The Laundress

2011

41" X 32"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

My laundress is up in town
at the laundromat as I write.

Getting our summer clothes ready
for the trip to the island.

We leave day after tomorrow
and I’m running a wee bit behind.

Someone asked me the other day
if artists do their best work under pressure.
I can’t speak to whether the work is any better
for the panic and chaos of trying to put a years worth of paintings
into their frames and then into a trailer
and then onto a ferry and then up on the gallery walls.

But I can attest to the profound need
for a good sense of humor in these final hours
as we, ok make that I, get a little wigged out
as I try to negotiate the piles
that are growing around me in the studio
and the lists upon lists
that don’t seem to ever get crossed off
and painter’s notes that still need to be written
and the zucchini that is growing faster than we can pick them
and the dog who knows this pattern all too well
and will now be less than an inch away from my ankles
until she is positive that she is getting in that car too.

It’s all a dance.

Not unlike the sorting and waiting for spin cycles to end
and the rhythmic falling of the sleeves as they circle in the dryer
and the careful and patient folding
of the warm white cotton into tiny tight piles.

But here, in this painting,
high on the bluff in Chilmark
where we will be soon, very soon…
there is no fancy modern machinery.

There is a sink
and a clothesline
and a yellow chair in the sunshine
waiting for my hardworking laundress.