Working Notes: Paula Metallo
There is, I believe, a fine tuned harmony in color composition just as in poetry.
Years ago, when I genuinely began caring what people read into my work, I chose to research "figure of speech" rather than return to the "figurative" in an attempt to explain myself. By now, the words have begun to take shape, and even blend into secondary and tertiary meanings, while the drawing and color have become a set of written signs, logotomies rather than pictorial abstractions.
Together their tandem attempt at word (--color) play hopes to cut, quote, scrape, and draw some important conclusions about how we live our collective lives and make it metaphorically visible through a
sense of haves. . . . . . . . . . . wish to haves;
of a fear of poverty, (no house). . . . . star
loneliness, (rainy day). . . . . . . . . . piazza
a sense of helplessness in controlling events, (stupid countdown). . . . . . . . .il mare
and a feeling of being trapped by the consequences of our "free choice" where failure becomes much too personal, (cloud). . . . . . . . . sunand the "piazza" becomes my poetic and symbolic alternative.
Paula Metallo lives and works in Berkeley during the winter season, and in Italy during the summer season where she spends long and inspiriting hours in the piazza.
go to this issue's table of contents