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.