Brief aan Philip Zilcken before 1926

This letter to Philip Zilcken, by Rose Imel, is like a small painting, layered with marks and meanings. Imagine Rose, pen in hand, the ink flowing onto the paper. The words lean into one another, a script like notes across a page. I can see her in my mind, pausing, then moving, then pausing, then moving, her hand gliding and pressing, sometimes stopping, sometimes flourishing. She's pushing her thoughts around, trying to capture a feeling. The letter reminds me of Cy Twombly's scrawls, or even some of Basquiat's cryptic texts. There's a sense of urgency here, a need to communicate something vital. It’s a very intimate thing, to think about how painters borrow and steal from other art forms, like writing, and how those other forms influence the mark-making on the canvas. All of us artists are constantly looking and learning from one another, aren’t we? It's this ongoing conversation that keeps art alive, and keeps us alive too.