Catalogue by Phillip Watts Brown
We wish our work of art to be once in a lifetime and never again.
– Cristo and Jeanne-Claude
I find them everywhere. Not monumental pieces—islands surrounded with pink fabric (each a loud bloom) or veins of saffron flags winding between miles of frozen trees—but smaller ones. Moss-coated stones. Gutters lined with scarves of water. A blue-curtained window. Roses bundled in burlap. Frost on fallen leaves. I look closely, but don’t find any title cards, so I name them myself.
Wrapped Floor: just before evening, the sun wraps the entire surface in light. Wrapped Bed: swathed in sheets, I realize I am part of the work, so I lie very still. And this morning, I find another—Wrapped Mirror: a shroud of condensation hides my reflection. I almost missed it. The work is already beginning to evaporate.
Phillip Watts Brown received his MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. He and his husband live in Logan, Utah where he works at an art museum and writes poems during his lunch breaks.
Photo by Kallol Majumdar