Bettina Burch's Blog Post

Chair by Bettina Burch
"Untitled" by Bettina Burch

This is about memories long submerged until, like an iceberg, I dreamt
of years ago. They jump up through the surface of the sea midst a storm. Winslow Homer-esque men in yellow slickers from their lone dinghy, flanking it, tug hard on a few thin ropes. I am standing in attendance, on a slight bluff above, a lone surveyor; and, as soon as that iceberg begins to emerge, rain and sleet, cold and gray skies aside, I am laughing with a wild oblivion to the work I know I now face… because it’s out. hahah. It is finally out.

And now all these years later, indeed, i am releasing this story into the universe to go where it will. I hope that in its journey it serve
to help, heal and bless — as that is its intent: aside from telling my personal voyage as a painter of portraits and incorporator of the minutiae, inveterate feeler and conveyor of the life around me. 

I would also like to give a shout out to Anais Nin, whose beautiful words helped create the visual paradise I would often slip into in the rough years, and to my dearest of compatriots, Adrienne, who came later, but who has so kindly kept her ear to the mouth of me until all the words that I held within began to find their way without.

Bettina's Poem

Breath

breath, we are born with it
breathe and air are handed out at birth
that pillow
i think when i floated up it was like i was hanging with the angels
at three, i got to hang with angels 
thanks to that pillow you put over me