Eugene N Lewis

January 07, 1935 – April 08, 2021

Gene took his last breath on this planet at 9:23 PM on April 8th

He died surrounded by the People, Art, and Home he loved.

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A Journeyman Spieler of

Feeling-Cathected Things

for Eugene Lewis

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Gene Lewis, a dervish of forms.

Of vessels mostly — vases, bowls, platters.

Three-foot wide platters like shields

Of abstract landscape painted in glazes

Whose fired colors he could read

And write straight off in their nascent

Muddy smear.

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His father made ingenious machines

For making ingenious things.

The son became a stamping mill

Of art — each raku pot the impress

Of the man, of the hand, of the soul.

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He sits in his kitchen, a dervish at rest

From his life-long centripetal slinging

Of heartbreak clay and glazed delight

Into collections and other people’s kitchens.

A man with a big frame and a tenor voice

Shaded for articulating nuances

Of art and agency and glaze.