Artwork and the Woman
— t r a b o c c o
I was recently challenged by a young and well-known artist.
A fool, really.
He said, “I’ll paint the most beautiful woman in the world. You describe her. Let’s see if you can live up to the hype—artist vs. writer.”
He needed a day. I gave it to him.
He, of course, drew a young woman... so common.
Beautiful by a boy’s standard.
I turned the canvas over
and wrote the real beauty on the back.
Freehand. Just fifteen minutes.
He stared, blinking.
“I can see her in my mind—long white hair, older, confident.”
He was nearly speechless.
“But… how?”
I smiled.
“Easy.”
"It’s not the music.
It’s the ear.
The more present the man,
the more clearly he sees the difference
between a growing plant
and a self-possessed flower
in bloom."
And I began…
Lisbon. New York.
Farmhouse. Forest.
Wealth. Struggle.
It doesn’t matter.
The Mature Woman.
Self-possessed.
A thousand dusks fall quiet in her stare.
No need to explain.
Older—
not dimmed, but luminous.
Wrinkles, brushstrokes of time.
Faded denim, no disguise.
Silver hair: lightning held still.
Her laugh? Echoes—deep, knowing.
The gait. That grin—
unbothered, unshaken.
Seasoned.
Seen.
Solid.
She rose, like seeds becoming trees.
That smile? Oak-aged.
Faith.
Fire.
A life lived, not managed.
She is the echo
of the younger self
who refused to fold.
Time—
Rivers carving canyons.
Experience—
Hands that shaped her from clay.
And how beautiful…
this woman who knows,
not in theory,
but in marrow.
Waves rise.
Waves fall.
She stays—
the tide,
the fire,
the calm.
She arrives—
Presence.
Hair: silk,
smoke,
orbiting light.
Hands: steady on the reins.
Fifties. Sixties. Seventies.
Tide-bound.
Time-proof.
She sees—without staring.
She lets go—without loss.
She is—without noise.
Her gravity lives in the portrait:
Pastel. Acrylic. Raw.
Unretouched.
Unapologetic.
The
artwork
is
the woman.
Older women—
Eyes like steel,
soft as velvet,
wild beneath satin.
Wolves grown still.
Just give me:
A guitar.
A quiet pour.
And a long night of real conversation.
With the mature woman.
Self-knowing?
Rare.
Sacred.
Art.
Men see women most clearly—
the moment she no longer needs to be seen.
She’s not a muse.
She’s the masterwork.
Here’s to the women
who’ve outlived the noise,
and to the men
who finally learned to see.
-JT
