{"id":4475,"date":"2023-01-06T11:09:38","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T16:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/?p=4475"},"modified":"2023-01-06T11:09:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T16:09:38","slug":"flow-wide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2023\/01\/06\/flow-wide\/","title":{"rendered":"Flow Wide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by portraits and a video installation in the Museum’s current exhibition, Time and Tide Flow Wide: The Collection in Context, 1959\u20141973, Dominic Bellido ’24 writes a series of haikus, fragmented poems, and prose in creative response to the exhibition’s questions of history, time, and the economic forces that influence American people and art.<\/em><\/p>\n

These writings are dedicated to Marisa C. S\u00e1nchez, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for Research and Scholarly Engagement at the Colby Museum’s Lunder Institute for American Art, curator of the Time and Tide Flow Wide<\/em> exhibition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dana Claxton, Headdress<\/em>, 2016\/2021. Archival pigment print on Epson photo paper, 48 x 32 in. (121.9 x 81.3 cm). Forge Project Collection, traditional lands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok, FP.2021.0092.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I. <\/p>\n

The first face I see 
\n<\/span>stands behind a white cage. <\/span>Head
\n<\/span><\/i>dress<\/span><\/i>, beads mountainlike<\/span><\/p>\n

on a woman\u2019s face.
\n<\/span>Turquoise jewelry draping
\n<\/span>a mask, threaded strings<\/span><\/p>\n

of rain, how much? How
\n<\/span>much for this picture? Priceless
\nnecklace, silver tears<\/span><\/p>\n

gathered from the ground,
\n<\/span>cast into fine chains that throw
\n<\/span>stories with their light.<\/span><\/p>\n

Constellation of
\n<\/span>pendants dangling, her neck
\n<\/span>shielded by rainbow<\/span><\/p>\n

stones, carved up prayers
\n<\/span>from all corners of the land.
\n<\/span>O, beaded headband,<\/span><\/p>\n

your history speaks
\n<\/span>        for itself. Your women take care
\n<\/span>of all your unfinished 
\n<\/span>        corners. But what
\n<\/span>of my reflection in
\n<\/span>        your gaze?
\n<\/span>Am I worthy? <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Installation view of Time and Tide Flow Wide: Collection in Context, 1959-1973<\/em>, Colby College Museum of Art (September 27, 2022\u2013June 11, 2023). Photo: Luc Demurs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

II. <\/span><\/p>\n

See the boy on the bicycle. See the walls  
\n<\/span>        that he must stand between. Is his face worthy<\/span><\/p>\n

now, God? How long has someone waited  
\n<\/span>        to see him? They say the only body worth my time <\/span><\/p>\n

is the one with the highest price. Like endless 
\n<\/span>        red blush, or filigree lace. Cold disdain from the other <\/span><\/p>\n

pale portraits on display. I look down at the boy\u2019s
\n<\/span>        hands and hear a wail break out of the room\u2019s corner, <\/span><\/p>\n

a song strung up along the gauze of white  
\n<\/span>        light bulbs. A warm voice. The hung up faces can only<\/span><\/p>\n

listen. It\u2019s no one\u2019s fault, how my heart breaks
\n<\/span>       when I remember the portrait can only move inside<\/span><\/p>\n

our heads. I wonder what the boy on the bicycle
\n<\/span>        would think of the sound castling him and his frame. <\/span><\/p>\n

They pray that walls                 <\/span>never learn 
\n<\/span>to talk, but I           know that to each God 
\n<\/span>you must bargain       with different rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything has a price.           Anything can
\nbe bought;          the only damn question is
\nwhat are you                 willing to sacrifice?<\/p>\n

But the heaven                       marketplace
\n<\/span>ain’t as                 golden as it sounds, boy.
\nThe best customers<\/span>             always come <\/span><\/p>\n

back for more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Theaster Gates, Still from Do you hear me calling? (Mama Mamama or What is Black Power?)<\/em>, 2018. Two-channel video, color, sound (42:40 min). Edition 4\/5. Purchased jointly by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with funds from the Film and Video Committeee; and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, with funds from Bernard and Barbro Osher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

III. <\/span><\/p>\n

I step into the room at neither the beginning nor the end of the film. I take a seat. The film shows me a woman smoking out a window, a muted hymn drifting out like her cigarette ash spirit. In the next scene, she blazes up a flute that pierces through another song. <\/span><\/p>\n

The film reels through more bodies, collaging white men in pressed suits, a gospel man, black father looking for job with moonbore eyes. I see supermarket aisles, billboards, pretty white faces on rows of bean cans; then, a hallway of library doors leading nowhere. A woman stands by the bookstacks, eyes closed against a devil\u2019s voice proselytizing her on how to sell to her own kind, how to buy, how to play all these games that have the same damn winner. <\/span><\/p>\n

But her hymn persists. Like a promise. A war bellow, a moan, a cry for any God to climb up the throat of dawn and give us something. <\/span><\/p>\n

But not just anything. Not freedom, not the way it\u2019s advertised. All these times, I\u2019ve kneeled at church, and all I\u2019ve ever asked for was another way out. The key to the backdoor or a bank vault. Something that’ll make me feel better, God. But this song cuts at something deeper. No! God, give me a knife instead, so I can slice through the film\u2019s ancient maps, tired graphs that calculate the buying power of the poor. Lines that go up and down and take bodies with them. Let me be the last face the devil sees at his stand. That\u2019s all I ask for, God.<\/span><\/p>\n

I lean back on the bench and watch the film reel itself around me 
\n<\/span>the drumsound snaking out of every speaker 
\n<\/span>forming the stage for an old dance. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not the way my mother taught me. Not the way
\n<\/span>the screen has shown. I leave the room
\n<\/span>and walk around, looking for a mirror,
\n<\/span>any mirror. I put on a song
\n<\/span>from my father\u2019s time.
\n<\/span>I dance for 
\n<\/span>hours<\/span><\/p>\n

or at least
\n<\/span>until I feel someone
\n<\/span>watching me. Until the song ends. Until<\/span><\/p>\n

the steps outline my
\n<\/span>patterned past, like beads strung out
\n<\/span>on a spider\u2019s web.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by portraits and a video installation in the Museum’s current exhibition, Time and Tide Flow Wide: The Collection in Context, 1959\u20141973, Dominic Bellido ’24 writes a series of haikus,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11149,"featured_media":4517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[351291],"tags":[99394],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/files\/2022\/12\/lantern-1.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3U3TZ-1ab","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4475"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4555,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475\/revisions\/4555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}