the Cavehow images play
I often think that being a painter would in some respects be easier than being a writer. It’s not true, of course, just a case of thinking the grass has to be greener on the other side. Also, I’ve always wanted to be able to draw.
Pictures say a thousand words, and recently I’ve been looking hard at pictures to glean the words out of them. Every Tuesday I’ve been going to the local museums and spending over an hour in one room to really take in all the detail laid into each painting.
Those thousand words are in the language of symbols, ready to be examined, interpreted, and re-interpreted to make cohesive sense to the viewer. The color of a shirt, the placement of figures, the perspective, even the negative spaces of an image can all be interpreted, either within the realm of universal symbols or within the realm of the personal (i.e., myth vs. dream).
I began this exercise with the work of my favorite online artist, Thalia Took. She did these amazing drawings that she calls “Dream Cards.” Ms. Took encourages personal interpretations of the cards, so I’ve been seeing what the characters have to say to me. I am doing this in a way to prepare for listening to what characters have to say to me.
The first card I worked with was Pevensal.
Pevensal
Pevensal looks like a purpose brought him to the place that he is at, but having arrived, he has forgotten what that purpose was. Standing in the circle before the tree of life in the garden of the heavens, he has nothing to tell God but that he does not have any answers. How will God judge Pevensal? Is the journey the answer?
Pevensal speaks:
If not for you my name would be lost to the world. But perhaps it would be better that way, lost. I only took this quest because it seemed the only thing to do. I did not choose it, I did not want it. It was thrust upon me and I am a victim of the effects it has had on my life. I am here as you wish me to be, by the tree of life. My quest is finished. I am free to live my life free of it. What do I do now? Will you tell me?
Poor Penvensal. The blue hues that he wears are wisdom, the knowledge of the way the world spins and turns us. But he cannot see the truth that he knows, distracted by the sun-yellow of his tunic, rounded by the black of negativity. He knows yet refuses to see. He sleeps to the truth, denies the sacred that is right there for him to see. What Pevensal doesn’t realize is that nothing stops, no one thing for another. There is no such thing as putting life on hold–for every minute of life is life–there is no other. Life is only lived now, not after or before-what you do now is your life. Pevensal’s confusion comes from the perception of an ending–the end of his quest. What to begin next? But life still rolls on through the confusion. You can shuffle it around and direct it, but only as it is happening.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
These are amazing. By which I mean your interpretations. Not that the pictures aren’t pretty good, that is.
I find writing to be a lot harder than painting; you have to be much more articulate and accurate to write, I think. I have found that with painting I can get away with being purely symbolic about something, or not knowing what something is about, or why, say, a certain color was chosen. Writing is (for me anyway) much more top-of-the-brain, and involves much more conscious working out of details. I guess I find it easier to go on instinct than to articulate exactly *why.*
I am so happy you are finding these rich and rewarding, and am astonished at the depth of your interpretations. I hope you don’t mind my commenting here. It really is none of my business, and I do not want to make you feel self-conscious. But I did want to say I think these are wonderful.
I also will say that your interpretations are *very* different than mine!
April 16th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Yay! Hi! I am so thrilled and tickled that you commented! (I gave up on worrying about feeling self-conscious when I started this blog and decided to take the advice to heart that good blogging should read like talking to your best friend.) Thank you so so much! I truly admire, adore, and am in awe of your work, so thank you for producing the amazing images that have sparked my imagination. Which, in my heart, is exactly what I think art should do.
It is interesting what you say about painting, because I find the same sort of not-knowing that happens to you in painting happens to me in writing. I will often sit down to write something and once I get into it, details that I had not consciously worked out are all of a sudden the perfect thing to come next. Sometimes it feels like I am simply taking dictation from somewhere (someone?) else entirely.
Of course, there are also times when it is one slow word after another, and it feels like ripping each one out of stone with my fingernails. So in that sense perhaps writing is more of a combination of the intuition and the rational coming together and playing nice for it to really work well.
Anyway. You are fabulous, and I am so glad to hear from you!