridget Hunter said...

One of my favourite painters and the poem paints her so well. Thankyou.