The placid, icy exterior of The Past Is Cold belies a charred interior, branded with red-hot iron implements, like the hide of livestock. Pages are peppered with the ashy splatter of fireworks, leaving smoldering cavities breaking through the ruminating teardrop script. Directional light sources reveal features differently, depending on the viewer’s perspective: metal leaf rings the edges of the burned holes, alternating color and intensity like hot coals script written in transparent medium reveals itself only when tilted.

Ink, burning, copper leaf, and acrylic medium on BFK RIVES paper.

Poem by Marshall Weber

The Past Is Cold

The future is burning
a flaming wheel of knives
spinning
into the wilderness of mirrors

please open your eyes
and tell me again
how this came to pass
this firestorm
of lies made truth
and truth made lies

how this molten heat flourished in human form
identified, entwined
your body transfigured into bounderyless smoke
your hot tongued story burnt into stone

Unforgettable
yet incomprehensible

in the sunlight glittering
notes of music
dancing on a page.