Alden Mason, well known as a contemporary painter, is also a poet. In this, his first book of poems, he writes of art and philosophy. His poems are accompanied by paintings dating from 1995 through 2004.

This book provides a rare glimpse into the mind of an artist. Here, Alden’s written and visual worlds intertwine. As this coupling demonstrates, with maturity the artist’s inner self can become more expressive, urgent, and clear; nuances recede as the artistic self expands.

Alden has expanded his artistic horizons by living his life to the fullest. To him the world has always been an endless curiosity. While many people have written about his painterly life, none have written about his poetic life. Some have called Alden a raconteur, a storyteller in the style of Mark Twain. And now we discover that Alden Mason is also a poet.

Sometimes his words flow and bubble as abstractly as his paintings.  At other times his words are as succinct and descriptive as his figurative works. Experiencing his words in proximity to his images emboldens them both, creating a whole more powerful than its parts.

Brief Biography:

Born in 1919 in Everett, Washington, Alden Mason grew up in the rural Northwest. He decided on art as a career after enrolling in classes at the University of Washington. There, he went from art student to art teacher, and taught until 1981, when he retired to paint full time. Alden gained national recognition with his Burpee Garden paintings in the 1970’s. Alden Mason’s paintings hang in many major museums and collections.

What the critics say about Alden Mason:

“Only an artist with considerable talent, a lively imagination, and decades of experience could be so consistently simple and provocative.”

“Alden’s art is a means of clairvoyance that places him in correspondence with all. Despite his many periods there is a rare unity in Mason’s work–it is both old and new, tribal and modern, naive and sophisticated. And as it always has been the, next painting will always be his masterpiece.”–Gerald Nordland, Art Critic, Chicago