make yourself a light

in a private collection

sold through Edgewater Gallery

This was my first large painting for ‘As It Were.’ Some
simple barns in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont were
transformed by a late summer afternoon light, and
the field of oats glowed in sea-green abundance.
After the poet Mary Oliver’s death, I listened to
several books of her poems (I’d much rather hear poetry
read aloud, especially when the poems are read
by the author), and I loved this image
from “The Buddha’s Last Instruction.”

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.

Mary Oliver