Chinese Poem

This poem means a lot to me. Here is my artist’s statement.

I was listening to Chinese music one day when I was terribly depressed and the song was “Stepping Higher and Higher”. I decided to write a poem with this as the first line.

First the colors. I chose to do a black on white as a strong contrast. I had a difficult time deciding if I wanted a starker white background.

But, I decided to give it a “parchment” weathered color.

The idiom on the bottom is “do not fear going slow, fear stopping”. Which is a classic and popular Chinese idiom. To remind you that progress may be slow. But, that is okay. This is where things get interesting and I am so happy it came together this way. I wanted a poem that used the imagery of springtime and a new beginning. Then I wrote a poem in a standard AB,AB rhyming pattern about resilience and growth:

Day after day, stepping stepping. We overcome. 
Higher and higher. Today is great.
Day after day, the rain falls. But it clears the mind.
The grass and trees are nourished [by rain] and many flowers bloom

Then I chose an idiom about springtime. The idiom at the top says “swallows dancing and orioles singing”. Another classic idiom. Essentially meaning “everything is going well”.

This is where there was an incredible stroke of luck. That I cannot explain and makes this piece so special to me. You see, unlike English idioms, Chinese idioms typically have a clearly defined origin. In this case the one I selected about spring was from the poem “swallows dance and orioles cry, spring is long” by Su Shi in the Song Dynasty. It turns out that the idiom that I selected before writing my poem was actually from a poem in nearly the exact same format as mine! I placed it on the right. Leading to a fantastic balance and use of space.

And I knew my piece was complete.