Pastels on Paper was a poem I had written during my first go-round in college at the University of MN. I cannot recall if it was for a creative writing class or an art elective, because back then I consumed almost any class that had to do with The Arts – I studied acting, I took a props building class for theater, I learned filmmaking, I participated in the construction of a mural from concept to finished product (I really wish I could find my sketchbook for that class because it had some great stuff in it) – but I digress.
From what I can remember, our assignment was to visit the Weisman Art Museum on campus and select a piece of art and write about it in poetic form. This poem was to convey to the reader what the chosen work of art looked like and how it made the poet feel.
Nothing in the museum spoke to me except for an installation piece which was the reconstruction of the hallway of an apartment building complete with sound, but another classmate had already claimed it so I ventured elsewhere throughout the museum and found a painting.
This painting, that I cannot recall the name of or artist, was honestly nothing special (no disrespect to the artist). The colors used were bland and muted. You couldn’t really make out what the painting actually was. For lack of a better word, it was…boring, but I had an assignment to complete so it became the subject of my project whether I liked it or not and thus Pastels on Paper was born.
To this day it is the shortest poem I’ve ever written.
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