She is a masterpiece while simultaneously being a work in progress. 

She’s perfect, but she’ll get better.

At becoming, while having what she once wanted, right now.

She is the painter and the muse. The canvas and the paint. The frame and the brush.

Each stroke she makes adds a new layer of understanding.

Stepping back, she stops takes it all in; her big picture.

After a pause, she takes a breath and her brush. She steps forward.

New techniques learned from old strokes, she begins to paint again. 

Adding what she wants.

Painting over what she doesn’t.

New subject. Different landscape. More texture.

Another layer of brushstrokes to add to the ones that have already brought her to where she is. 

That created her. 

She is the painter. She is the muse.

She is the canvas and the brush. The paint and the frame. The subject and the viewer. The gallery and the patron. 

She decides what hangs on the wall. 

Landscape or portrait. 

Which medium is used.

And she doesn’t always start with a blank canvas. 

What would be the point?

To throw away all that she has painted before, all that she has learned. 

All that she had to become, to get here.

No. 

She will not start always fresh, sometimes rather where she left off.

She will use her old means to form new methods.

Use her old strokes to learn new techniques. 

Fresh, wet paint, applied over the surface of dried up lessons learned. 

Every new stroke built upon a layered lesson of the past. 

She is a master while apprenticing. 

Directing her lessons.

Learning from herself. 

She is already enough, while she searches for more. 

She is a masterpiece, while simultaneously being a work in progress. 

A poem about already being enough while going after more written by Felicia Ann Ryan

Images captured and created by Natasha Gerschon / Makeup by Caroline Levin / Hair by Erika Fung / fashion by Felicia Ann Ryan

Muse is Madeleine German