Sip of Anxiety, Garrett Phelan, 2023

I have been focusing on artwork inspired by my poetry. In this piece, the main motivation was a quote of a small headline I saw in a newspaper: Sip of Anxiety, that I had been working into a poem, “Caution Signals.” What happens when caution (yellow) takes over? First the face popped out and then next to it, the full figure crying for help in a world full of violence and dysfunction, where reading a newspaper is like sipping anxiety instead of coffee.

A poet and artist. Garrett Phelan has studied art with Anita Lehmann in Seattle, WA and at The Civita Institute in Italy, and with the late Raya Bodnarchuk in Washington, DC. He has exhibited his work at Wintonbury Library in Bloomfield, CT, Glen Echo Park Gallery in Maryland, the Spot Café in West Hartford, CT, and his work is forthcoming in a group show “The Artist-Poet Exhibit” at the Art Center East in Vernon, CT. Garrett’s art also has been featured in the literary and art journals Hybrid Harpy and Barzakh Magazine. Two of his chapbooks: Standing where I am (Origami Poems Project) and Outlaw Odes (Antrim House) feature his cover art.