Portfolio of Works

Marc Wiegand is an international lawyer, writer and exhibiting visual artist who lives and works in the Texas Hill Country. He was an Affiliate Fellow in visual arts at The Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy in 2019. His work is in many private collections and in the collection of the University of Texas at San Antonio. In the United States, his poetry has been published by Innisfree Poetry Journal, Blue Unicorn, The Penwood Review, and Ekstasis, among others, and, in Ireland, by The Madrigal, and The Galway Review.

________________________________________________

Sonnet 38: Climbing

I know the umber fields of autumn, dormant-hued.

I know mute hills unshaven winter turns away.

I know the ways that summer mourns deep leaves

October turns to clay, the hush of fog trapped low

in the limbs of my blue trees upon the flanks

of cedar hills, the breaking roots and the slithing earth

that crumble in my grasp, as both hands reach for hold

on rock - my rough breath wet as mist, and dank

as fumbled soil. I know the coin of rich decay,

where I am spent by the dregs of buckled earth, by stones

beneath my climbing feet where cedar bark gives way.

My striving arms know what it means to beg

the silent sun relent, give back its warmth, embrace

my work that hours forsake, and all their timeless weight.

Published:

Westward Quarterly Winter 2023

https://www.wwquarterly.com/archive_index.htm#

________________________________________________

To a Reader

(For Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine)

1.

Invisible reader (listening) own 

this offer, hear (however slight)

these words the cause for your effect.

To hear and mark them is a loan,

though unsecured, for which I write.

This verse, your principal due, collects

your interest paid by this my text.

2.

Dear correspondent, without you 

there is no poetry at all. 

These tongueless lines (a tree of words)

that, lacking any presence, fall

in a silent forest unobserved, 

soundlessly because unheard.

3.

Philosophers argue for its sake

and violate their common sense,

and, though uncommon, such debate

is to the commoner’s expense:

that fallen trees cannot be heard

because an absent ear refutes

all sound. Alike, unspoken words

(the fugitive thoughts I think) are mute,

unread. I spill the fallen ink,

which falls in the forest of my route,

and murmurs to be overheard.

4.

With tongue-tied tip, my scribble-pen,

or the keyboard of my soul (turned “On”), 

I hack and chop the alphabet,

the obdurate wood of words. No one

is here to find the shadows cast

in the web and mumbling wreck of mind, 

the parts of speech that, random, drop

onto my scrabble-page, their guide

(my only prop) a blade that rots

in the poverty of cold intent,

unbeveled by my use or wit

in the rioting slums of thought. 

5.

Come reader, listen, let me tell 

a recent truth: the deaf can hear,

and the mute can speak by this our spell,

the traffic on our stage that proves

our trade: that distance disappears

when you and I are found and moved

by the quorum of this page.

6.

Read and know the smell of rain,

the touch of lips on lip, a flood

to wash away the world, a wind 

upon the battered cheek, a flame

to kiss and cleanse the earth of blood, 

a balm to close your scars, rebirth

to heal by charms your wound. 

Published:

Innisfree Poetry Journal, Vol. 37, Fall 2023

https://www.innisfreepoetry.org/innisfree-37/mark-wiegand/

________________________________________________

Sonnet 49: Embers

Will I embark upon a quarrel against the undertow,

upon that fatal afternoon, which fading from the bright,

turns purple dusk that whispers into dark?

Will I dispute with time that it is time to go,

cry heaven when you turn, turn out the light?

On the other side, where darkness waits to capture sight, 

will there be embers, sparklers and their spark,

like shooting stars that vanish in the blanket of the night?

When feeling fades, and reason, like an overdrawn account,

is unaware its bank has failed and time run out,

when there is nothing left to edit or recite,

and I become the silence I would be without,

are you, at last, the verb I cannot write

which makes a noun of me, however slight? 

Published:

Blue Unicorn, Vol. 47, N0. 1, Fall 2023

https://blueunicorn.org/product/blue-unicorn-volume-47-number-1-fall-2023/

________________________________________________

Sonnet 39: Walking

(For Meredyth)

This child's pack, still pink and white, was yours.

Your slender shoulders never fit the loops.

The way you used to hitch and heft is gone. 

Yet this is the one that I select

to bear your memory on my path,

the knap I lift and the road I own

to measure the property of my track.

The straps which cut my shoulders load

and bear your loan upon my back,

to carry you as I once could -

as once I always thought I would. 

I set my strength against the right of hills,

my stride against their burden and their breadth,

and each step bears my weight, your name my text.

Published:

Innisfree Poetry Journal, Vol. 36, Summer 2023

https://www.innisfreepoetry.org/innisfree-36/marc-f-wiegand-copy/

________________________________________________

Alms

Here is a beggar (him) who comes

to your exclusive street. He tries

with babbling speech to give you alms.

Indifference (yours) is his disguise.

In the palm of his trembling hand he holds

the whispering software of surprise.

There, the unwinding clock resides

(the vague entropy of years in flame),

tolling the days of endless Time,

the mortal beat that spells your name.

Published:

The Penwood Review Vol 27, No. 1, Spring 2023

https://sites.google.com/penwoodreview.com/penwoodreview/home

________________________________________________

Sonnet 60: The Unwanted Gift

It was only the smallest thing to do. I guessed

that no one would suspect it, least would you.

I bought and paid these gifts. I brought them too,

though anyone can see that I transgressed.

They’re orphans. None of them is on your list. 

Which once again must mean that I suppressed

propriety - which seems improbable, yet

it’s always little things, and mute, that sign

I can’t be trusted. How could anyone bet

I’d learn my simple lesson and forget

the many times I’ve failed to rhyme the lines 

I’m given to recite? I’ll sing and you 

must wonder how in spite of everything

I’ve learned, the song will end on some false note. 

My fault. I missed my mark again,

       misspoke the lines you wrote. 

Published:

The Penwood Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2023

https://sites.google.com/penwoodreview.com/penwoodreview/home

________________________________________________

My Sleep Myself Asleep

What does it mean to drift in sleep, my knees

drawn tight up to my breathing chest in deep

down fathoms of my pillow, blanket, sheets, 

dark nest where I am never what I seem?

Around an unknown corner there's a knowing dream,

a play without beginning, without end, and I

am always in it, unprepared, and stammering

my lines, to which no one replies. Perhaps I’ll learn

my blundered part someday. It’s possible. I might.

Because I know the languid structure of the dark

at play, that there is always somewhere light, a spark

that I can catch and hold until I fall awake

outside the theater where memory is parked,

the lost and found I rummage in to make a start.

Published:

Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Vol. 04, January 2023

https://pulsebeatpoetry.com/pulsebeat-04/marc-wiegand/

________________________________________________

Sonnet 55: Drawing

(For Emily)

I know that we are only atoms spun

upon our solitary ways, as new

as wonder from the furnace of the sun,

that make a spring from winter’s end of time.

And with whatever spark, my lease, I hew          

from paper with my pencils dark and bright,

to register your form and face, to draw

your self on pages blank as any white,

to find the laws that legislate your line.

I did not see the eye cannot give birth,

that vision cannot own, that drawing’s not enough,

that atoms flown must race from sun to earth.

Though time’s device may make an end, erase,

remember, love, I’ve drawn you all my life. 

Published:

Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Vol. 04, January 2023

https://pulsebeatpoetry.com/pulsebeat-04/marc-wiegand/

____________________________________________

I think of light boxes as paintings, as well as sculptural objects. They are the result of my interest in painting with light itself.

While most light boxes rely on ambient light, I have made a series that employ internal LED light systems - ranging in size from 15 inches to 8 feet. Some of these have lighting systems that deploy an almost infinite variety of light wavelengths that can be controlled with smart phone apps.

These images show light boxes, and details, in various lighting conditions. What is seen in a light box changes with variations in lighting conditions, which modulate with the time of day, the position of the sun, the condition of the sky, artificial or sunlight, as well as  changes in the viewer's position relative to the light box.

The "hidden box" concept is a series of light boxes that are, themselves, 'hidden' inside a box - which requires the viewer to engage with the work by opening the container. The box is integral to the concept of the piece.

The concept of Hard Wear is based on a game, the rules of which are that (1) every component of a piece must be readily available hardware, and (2) every component must attach to any other element based solely on its designed functionality without fixatives. Hard Wear calls into question the function of jewelry, its perception as precious, and the social role of its expense.

El Sendero del Vaquero [15 x 180 x 4] is a commission piece for an off-campus student dormitory at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. The photographs in this gallery illustrate the process of design and construction, and the finished piece installed in the lobby behind the registration desk.

Commissions are always inspiring. As someone once said: "There are no interesting games without rules". The restrictions imposed by a site-specific installation often require novel solutions that lead to innovation and surprises - and almost always fresh ideas. Commissions for a specific site require preliminary drawings, as are partially illustrated in this gallery.

A group of collage-based paintings under commercial prismatic lenses were a precursor to the light box series. Instead of creating hand-made color using paint for pigment, these collage paintings rely solely on 'ready-made' color derived from commercial and industrial tapes and paint swatches. The idea behind this series is to redeploy machine-made products for their aesthetic value.

The late paintings of Joan Mitchell are a continuing resource for investigation and study.

Sketchbooks

Few people, even collectors, know how much work goes into preparing for, and installing, an exhibition. In San Antonio Texas, it's common for fellow artists to lend a hand in the final stages to "hang the show". The task of figuring out where each piece should go in the gallery is often collaborative. Especially for complex work requiring construction and installation, its good to have several artists and the gallerists on hand to think through the process. San Antonio is a warm and collegial arts community. An all-day 'install' goes quickly with good artist-friends who are experienced installers, fluent in 'art-talk' and knowledgeable about local taco houses.

The year 2018 is the 300th anniversary of the City of San Antonio which celebrated by inviting 300 artists to compose a piece based on an assigned year. My year was 1877 in which the railroad first arrived in San Antonio bringing, among other things, Merino sheep. Together, sheep and trains caused something of a boom in the economy of central Texas. The piece, which I hope will appeal to children,  depicts the train coming to town past a mission and the all-nurturing San Antonio River, with confused sheep adjusting to their new surroundings far from Spain.

Three-person show with Louis Vega Treviño and Jorge Purón at Antonia Richardson's gallery, The Mercury Project. November - December 2016, San Antonio, Texas

"Summer Dreams" show at Urban Mattress Gallery, August 2015. Group show with 12 artists from San Antonio, Texas and Monterrey, Mexico

The piece prepared for the Summer Dreams show was a large light box (15 x 60) entitled Cozumel.

Started as an unofficial salon des refuses for Texas contemporary artists, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center Show is now perhaps the oldest continuously operated contemporary art center in Texas. A number of light boxes were exhibited in this one-person show, including Genome, a 4 x 8 foot piece with an interactive lighting system that could be adjusted by viewers.