Exchanging Art

Art as Confession, 1

35 years ago at the Saratoga training track, I dragged a blue tarp puffed with horse apples.

Calloused hands, impish grin, Bowie hair and aire. My first husband appeared, offering to help.

Later,

he pulled his plaster cast of A Fallen Tear out from inside his biker jacket.

I slid my skeleton horse drawing out from a plastic grocery bag.

We exchanged our art treasures, hoping the other would "get it".

His line cuts sensual. I imagine him wetting the oil clay with a brush. Smoothing.

My ink sculpts contrast, weaving a being.

Our art clicked.

17 years of marriage,

we carried sketchbooks.

Clumps of Roma Plastilina clay.

Stroking and shaping our hopes. Many sketches and clay clumps became bronze sculptures. Some still wait to become metal.

We are artists.