Wesley Channell has been visiting Serbia at least annually since 2004. The places and the people are what inspires him to create, either using his camera, or his pen and paper.
“For my last exhibition, SERBIA-BALKAN BEAUTY: One American’s Perspective, I wrote a poem to accompany my feelings and love of the country. I read it at every opening and the people always seemed to relate to it.
A little while ago, I was thinking about that and realized I had no poem for PORTRAITS OF SERBIA. A while later, I was walking around his house and seeing all the mementos I have brought back from Serbia over the years—some icons, some sculptures, some paintings and other things. Then, inspiration hit me and I wrote the following poem about Serbia which will accompany this exhibition:
A SECOND HOME
Every day
Is filled with memories
Of you.
Faces, places,
Your lives
your smiles
I anxiously await
For
Our next rendezvous
A place
At the table,
A walk along the boulevards
A drink by the rivers
Laughter, tears
And conversations
Of lives you live.
I live in a
Foreign place
A world apart
Different,
But similar
In the loves, the hopes
The dreams
Of our souls.
I always return
Always will
To my last days
And drink
And speak
Of times past
times to come
Of love
In my heart
Of a place
I can call
Home.”
Wesley Channell
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