Hilary Biehl
Postpartum
You wonder how it came to this: the diapers
ripening in the pail, the clothes askew
on your transfigured body, windshield wipers
skittering across a filthy view.
You cry more than the baby does. You hold
him distantly, and everything is leaking,
everything is far away and cold.
You stare at walls and windowpanes, unspeaking.
Backwoods Apparition
The road is thinner than her wrist
and mostly dust. She bounces back
and forth on duct-taped seats. A knack
for finding places others missed
has brought her here, where sunflowers grow
tall in the roadside ditches and
the rabbitbrush is out of hand.
She isn’t lost but doesn’t know
exactly where she is. A man
appears, talking of property.
This road is his, he says, and she
had better turn back while she can,
or pay up, if she must pass through.
She squints into the cloud of dirt
from which he seemed to come. His shirt,
marbled with sweat stains, blocks her view.
Of course it’s nonsense. But she pays
the toll. He steps aside, and in
the rearview mirror, his lips thin,
his beard grows wild, his body grays,
his eyes’ fanaticism hardens.
The main road beckons; soon she drives
along the edge of tidier lives,
past picket fences, gnomeless gardens.
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| Brittany Vogel is an award-winning, New Jersey-based painter known for her bold color and beautifully expressive line. Her Powerful Women series has struck a chord well beyond the gallery walls, earning inclusion in multiple exhibitions including a Monmouth Museum x Smithsonian Exhibition and coverage in numerous press outlets, including Yahoo! News and feature spreads in TapInto and 07030 Magazine.
Vogel's work lives in public spaces as much as private collections. She created a 12-foot interactive mural, Suffragists Marching, in the Columbus Circle subway station, and has delivered artist talks at the Bruce Museum and the Hoboken Historical Museum. Her achievements include the competitive Merit Scholarship from the Art Students League of New York and features in three consecutive Monmouth Museum Annual Juried Exhibitions. She has mounted solo shows of both her Powerful Women and Order vs. Chaos series in New York City and New Jersey.
Whether she's covering a subway wall or a canvas, Vogel's aim is the same: command attention from across the room, then reward a closer look with a rich, layered story worth lingering over.
Brittany continues to paint, exhibit, and expand the Powerful Women series from her studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, adding new women and new stories to the collection.
For additional information, please visit www.BrittanyVogelArt.com.
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