Matisse and the Bed
Today I had a hard time getting out of bed. My body was a sack of bananas that didn’t want to move, but there it went — lurching over the floorboards and wading through the humidity to start the day. Still, the bed was like a whirlpool trying to bedride me. Or. Trying to get me bedridden. It was also like a whirlpool dishwasher, in that it tried to wash me: a banana sack. Look, I’m sure some of you have gone through this before. I know Matisse has.
Matisse was bedridden toward the end of his life, but that didn’t stop him. At one point he drew figures on the ceiling above him, by attaching charcoal to a fishing pole. But what he mostly did, was cut shapes from paper of bright colors and glued them into huge collages, and covered his bedroom walls with them. He said, “Now that I don’t often get up, I’ve made myself a little garden to go for a walk in.”
This Matisse, he had the right idea.
Oh and, don’t forget, those who live in the bay area: sfmoma has a Matisse exhibition going on right now.
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