Lillian here, coming to you from sunny San Diego. We come here early January to mid-March every year to escape Boston’s winters. And boy did we escape a tough blizzard last Monday!

Today is Open Link Night here at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. That means you can post any one poem of your choosing to Mr. Linky below. No required format, length, topic, or rhyme scheme.

OR

you can post a poem motivated by the artwork below.

This is Hushed and Still, painted by Simie Maryles, a wonderful artist from Cape Cod, and a dear friend of ours. If you write to this optional prompt, be sure to include the image and credit the artist, Simie Maryles. NOTE: I only have permission for us to use Hushed and Still for the prompt.

New to dVerse?  Need to be refreshed on the rules? Here’s what to do:

• Write a poem of your choosing (no required format, rhyme scheme, length etc) OR write a poem motivated by the painting above, being sure to post the image, title and artist’s name.

• Post the ONE poem of your choosing OR the poem motivated by the artwork above to your blog AND add the exact URL for your poem to Mr. Linky below.

• REMEMBER to either TAG dVerse in your post, or include a link at the end of your poem that leads readers back to dVerse (https://dversepoets.com). 

• If you do not TAG or include a link to dVerse at the end of your post, I will gently remind you to do so. After all, this will increase your readership and comments, and others will find dVerse and hopefully join in the fun. If you do not add the TAG or link after my reminder, I will remove your post from Mr. Linky. I do not want to do that! So please do include the TAG or link!

More about Simie Maryles:
You can find more of her artwork here https://simiemaryles.com/artist/simie-maryles . Simie started painting as a very small child in the suburbs of New York City, drawing to entertain herself and losing herself in the art section of the local library. After a year at the State University of New York at Binghamton and several months traveling in Europe, she began her formal art training at The Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, France where she was ‘adopted’ into a family of wine merchants and fell in love with all things French. Returning to New York, she received a scholarship to study painting at The Art Students’ League of NY. Simie first came to Provincetown, on the very tip end of Cape Cod, MA, in the summer of 1974 to work as a pastel portrait artist in the tourist trade. It was there, in Provincetown, that she first began painting landscapes “en plein air” and became intoxicated with outdoor painting and color. Her style of painting, which up until that time was more classical and tonal, reflecting the urban environment she came from, began to shift to a much more intensely colorful and “broken-brushstroke” approach. She was clearly influenced by the bright clear light at the seashore and also the community of Impressionist painters living on Cape Cod. The evolution in Maryles’ painting style and subject matter continued to grow, starting with pastel landscapes of gardens and marshes in sunlight, to a full exploration of mixed media pastel painting (such as acrylic and pastel, sometimes with added marble dust) and finally to a return to oil painting. The sunny garden motif widened to include the moodier romance of evening paintings and then winter night paintings with wind and window lights. The oil paintings, like the pastels, display a skillful use of painting technique that employs broken strokes of brilliant pigment over colorful underpainting. Most notable in Maryles’ painting is her use of light, both sunlight and lamplight, and her ability to evoke powerful emotions. In 1998 Simie Maryles, together with her husband, sculptor and blues musician, Moe Van Dereck, opened their own gallery in Provincetown. Now in its third decade, Simie Maryles Gallery is one of the most renowned galleries in the country, proudly representing a group of the finest representational painters from across the US, Canada and Europe. She has participated in juried and museum exhibitions in New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, Maryles had seven successive one-person shows that all sold out. She is a member of the prestigious Oil Painters of America. Her work has been included in numerous books published by Quarto Publishing of London, England, and North Light Books, USA. Maryles has successfully completed corporate commissions in Boston and New York City. Her paintings are included in private and corporate collections throughout the US and in Europe. AND I might add, on a personal note, we are the proud owners of eight of her paintings including one we commissioned. With our annual trips to Provincetown, we’ve developed a friendship with Simie as well as a love for her paintings!