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Essays & Articles

“Painting a history ”

Charlotte Salomon worked like an artist who was running out of time.

Salomon, the subject of an award-winning biography by Santa Fe author Susan Wider, spent tireless hours in hiding while also creating a vivid body of paintings as the world was collapsing around her. Her life was snuffed out in 1943 at the former German Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, leaving only her work behind.

“Outlining ”

Co-written by Wendy BooydeGraaff

 

Outlining

Outling

            I falter before I even begin drafting the essay. I scribble “I hate outling” on a scrap of paper to record this new idea I want to explore. We want to explore, until I ruin the “we” part. It’s meant to say outling. Ugh, I mess up again.

“Santa Fe, New Mexico ”

They won’t let us alone about the drought. The water company’s bills arrive with clear instructions: I can water three days a week; no washing of cars or patios; no pool, no spa.

All of this is perfectly fine. I’m tired of watching our forests burn. I don’t want to wake to smoke fuzzying up the sun. I hate the new vocabulary of weather reports: Critical fire weather. Red-flag warning.

“Mr. Obata’s Sky ”

The week in mid-March when I was carded at Whole Foods for admission to their seniors-only shopping hour was the same week that Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata’s Evening Glow at Mono Lake was the featured painting on my engagement calendar. That’s the planner I use to organize and track my weekly writing work. Revisions go in there; drafting new essays; research for upcoming book projects; deadlines for sending work to my agent or critique partners. That same week, I slapped a pale blue Post-it note onto the image of Mr. Obata’s painting.

“Consumed ”

I am both of these women.

The first one opens the living room drapes, sees it happening, and screams for her husband. He doesn’t answer. She slaps the palm of her hand against the glass pane over and over again until her hand throbs. She isn’t thinking straight. The window is double-glazed and the combatants cannot hear her.

“Stop. Oh no, stop.” The voice makes a choking kind of scream.

“What’s wrong?” Finally, her husband.