LIFE IN COLOR
a series of still lifes
by
CURTIS SPEER
&
an outdoor installation In conjunction with Alexander Artworks
NOVEMBER 6 - DECEMBER 9
Mussels w/ Cracked Eggs
Apple of Granada
The Crimson Dahlias
Navy & Gold
Mortar & Mushrooms
Indian Summer Dahlias
Wild Mushroom of
Beech Forest
Seven & The 'Shroom
The Scarlet Dahlia &
The Gold Trophy
Brass Champagne
Champagne & Macaroons
White Dahlia & Dandelion
It's Always Greener
A Silver Bowl of Eggs
Life In Color
Number 11
Modern Day Dutch
Lamella
Mussels w/ Cracked Eggs
Papery Hymenophore
Dogwood Berries
Apple of Granda, close up
Bundle of Garlic
LIFE IN COLOR
"It might be the lemon in a child's laughter,
Or the coral in the way your best friend's fiancé looks at her, or the magenta in a dancer's freedom.
It might even be the grey in the 67th pause you have had to take when someone asks you how you are. For the first time, you realize you're not actually happy. You won't know how to admit it, even if you wanted to.
You will build a traffic of excuses to blame it on to drive the conversation quicker so your eyes don't give away your secret. You will tell yourself this ebony will lift once you finally get some sleep. But mostly, you will replay whatever black and white film is in your mind stock, searching for where you left yourself.
And you will stay there for as long as you let yourself.
You will stay there until you stop confusing feeling safe with the snug of being stuck...
Until you get tired of your excuses holding up longer than your dreams do.
You will stay there until you remember that laughter is an amber earthquake that can crack even the most charcoal sorrow...
that your baby nephew or a cool rain after the heat or a visit from a hummingbird or the slices of an orange begging to stick to your fingers as they leave their residue on the corners of your mouth so that every time you breathe,
their scent will remind you to smile.
You will stay there until gratitude makes even the most off-night morning fog feel bright cerulean.
Until on those days when darkness tries to make lists of all the places you don't measure up, you tell that voice that where you come from, THERE IS ONLY LIGHT. There are no scales. That you have friends that know how to love the living lavender out of you and lending you their electric lime.
And you will remember that you want to have a son or daughter one day. And when their friends ask him or her where they learned to love the crag out of a bad day, or how even the most cobalt midnight couldn't keep a sunrise from spilling out their mouth. You want them to point to the place in their DNA where you spent years of decisions sewing that strength in...and you will tell your children that happiness is a peach orchard you must grow and pick,
that this life is stitched with color when we choose to see it.
That when we stop driving our lives so fast, we can roll down the windows of our eyes, dip our hands into the harvest and remember that all of it....ALL OF IT... has always been a gift."
A TRIBUTE TO THE WAMPANOAG TRIBE
an outdoor installation In conjunction with Alexander Artworks
NOVEMBER 6 - DECEMBER 9
With so much emphasis on the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, very little has ever been mentioned or celebrated regarding the Wampanoag Tribe that still exist in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. CUSP GALLERY pays tribute to the native people with an installation comprising of 11 arrows signifying spiritual enlightenment as "People of the First Light". The steel, powder coated arrows were a co-creative project with Alexander Artworks in Council Grove, KS. Being from Oklahoma, I understand the importance of acknowledging and paying respect to those who inhabited this land well before the early European settlers.
The Wampanoag are one of many Nations of people all over North America who were here long before any Europeans arrived, and have survived until today. Many people use the word “Indian” to describe us, but we prefer to be called "Native People". Our name, Wampanoag, means People of the First Light.
The Wampanoag Indians were original natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It was Wampanoag people who befriended the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and brought them corn and turkey for the famous first Thanksgiving. ... The surviving Wampanoags are still living in New England today.
The Wampanoag Indians of eastern Massachusetts played a role in helping and teaching the Pilgrims how to survive in this new land. The Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land. ... Yet the tribe endured and re-organized as the Wampanoag Nation in 1928, with nearly 3,000 members today.
In 2015, the federal government declared 150 acres of land in Mashpee and 170 acres of land in Taunton as the Tribe's initial reservation, on which the Tribe can exercise its full tribal sovereignty rights. ...