A Recent Painting of Mine: "Mad Night", With Words From Whitman

Frankly, there are a lot of Walt Whitman works that don't inspire me, but there are more than a few very striking stanzas of his poetry that absolutely do inspire me and my creative spirit; this is one of those stanzas:

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosomed night! Press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds! Night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night! Mad naked summer night!

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition.

I am quoting this because I think it is a good literary expression for a fairly recent work of mine. I did this acrylic and collage painting below, that I tentatively call "Mad Night", about 6 months ago. (Not mad in the angry sense, but mad in the crazy sense.) As with another recently featured work of mine; Visceral Composition #1, this is from a large body of acrylic paintings (about 25 more) done in the last 3 - 5 years with a fairly experimental process and style. (Experimental for me and my style anyways). I am just now getting around to finishing and photographing most of them, which is why I am featuring them now.

I love painting in watercolors, where the style and texture is obviously influenced by the fast drying paint and flow of the water. Acrylic paint is similar in that it dries quickly, but the painting process for me with acrylics as opposed to watercolors or even oil paint is much different. With acrylics the painting is more of a constructed work, rather than something that was painted on in a kind of flow. That is definitely the case with this work, which has some collage elements mixed in with the paint.

Do I contradict Myself in My Posts?

I have used this quote so many times in my life it is about time that I give it the proper recognition that it deserves. So honest and so true, so raw,... are there any other words to describe the Great American Poet Walt Whitman?

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large—I contain multitudes.)"

-Walt Whitman.

I feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson, (who tried to contain the poet who he described has "quintessentially American") when I say that I haven't always liked his poetry. I found a copy of his famous Leaves of Grass a number of years ago at a garage sale. Reading through it at first I thought a lot of his poems to be over-bloated, ramblings. But, there are some moments so true, so raw, so real in Whitman's writing that you cannot ignore this poet. Here is to you Walt Whitman!