What I See: Peter Markus x Kristen Beaver
What I Am Holding - after the painting “Hope’s Mom”
by Peter Markus
I keep hoping I'll have something more
to say. But for now I'm okay
just sitting here looking at what
the others are doing. There are children
running, playing. There are dogs.
There is food and drink and people
talking to one another. What we sometimes
call catching up. But I'm good where
I am, for now, in this moment, keeping
to myself. Even though I look to be alone
I am not. I don't need music
in order for there to be music.
The birds are singing. There is laughter.
My hands are full even though
they appear to be empty. What I am holding
cannot be seen. Can only be felt.
Can only be known. The way a mother
knows she is going to be a mother
before anyone else. That feeling inside.
Call it what it is. Don't be afraid to give it a name.
Hope. There is no other word for it.
“Hope’s Mom” by Kristin Beaver
oil on paper (9x7”)
Peter Markus' reaction to what he saw in Kristin Beaver’s painting:
“Two things drew me immediately into this painting: that we can’t see the woman's eyes. The mystery of not knowing, of not being able to see that. Then I lowered my own eyes to hone in on the woman's—Hope's Mom's—hands in her lap, held open as they are in this moment. What is she thinking? How can any of us ever really know what anyone else is thinking just by looking at them? That question, as a writer—when I look at anyone in the world—got me thinking. And then I turned to language itself, for help. ‘Hope's Mom.’ Okay, so now I knew at least this: that this woman depicted in this painting, this mother, named her daughter Hope.
That word got me thinking—Hope—and got me more than just thinking. It got me writing. I had a word now, a window, a point of entry. Hope. Not just a proper noun, but also the verb: to hope. Alone as she is—as many of us so often are—in the company of others, I wanted to know more. I wrote the poem’s opening three words, ‘I keep hoping....’ Hoping for what? I know I am always hoping and always looking for ‘something more to say.’ As a writer, that's what I am always hoping for: to say something more. To say something new. Language took over from there. What else is there to say? What else to see? My poem took shape around those questions. Saying as a form of seeing. And the image that I kept going back to: her hands: of what we hold, what we are held by. What we think we know and don't. And the struggle in every poem to try to give that feeling a name. It's what I hope I came close to achieving in 'What I Am Holding.’
Thanks to Kristin Beaver for putting this image out in the world for me to make with, play around with, to give these words to it, to say what I was thinking right back. A kind of conversation, I hope.”
What I See is a curated project aimed at creating conversation between artists during a moment of unprecedented isolation. Kresge Arts in Detroit invited fellowship and Gilda Award recipients to create new work inspired by and in response to the works in progress recently shared by their colleagues. In highlighting the connections and mutual inspiration produced through these collaborations, it is abundantly clear how creativity radiates and can deepen existing community networks and lead to new connections. This project is a new addition to our efforts to resource and activate the arts and culture community of Detroit, of which those of us on staff are proudly a part. What I See logo by Asukile Gardner.
Art by its nature is pure exchange
We look and we marvel. We hear and we heal.
We read and we wonder.
Rarely do we know; do we see what the creator
first saw, or the hope that they in turn entrust
to the eyes and minds of others.
That conversation between source and subject is
as rich and worthy, and mysterious as the end
creation. This is art’s constant invitation: to see
and see again, until we see. Sometimes ourselves.
Sometimes our world, sometimes into realms
unknown.
A more raw and wondrous window has yet to
exist. Until one does, may art, and those who answer
its call, continue to do what only they can — making the unseen seen in ways once unimagined.
— Nichole M. Christian, Kresge Arts in Detroit 2020