certain women

November 6, 2016 Payton O'Neal

The day is a woman who loves you. Open. Deer drink close to the road and magpies spray from your car. Miles from any town your radio comes in strong, unlikely Mozart from Belgrade rock and roll from Butte. Whatever the next number you want to hear it. Never has your Buick found this forward a gear. Even the tuna salad in Reedpoint is good. Towns arrive ahead of imagined schedule Absorakee at one. Or arrive so late-- Silesia at nine--you recreate the day. Where did you stop along the road and have fun? Was there a runaway horse? Did you park at that house, the one alone in a void of grain, white with green trim and red fence, where you know you lived once? You remembered the ringing creek, the soft brown forms of far off bison. You must have stayed hours, then drove on. In the motel you know you’d never seen it before. Tomorrow will open again, the sky wide as the mouth of a wild girl, friable clouds you lose yourself to. You are lost in miles of land without people, without one fear of being found, in the dash of rabbits, soar of antelope, swirl merge and clatter of streams.

film · certain women, kelly reichardt's 2016 film, is a beige and pink triptych of three women maneuvering through moments of disquietude and repose under montana's boundless winter sky.

words i · our film is taken from several short stories from maile meloy who hails from montana and whose work encapsulates the grit and longing of this compendium.

paintings i · reichardt drew inspiration from milton avery's landscapes as a visual foundation for this film. here are several of his works including red rock falls.

words ii · richard hugo details the heartbreak of driving through the big sky country in his poem driving montana.

paintings ii · works by riccardo vecchio from his war x artifice series. vecchio created the cover art for the criterion collection's release of certain women.

music · mazzy star's halah represents all the relationships that didn't work out as planned.