This is a portrait of my friend Marie, which I did back in April. Thank heavens I photographed it at this stage, where I ought to have left it because I later went on to – alas – ruin it entirely.
Wagner is an award-winning poet, author and artist who wrote WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS (Cavankerry Press, 2009) poems about her life with schizophrenia, and co-author, with her sister, a psychiatrist, of DIVIDED MINDS: TWIN SISTERS AND THEIR JOURNEY THROUGH SCHkIZOPHRENIA, a memoir, which was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and won the NAMI Outstanding Literature Award in 2006. It is still in print, and available at Amazon.Wagner second book, a first volume of poetry, is WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS, (2009) which is available at a discount now from Cavankerrypress.org. Her newest book of poetry and art, LEARNING TO SEE IN THREE DIMENSIONS (Green Writers Press/Sundog Poetry Center 2017) is also now available at Amazon and other booksellers.
Her work has been published in Tikkun, Midwest Poetry Review, and the New York TImes Sunday Magazine as well as the Hartford Courant and the LA Weekly, among other places. She also won an international poetry competition sponsored by the BBC in 2001/2.
Wagner’s art was on display in Connecticut area libraries in 2011 and 2012 and in Vermont, in Brattleboro, in 2016 and 2017. Many pieces are available for sale and charitable donation. She currently lives in Vermont.
View all posts by Phoebe Sparrow Wagner
Hey, Nat, i went to your amazing photography blog and when it said, esp at your photo of your children some years ago, “please rate this”, i did not see any buttons to do so…would have given you high marks if there was someplace to do it. Or am I simply blind ? I have missed such things before….
Oh wow! That is beautiful! I hear you on “ruining” something, which generally doesn’t happen in writing or music composition since you can “take back” what you have done.You can definitely wreck a recipe or a knitting project, though. You can irreparably botch a performance. It is interesting that the possibility of “wrecking” a work of art depends on how the art work plays out in the passage of time. I love the painting.
Oh this version was not wrecked at all…which is why I was so glad I « saved » it by photographing it. Alas’ gouache is not forgiving or erasable and when I tried to « smoothe » it I completely wrecked the original… BUT I am so happy I still have a photo to make prints from!
Beautiful!!!
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Thank you! I appreciate your taking the time to comment.
Phoebe
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You’re welcome! Have a great weekend. 😊
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Hey, Nat, i went to your amazing photography blog and when it said, esp at your photo of your children some years ago, “please rate this”, i did not see any buttons to do so…would have given you high marks if there was someplace to do it. Or am I simply blind ? I have missed such things before….
My best to you,
Phoebe
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Thanks for this info. Sometimes the rating systems gets a little wacky. I’ll go check it out. Thanks for taking the time to visit.
Stay connected!
Nat
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Oh Phoebe, even at this stage am already so pretty. Thank you so much. . To be real,, the one you did for me while hospitalised is the best lol
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Aha! Well, all I have of that one is the photo you sent but I may post that one next! Thanks!!!!
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Oh wow! That is beautiful! I hear you on “ruining” something, which generally doesn’t happen in writing or music composition since you can “take back” what you have done.You can definitely wreck a recipe or a knitting project, though. You can irreparably botch a performance. It is interesting that the possibility of “wrecking” a work of art depends on how the art work plays out in the passage of time. I love the painting.
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Thanks Julie, I love it to and I wonder why Phoebe thinks she ruined anything lol
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Dear Marie and Julie,
Oh this version was not wrecked at all…which is why I was so glad I « saved » it by photographing it. Alas’ gouache is not forgiving or erasable and when I tried to « smoothe » it I completely wrecked the original… BUT I am so happy I still have a photo to make prints from!
Love
Phoebe
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