Shadow of the Waxwing Slain – Watercolor – 12 x 10 inches
One of the 25 paintings I’ve shipped ahead of me to Alaska, where I’ll guide this summer, at Bristol Bay Lodge.
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff -and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I’d let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
“The Shadow of the Waxwing Slain – Homage to Nabokov””
