A Poem & A Painting: A Summer With 1000 Julys

While I was in Guatemala last week (more on that soon, another incredible experience!), my assistant Jen took her daughter and a friend to visit a few colleges in the Carolinas.  One of their stops was in Charleston, SC to visit the College of Charleston.  While in Charleston, they also had a chance to visit Galerie on Broad, one of the newest galleries in Charleston’s vibrant arts district.  I was hoping they would have a chance to stop by as this is a new gallery where my friend, artist Sandy Welch, has recently started showing her work.  I am so thrilled for Sandy and I hear her paintings are getting a wonderful reception from visitors to the gallery!

Amazing artwork by Sandy Welch at Galerie on Broad.   A Summer With 1000 Julys (top),  To Catch A Wave (bottom)

I’ve been to Charleston several times myself and am always charmed by the history and beauty of the city.  I’m hoping to have a chance to visit Galerie on Broad in person and see Sandy’s work on display for myself!  In the meantime, this poem about Charleston by DuBose Heyward conjures up some beautiful imagery…

Dusk

They tell me she is beautiful, my City,
That she is colorful and quaint, alone
Among the cities. But I, I who have known
Her tenderness, her courage, and her pity,
Have felt her forces mould me, mind and bone,
Life after life, up from her first beginning.
How can I think of her in wood and stone!
To others she has given of her beauty,
Her gardens, and her dim, old, faded ways,
Her laughter, and her happy, drifting hours,
Glad, spendthrift April, squandering her flowers,
The sharp, still wonder of her Autumn days;
Her chimes that shimmer from St. Michael’s steeple
Across the deep maturity of June,
Like sunlight slanting over open water
Under a high, blue, listless afternoon.
But when the dusk is deep upon the harbor,
She finds _me_ where her rivers meet and speak,
And while the constellations ride the silence
High overhead, her cheek is on _my_ cheek.
I know her in the thrill behind the dark
When sleep brims all her silent thoroughfares.
She is the glamor in the quiet park
That kindles simple things like grass and trees.
Wistful and wanton as her sea-born airs,
Bringer of dim, rich, age-old memories.
Out on the gloom-deep water, when the nights
Are choked with fog, and perilous, and blind,
She is the faith that tends the calling lights.
Hers is the stifled voice of harbor bells
Muffled and broken by the mist and wind.
Hers are the eyes through which I look on life
And find it brave and splendid. And the stir
Of hidden music shaping all my songs,
And these my songs, my all, belong to her.

If you are interested in purchasing either of these paintings, contact Galerie on Broad.  To see more of Sandy’s work, visit her website!

xo,

Pamela

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