Composition

On going construction since May surrounded the library with a constantly shifting maze of portable chain-link fences. The place is consequently even more deserted than usual for the summer.

Hardhatted men shout in Spanish. Dust devils of pulverized concrete are kicked up constantly by the wind off the tower. I had to enter through one of the side fire exits with the alarm disabled. A bored looking frizzy-haired student sat at a temporary reception desk in an appallingly stark tile and cinderblock egress. She told me immediately where to go for books on art, and then I noticed the pile of graphic novels tucked half under her backpack on the tabletop.

I had a mission to find T a book she's been curious about for years. In studying other artists for technique she's come across references to what must have once been a core text called "Dynamic Symmetry of a Greek Vase" or, sometimes, in a slightly edited form as "Elements of Dynamic Symmetry" by Jay Hambidge, an artist and art theorist who once taught at Yale (circa early 1900s). The library had a reprinted edition from 1967.

Aside from one other bored person at the information desk in the rearranged lobby, and the ubiquitous Alan from Legal Studies waiting at the elevator (who's always good for a quick chat), there seemed to be no one in the building. I got off on the ninth floor and found I was alone among the sunlight and art stacks. Hambidge was there, as were a few other books on Italian Renaissance "Poetics of Perspective" which includes the kind of anecdotal snippets of artists' lives that I like amid the discussion of how to achieve certain effects - how to draw the viewer's eye to unlock the deeper mysteries of the work. I felt almost giddily happy to be alone up here with these books, these mismatched and junky study carrels, these broad tables for laying out massive tomes of prints and drawings, these views across campus and the valley from the regular and plentiful windows. It felt almost sexy. I let pages rush past my fingertips and flop back together as I gazed through and thumbed books. Wickedly, I reshelved them myself.

And in a section shelved alphabetically by artist one slim spine stood out from the rest practically asking to be grazed by a careless passerby. I took it out from its place, feeling how solid and stiff it was in its library binding. Surprised by who had done the bright sometimes whimsical sometimes Blakesian drawings and paintings, I looked through it and read a chronology of the poet/rtist's life at the back. I had no idea Kenneth Patchen lived in Palo Alto, although he died shortly after my mother arrived there.

Perhaps we rented his house a few years later when I was twelve and began to come for parts of summers. I imagine, for my imagination is prone to take such ideas and spin them into full-on memoire - a bite on the pastry is all it takes, the two bedroom cottage with double bay windows where my mother kept so many ferns. There were carob beans in the fridge next to the white wine (and little else). The cottage was filled with filtered light, ferns and a soft wood floor that glowed in peaceful clutter of books, and worn armchairs. She left her birth control by the side of the sink sometimes, leaving me awkwardly curious, and unsure whether to be embarassed at her matter-of-factness or pleased that she didn't lie and hide things like so many other adults.

Her friends had given her art, photographs and hand made textiles to hang on her walls. I compared the pieces to my then recent memories of Italy - Madonnas chastely covered in basilicas, hippie girl mothers nude beside the unused fireplace, but the same composition. And when my mother, this half-stranger who felt like a bohemian older sister, left to work at Stanford in the mornings, I got out of bed and played her Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young records and her Pink Floyd, and sat down to look at the beauty of the framed photographs. The colors were deep and saturated where the light shone fully, and gave way to rusty shadows. The woman's eyes were wide and wise and doe-like at the same time, strikingly framed by her wild and beaded long dark hair. Her child suckled at her full and tanned breast. I wanted to touch their softness - the baby's delicately tousled hair and its big pink cheeks, the roundness of her breast, the sun-browned curve of her hip. I wanted to touch them like a blessing, like a press for understanding, in worship, for alms.