We wove around the Old Ragsdale Building

Among and in

And like ants on the way to the fried chicken from The Pig at a picnic

We were searching for

Around a million different ways to see a world.

Hanging displayed sitting displayed  whispering shouting

Every piece at a different pitch

Perfect for its medium.

But I was there for Agnes . And I was there for Agnes’ child.

A life can take up a whole back wall of a tobacco building in its telling,

And still leave out whole parts. How many panels does it take to capture fully

Close to ninety years.

Like a camera, painter artist daughter friend

Makes permanent a life.

Elegance and wit wind around the strokes  color, pigmentation teaches in tones of peach.

Stand back and breathe in, a girl becomes a wise matriarch

Just paces down the old brick sits

An anteater eating of all things a colony of gigantic ants beside voter registration.

This is Artfields and this is what they do, documentarians of our lives,

One studied nine breasts,  documenting differences.

But I was there for Agnes and  “All The In  Between.”

To  see a hundred ways to see a world,

Yes,

But driving all this way to know the love of one,

Daughter for her dying mom.

Agnes would laugh at her juxtaposition of a life,

So close to

Well an anteater. And I know because I know

The Artist.

And the ways she sees all the in between,

The panels of a life.

++++++++++++++++++++++

To discover more of my friend and her work, visit lauriemcintoshstudio dot com. And pick up her book Agnes’ life “All The In Between – My Story of Agnes” (Amazon, Barnes and Noble and at MuddyFordPress.com )