Definitive

Confidence is

the fear of failure

overcome

by intention and action.

Deja vu-

a memory of the future.

Something indistinct.

Yet distinct in an indescribable way.

Presence is a given

taken for granted

even when absent.

Forever and infinity

need time.

Now

never lasts long enough

to say what

It

Is.

Artwork credit: 'A woman pleating her hair', possibly La Cigale. Signed lower right: CAMILLE METRA, in Public domain c. 1890 via Wikimedia Commons.

Pastel 65 x 54 cm. (25 ½ x 21 ¼ in.)

Exhibited: Possibly the Salon of the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1895, no. 1528.

Camille Métra exhibited regularly at the Salon of the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux-Arts from 1891 to 1903, using her maiden name before 1895 and exhibiting as Hubbard-Métra after her second marriage. Métra was also a member of the Union of Women Painters and exhibited frequently at their annual exhibition between 1891 and 1911.

Although we know little of her biography, Métra’s extant work reveals a talented artist, working in a late Academic and Art Nouveau style. Active primarily as a pastellist, though also confident with oil painting, Métra seems to have focussed on arcadian subjects, often derived from literary and mythological sources. She was also active as a portraitist, particularly of children. After the death of her first husband in 1892, Métra married the French politician Gustave-Adolphe Hubbard, with the couple divorcing in 1904.

Signed with her maiden name, the present work likely predates Métra’s marriage in 1895. The pastel may be La Cigale, exhibited at the Salon of the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1894. Drawn from La Fontaine’s fable The Grasshopper and the Ant, the title alludes to the fate of one who (like a grasshopper) ‘sings all summer’ instead of preparing (like an ant) for the hardships of winter. By Métra’s time, La Cigale had become a metaphor for the beautiful bohème who lives with no thought for the future. A popular artistic subject in the late 19th century, La Cigale was typically depicted as a young brunette set against a verdant backdrop of foliage, usually with a musical instrument though not always so. Whatever the case, with her flowing tresses and emerging from a dense forest of vegetation, Métra’s young woman is an archetypal Art Nouveau subject.

the gazing tree

Words are my mirror.
In one frame, there Is
an accuracy and simultaneous
Alienation,
projecting from This compact structure,
such as a singular dimension,
as in Ego,
ergo sum
perception.

I pointed
my gaze
out-
side-
this Home
provides no shelter.

I wanted to pick the words,
like weeds,
carefully including the root,
which is a sure sign
of eradication, or hope
of never returning.

So my eyes and hands scan
scan the sky
but only a breeze
could find meaning
There.

What does remain
Solid
after trying to convey
an idea, to prose?
Must be made with
origination,
in other words,
something like; a black box, a red wheelbarrow,
13 blackbirds
and a parched poet
scratching tan paper under an old oak tree.


Photograph by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Senden, Venner Moor -- 2013 -- 2305” / CC BY-SA 4.0.