Person: Deb
Location: Perth, Australia
Food: Chocolate bar

The artist at rest.

Deb makes art, prints to be exact. She came to stay with me on her way to a printmaking residency in Canada she’d won an award to attend. She’d flown more than halfway around the globe for the opportunity. And now, here she was, on my couch, readying herself for the next phase of her career.

Find Your Way - by Deb Taylor

As I recall, she ate little. Food a kind of afterthought. Her attention was elsewhere. To home, where her son was, and the future, where she would soon be able to create without limits.

Tracking and retracking by Deb Taylor

We shared few words, yet something passed between us. An awareness of the other’s presence. The knowing of silence within an enclosed space. Sometimes those who speak the least leave the deepest impression.

Untitled-1

She sent me a link to her artwork recently. Her prints are rich with color and texture. The quiet beauty suggesting, perhaps like her, a wild current beneath a still surface.

Untitled (River 2)

She didn’t bring a recipe, rather a small box of Australian candy bars. They were made of dark chocolate with a cherry interior and covered in coconut. Lamington cakes morphed into alternate form. They were lovely.

For the artist, food is a secondary concern. So long as there’s money for paint and brushes, all is right with the world.

And perhaps, for some, art trumps food as a necessity. The body knowing and the mind sensing the stronger impulse. To create. At any cost. Wherever it takes you. Even if it’s across the globe. To a stranger’s couch.  Being fed never was the point.

Earth

To see more of Deb Taylor’s work, visit her website.