Midnight Painting

Accompanying text as published in the book 'Allison Zurfluh and the Venice Lagoon': I wake to a calm Sunday morning and sit down to paint in pyjamas by the open window. The island is quiet with the exception of bells rolling off the piazza. Last night was different. I came home after dinner with friends and lie down in the darkened room. The birds were awake outside the window and the faint flip of fish sounded unusually near the docks. There was no quiet inside me as there is today; I was lonely, but not for company. It was the empty, spacial kind of absence in which we hover by a lifeline, far from the source, unsure where we are. I rose and walked out the door, as I have done so many times in the night of life. It seems to be the beginning of answers to cross that threshold. I slid down into the boat and spoke to the velvety silence. It was midnight, the hour of all things true and painful and sweet. The fish were close; they were jumping even as I untied the moorings. It felt like a calling, an answer to go. They had come to bring me out. For how long I floated out in the Lagoon with only shadows for a world I cannot recall. I had strapped the light to my head and leaned over the side to watch the world approach. They swam near my hand; they looked up at me from the deep with their glassy eyes as birds sang protection overhead, worried for their gull chicks in the darkness. How could they know I was friend? Invisible observer so anxious to come into their skin. The night was alive and fertile, embracing and inclusive; and in this great and fretting reality, in the stressful want of our generation, I found a deep and intimate pocket of wild that runs through and into me still.

Painting:Oil on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:15.7 W x 19.7 H x 0.8 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.