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Red Coast         2          Nov 5 '39

const; women were gathering ? among great black rocks.

  Then a pencil sketch (9 X 11) - "Opilis gaiterers - with figures.

  This was transferred onto canvas - 28 X 33 in charcoal.  First week - high red cliff, women among rocks.

  Second week - cliffs reduced to low hills, -perspective seemed wrong, [[?]] trite, composition without spirit. Utter dejection - "I shall give up painting. I am a poet. my paintings have been trite. I have run out of pictures." (Another week of despondency.)
Then a rejection slip (2nd in 2 yrs) from Poetry magazine. Then the news I had not placed in the Print Show. Thoughts of escape. Quitting life here on this island.
Yesterday - asleep beside the canvas that symbolized my failure. After a 2 hour sleep full of strange accusations, I was up, and worked feverishly with the palette knife - dismissing the [[?]] gatherers. The precise guidelines, the locale, and calling to the fore my childhood, my youth, my past year on the beach. Rain appeared by chance, & the hills, the red hills, the gray.
Today, it was finished - another painting #