A Year With Rilke: March

The Words: Allow your judgments their own undisturbed development, which, like any unfolding, must come from within and can by nothing be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birth...most of us know only a single corner of that room, a narrow strip on which we keep walking back and forth. That gives a kind of security. But isn’t insecurity with all its dangers so much more human? We are not prisoners of that room. (A Year With Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, March selections)

The Color: Puce is a color that blurs the lines between brown and maroon with only a hint of pinkish-gray. History says that Louis XVI strode into a room where his wife was hanging out, wearing her brand new silk dress, and exclaimed, “That is puce!” He had observed, and rightfully so, that her dress was the same color as a flea. This rather crudely named insect-inspired color with a conceptual link between fleas and desire is now known more for its sexy/gross associations than its actual use. (Cultural histories of unusual hues, The Awl, Katy Kelleher) A Year With Rilke: March to allow one’s feelings an unhastened unfolding 40”x72” oil on canvas