Tyler on the Move: Poetry is Painting

By Tyler Oaks

Tyler and Thomas Pradzynski in Carmel, CA.

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.” - Simonides 556BC

Is a still life really still? Frozen in time maybe, but life, even when still, conveys movement. Inanimate objects do not move by themselves, but could the bowl of peaches exist in a human-void room? Even a still life moves our minds to the past and future. Who left the wine glass on the floor? Is the woman coming back to her apartment? A painting is a story sealed in time.

The images I hang on the walls of my home take me to other places. I find that through these images I’ve lived out one story after another in my mind while putting on my mascara each morning. Paintings remind me of worlds I once walked through or take me places I will only travel in my imagination. Words do the same. Books are friends that lead us into other worlds, all the while teaching us how to relate better to our own.

While the paintings I have written about in my stories exist only in my imagination, one of my favorite artists painted scenes of Venice as romantic as my own. I had the opportunity to meet Thomas Pradzynski, famed modern realist painter, in October at a benefit exhibit in Carmel. He was kind and gracious, interested in my work as a writer while I admired the red hues of his Venetian canals. Several years ago I was given one of his paintings of a bookstore in Paris, long before I ever dreamed of being a writer. As I stood talking with Pradzynski in that Carmel gallery, I never could have imagined he would be tragically killed on the streets of Paris within two months time.

When I went to Pradzynski’s tribute exhibition in Carmel this past weekend, I realized that the artist had left a legacy of seeing the world through his own eyes. He painted those worlds for others to experience. There are stories in his edifices just as there are paintings of poetry in the books we read. We see characters and live with them as we turn each page. The images in our minds and the words that form them are clearly interconnected, the painter and the poet one.

Tyler Oaks earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from California State University, Stanislaus and her Master of Arts in Spanish from California State University, Sacramento. Tyler lives in California's Napa Valley with her husband and twin daughters. Tyler is presently at work on her next novel.