Compensation 

—

For each ecstatic instant 

We must an anguish pay 

In keen and quivering ratio 

To the ecstasy. 

For each beloved hour 

Sharp pittances of years, 

Bitter contested farthings 

And coffers heaped with tears. 

-Emily Dickinson 1896 

tu me manques   you are missing from me 

At the edge of a river bluff a pair of weary sentries rest and look out over the brightening morning gloom. This corner of history reveals a series of terrible moments saturated with beauty. Lightning and fiery shooting stars are thrilling until they begin to threaten our feelings of safety. Here, a bright pinpoint of light in the still, dark sky grows and grows until it begins to portend disaster. Like the momentary transformation of a landscape in an eclipse, time here stands still and a door opens to a possible world that fills us with awful dread and ecstatic joy. When the light is revealed to be a manufactured phenomenon, the bottom drops out and panic sets in. The sentries feel the weight of the inevitable loss created by human intervention in the natural world. They enjoy one last drink before the light becomes a force of destruction. 

All the while, the thaw of spring coincides with this singularity, and a feeling of calm returns; the perseverance of nature may continue to include us or erase us in a future out of our control. The marine layer clouds the dawn on the horizon. 

About the ArtistS 

Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck are Philadelphia artists who share a love of the natural world and the chaotic magic of a collaborative studio practice.

Joy often paints the quiet poetry of a vast landscape, while Paul’s practice moves between photography and sculpture, informed by a lifelong love of all things supernatural. Together, they create installations filled with beauty, melancholy, folklore, and experimentation. Joy and Paul both graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and they have received Pew Fellowships in the Arts in Philadelphia.