Invitation to Love

$500.00

With Musical Notations by Andrew Maxfield
Charcoal on Staff Paper — 8.75” x 12.5” (Framed: 18” x 24”)

Artist Statement:

Drawing from Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Invitation to Love," this is a tender meditation on love’s constancy and quiet strength. The figures echo the timeless invitation of the poem: to be seen, received, and welcomed in every season of the soul.

By combining music notation with the human figure, I wanted to reflect the rhythm of presence and devotion, the way love—like art—can arrive at any moment, whether joyful or grief-stricken, and offer us rest. This piece is an ode to openness, to softness, and to the feminine heart that makes room for beauty through all the changing light.

Quantity:

With Musical Notations by Andrew Maxfield
Charcoal on Staff Paper — 8.75” x 12.5” (Framed: 18” x 24”)

Artist Statement:

Video Link

Invitation to Love (Paul Lawrence Dunbar)

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or come when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

Come in the night or come in the day,

Come, O love, whene’er you may,

And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,

You are soft as the nesting dove.

Come to my heart and bring it to rest

As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief

Or when my heart is merry;

Come with the falling of the leaf

Or with the redd’ning cherry.

Come when the year’s first blossom blows,

Come when the summer gleams and glows,

Come with the winter’s drifting snows,

And you are welcome, welcome.