I look for it in the warm daylight and in the cold moon shadows.
I search for it between the balding thistles, the merry orange dahlias, and the coquettish touch-me-nots.
I query workers at the quarry, canvass the village barns, and comb through the deep forest.
When all that fails, I go back inside and wait.
I wait for it in the silence of an empty hallway. I wait for it to walk through the back door, pass by the window, or appear in the mirror.
I wait for it to materialize out of time, light, and wanting. It never does.
Lois Dodd, “Echinacea and Orange Dahlia” (2006) (© Lois Dodd)
I grow resentful. I send squads of masked goons to hunt it down between the skinny apple trees, shake down suspects behind laundry lines. I instruct them to punish anyone who gloats about my failed pursuit.
I search and search and search. But the more I search, the more distant it gets.
Then, finally, I catch a glimpse of it. A monograph on American painter Lois Dodd has landed on my desk.
Leafing through her enduring depictions of pastoral views and quiet interiors, I feel it coming. That peace, that peace, that long-awaited peace of mind.
Lois Dodd, “Large Morning Woods” (1978) (© Lois Dodd)
Lois Dodd, “Sun in Hallway” (1978) (© Lois Dodd)
Lois Dodd: Framing the Ephemera accompanies the artist’s exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Hague, Netherlands, through April 6, 2026, her first major retrospective in Europe at age 98. It will be published by Hannibal Publishers on November 11 and is available for pre-order online and through independent booksellers.
