Watercolor on Paper with Laser Print on Tissue
Original Art
22" x 15"  
 
Prices are negotiable on original art. 
 
Text:
Threads
    By Emily Calvo
            for Maurice de la Pintiere, a Nazi prison camp survivor who  
                     creates tapestries depicting good and evil
Young Frenchman, Maurice resists 
finds himself in tattered stripes
on icy ground behind prison camp barbed wire
between smoking ovens 
under gray skies that smother cries.
 
For two years, he eats potato soup strained of vegetable,
moves forests of trees too heavy for trucks,
Evades growling dogs
            who are quick to bite 
            when bodies falter with fatigue. 
Watches the removal of tattooed skin 
            at the command of a woman
            whose avarice seeks the finer lampshade. 
Those torn by this life 
            hang and twist by rope on Sundays
or fall from bullets
            shot through frayed clothes. 
 
When Maurice is free, 
he draws from memory, 
spins stories in six decades of tapestries: 
a white steed bursts from red  
horned creatures lurk
stars line horizons.
Like spider webs,
the strands capture that which feeds us. 
 
Maurice hangs his visions on hope.
His hook is humanity,
which he ties tightly—
enough to hold peace, 
the lightest and most delicate of threads.