Artwork / Everything’s Fine / Jocund Company
Jocund Company
2023
acrylic on panel
14 x 11 inches
How does the daffodil figure holding the paint brush seem to you? And the one who’s standing further back? Why are they holding hands? How are the rooted daffodils reacting to the two with legs?
My father adored William Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and he insisted I learn it by heart so that I’d always know how to describe the way it feels to observe a field of daffodils with exquisite emotional precision. In the text, the flowers are called “jocund company,” and, though I love the poem almost as much as my father did, it always left me curious about the experience of the daffodils themselves. What might the flowers have thought of the poet or my father? What might they think of me?
How are you different from other blossoms? Do you ever feel like your body doesn’t look like other people’s bodies? From where in your person do you see the world? From where do you taste it?
To watch the making of Jocund Company, check out this blog post.
