I would not paint — a picture — I’d rather be one

Emily Dickinson

Photographs — Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

On September 21st 2009 my friend Kimberley Klass Spademan died by suicide. She was 40. I will never be able to figure out how such a sweet soul could leave without saying goodbye. She inspired me to take some of the best photographs of my life.

There is one occasion that will be impossible for me to ever forget and most of the series from that one session are here. She called me one day to tell me, “I have a new boyfriend called Glen and he is an artist. He paints.” In an instant I said, “I have an idea. Tell Glen to bring one of his thinnest paintbrushes and we will meet in my studio.”

I would not paint — a picture — (348)

By Emily Dickinson

I would not paint — a picture —

I’d rather be the One

It’s bright impossibility

To dwell — delicious — on —

And wonder how the fingers feel

Whose rare — celestial — stir —

Evokes so sweet a torment —

Such sumptuous — Despair —

I would not talk, like Cornets —

I’d rather be the One

Raised softly to the Ceilings —

And out, and easy on —

Through Villages of Ether —

Myself endued Balloon

By but a lip of Metal —

The pier to my Pontoon —

Nor would I be a Poet —

It’s finer — Own the Ear —

Enamored — impotent — content —

The License to revere,

A privilege so awful

What would the Dower be,

Had I the Art to stun myself

With Bolts — of Melody!

More Emily Dickinson:

November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf

We turn not older with years, but older

Now I am ready to go
Dilapidation’s processes Are organized Decays

I find my feet have further goals

A melancholy of a waning summer
Just as green and as white
It’s full as opera
I cannot dance upon my Toes
a door just opened on the street
Amber slips away
Sleep
When August burning low
Pink Small and punctual
A slash of blue
I cannot dance upon my toes
Ah little rose
For hold them, blue to blue

The colour of the grave is green

Its temple stands, alway,

The Woman in white

Her Grace is not all she has

To know if any human eyes were near
Linda Melsted — the music of the violin does not emerge alone
The Charm invests her face
A sepal, a petal and a thorn
The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman
T were blessed to have seen
There is no frigate like a book
I pay in satin cash

Emily Dickinson’s White Dress & a Hunter of Lost Souls

El vestido blanco — The White Dress
Water makes many beds
The viola da gamba
But sequence ravelled out of reach
A parasol is the umbrella’s daughter
Without the power to die
Lessons on the piny
Ample make this bed
How happy is the little stone

Sleep is supposed to be
The shutting of the eye
I dwell in possibility
when Sappho was a living girl
In a library
A light exists in spring
The lady dare not lift her veil
I took my power in my hand
I find my feet have further goals
I cannot dance upon my toes
The Music of the Violin does not emerge alone
Red Blaze
He touched me, so I live to know
Rear Window- The Entering Takes Away
Said Death to Passion
We Wear the Mask That Grins And Lies
It was not death for I stood alone
The Music in the Violin Does Not Emerge Alone
I tend my flowers for thee
Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Pray gather me anemone!
Ample make her bed
His caravan of red
Me-come! My dazzled face
Develops pearl and weed
But peers beyond her mesh
Surgeons must be very careful
Water is taught by thirst
I could not prove that years had feet
April played her fiddle
A violin in Baize replaced
I think the longest hour
The spirit lasts
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http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/adjusted-to-tomb.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/i-could-not-see-to-see.html
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