Chicago

Chicago
Joan Mitchell, Chicago, 1996
By KAELYN ROSS

Joan Mitchell's Chicago displays her distinct style of vibrant colors against a pale or earthy tone background. She chose to use oil on canvas because she claimed that the paint has a certain sheen and texture unlike any other medium and she used the drips and splatters to her advantage. Joan Mitchell belonged to a clique of popular New York artists and she drew inspiration from de Kooning, a member of the group. However, unlike de Kooning, she desired to portray landscapes in a less emotional and more so peaceful way. This work shows how she often depicted natural landscapes. 

This work is large scale, as she worked on it on the floor. Her work was first disqualified as art because of her sex and people wanted her work to be feminine and pretty. I disagree with this notion, but I also see it as more than that. At first glance, I saw trees with birds flyings out of them in all directions to me representing a sort of chaos. However, whenever I see this, I feel peaceful and more aware. Her focus on certain objects instantly reminded me of my own focus and what one chooses to focus on in their life. This painting, although seemingly busy, represents a calmness within the storm inspiring me to choose happiness and tranquility despite difficulties. 
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Untitled

A Supermarket in California
   
Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1960

"A Supermarket in Caligfornia"  
By ALLEN GINSBERG
    
     What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache 
self-conscious looking at the full moon. 
     In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into
the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the 
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, García Lorca, 
what were you doing down by the watermelons? 

     I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, 
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the 
grocery boys. 
     I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork
chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? 
     I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following 
you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. 
     We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. 

     Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour. 
Which way does your beard point tonight? 
     (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the 
supermarket and feel absurd.) 
     Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add 
shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely. 
     Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue 
automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? 
     Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what 
America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and 
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat 
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Editor's Note: Students were asked to pair a poem and painting with no explanation of the connection. 

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