Homelight

This project features Sarasota artist Jana Millstone and poet Catherine Doty from Boonton, New Jersey.

Catherine’s statement: In Jana’s joyous portrait of children at play is captured both an ancient and intriguing narrative and a lyrical, buoyant and ecstatic now. In a gorgeous and unusual palette, her kids leap and exult, surrounded by trees as playful as they are. The images are mysterious, too– the airborne figures may be read as children rushing to play together or kids dispersing at day’s darkening for what I imagine (these are clearly happy figures!) will be a good supper followed by a night of sleep so deep that it passes in a minute. Upon waking, the children will rush back to immerse themselves once more in their world of luscious color and undulant, beckoning motion. I hoped to write a narrative poem that might be the bedtime story read to these kids, a warm, cinematic, and small-as-a-child story told in images of tenderness and safety, as rich in its brevity as Jana’s expansive and compelling art.

The AICP Project makes art accessible, democratic, and surprising, and I am grateful for the opportunity to partner with Jana, and to bring our work to a wide and various audience.

Jana’s statement: Doty’s poems are so imbued with details of memory, they are palpable. As I read them, I was brought back to feelings (though not specific memories) of my own childhood. They were so vivid, it was like being sucked into a portal to the 1950’s. I remembered lying in bed on early summer evenings listening to the older children still allowed to play outside. There was a longing and a promise of that time I hoped to capture. I created the work to express the atmosphere of twilight time for children. It is a magical, but lies at the edge of darkness when things become unseeable and unknowable. I wanted the children to be testing the last glimmer of light before being absorbed back into their homes. I chose to make my artwork with cloth so that it would feel less realistic and more imaginary. I opted for colors that were inspired by the old Polaroid images that connect me to that time.

Making art is a way to communicate, and although much of our (artists’) work is created privately, the objective is to share our thoughts with others. Typically art is placed in galleries that are dedicated to exhibiting it. The practice limits the artist’s ability to communicate only with those who get to see the exhibition. I love the objective of AICP, as it offers a welcome effort to share artistic ideas with a wider audience. More than that, it combines two creative forces bringing together a unique and complementary vision to that audience.