Modern 2, National Galleries of Scotland

 Today I went to see the excellent Women in Revolt exhibition at Modern 2, one of the National Galleries of Modern Art in Edinburgh. I'd got there early and while I was waiting for my friend to arrive I took time to take some photos of the impressive architecture. 

The grounds offer views over to Dean Cemetery, which is one of Edinburgh's private cemeteries, so not one that I've done a wildlife survey of! 

The Women in Revolt exhibition looks at feminist art and activism in the 1970s - 1990s and includes paintings, zines, videos and other materials covering topics such as the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, wages for housework, lesbian identity, racism and other issues. It's well worth seeing (in fact I'm going back to see it tomorrow with a different friend!) before it closes on 26 January.

Abstract

I experiment with texture, shape,
play with shades of colour,
explore the theory of art.

Never meant for show
outside the college studio
these pictures hid in storage.

While work for exhibition
never sold, too mundane
so many critics said.

But then some dealer fell in love
with my series ‘Shades of Grey’
and I am now the ‘New Sensation’.


Previously published on the Camel Saloon. The Camel Saloon no longer exists but its editor Russell Streur now edits the Plum Tree Tavern which focuses on poetry and nature and the environment and which today published my poem Watching the Skies which you can read here.

Today I also posted a selection of haiku on Crafty Green Poet. You can read them here.

Women's Work

after Jomwa Phiri

This woman will always be stirring nsima*
over a fire beneath a baobab tree
dark against a sunset sky.

Knees slightly bent, these women will forever
carry pots to and from the water well
and keep the well wheel turning.

But except the woman drinking with the men

these women move through these crowds
alone.

I remember such scenes being loud with laughter
but the artist reveals the loneliness
beneath the bright colours.



* nsima = maize porridge

For NaPoWriMo - early bird prompt - ekphrastic poetry

Jomwa Phiri is a well known Malawian painter, who I met when I lived in Malawi. We have several of his paintings round our flat and recently I discovered several more, hidden away in a drawer, one of which is now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop, the others I'm going to frame and find wall space for.