Here is another story by Elizabeth from our collection. It is based on the idea that one of the powers of a woman with her skirt raised was to frighten (or melt), (or blind) the devil. There were a few thoughts from ancient sources on the power of a woman with her skirt raised.
Here is a basic list: cow bulls, still waves, melt the devil,defy death.
We have focused on this collection of ideas for the work in the upcoming show.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
VOYEUR
It was a dark and stormy you-know and I was stretched out over some very pricey construct of rose thorn, restless doves and froth of the sea, looking to reconstruct the pride in my adolescent swing, hips that nestled my butterfly perched on orange blossoms - ah, memory! - hoping it would drape like mirror’s sand, sway over my trembling wrinkled silk, my shaking mane and take in all the best men I have known. Preoccupied with such musings, I did not notice at my window the silencing wind rippling over a falcon’s shadow, erasing its skinny arrested moans. I did not notice ravening eyes transforming my rediscovered blossoms into a bread box bursting to be brunched. When, in a great torrent, little rain women crumbled the blood between the brick in the walls of my humble-but-currently-being-remodeled tenement, the surface made slick, my industrious contemplation was pierced with a cry and dastardly tumble of disquieting turbulence. Looking out, wondering what accident of nature worried my scaffold, sulfur burned at my nostrils and blue smoke rose to obscure the pattern melting into the freshly landscaped lawn. I considered contacting officers of the law, deeply, for a few moments, after which I returned to my so rudely interrupted reveries and chef d’oeuvre.
It was a dark and stormy you-know and I was stretched out over some very pricey construct of rose thorn, restless doves and froth of the sea, looking to reconstruct the pride in my adolescent swing, hips that nestled my butterfly perched on orange blossoms - ah, memory! - hoping it would drape like mirror’s sand, sway over my trembling wrinkled silk, my shaking mane and take in all the best men I have known. Preoccupied with such musings, I did not notice at my window the silencing wind rippling over a falcon’s shadow, erasing its skinny arrested moans. I did not notice ravening eyes transforming my rediscovered blossoms into a bread box bursting to be brunched. When, in a great torrent, little rain women crumbled the blood between the brick in the walls of my humble-but-currently-being-remodeled tenement, the surface made slick, my industrious contemplation was pierced with a cry and dastardly tumble of disquieting turbulence. Looking out, wondering what accident of nature worried my scaffold, sulfur burned at my nostrils and blue smoke rose to obscure the pattern melting into the freshly landscaped lawn. I considered contacting officers of the law, deeply, for a few moments, after which I returned to my so rudely interrupted reveries and chef d’oeuvre.
Monday, January 3, 2011
The images that will be posted to this blog are all based on the theme of Baubo, the dynamic mythological figure associated with the ancient Greek stories of Demeter and Persephone. She is known to have made the great earth goddess Demeter laugh by dancing before her with her skirt raised.
The images and stories are based on the tradition of "Ana Suromai". The origin of this ancient and mysterious tradition are present in the myths of Baubo and Demeter and are there described in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The gesture itself,
literally " to raise the skirt", extends forward into later Greek stories and into the stories of Pliny and Plutarch.
The gesture has resonance in more modern myths generated from the tales of the hidden things beneath a woman's skirt. And even into this century with the ever present image of Marylin Monroe with her skirts billowing over a subway grate.
The Defy Death images marked the start of the body of work. The work began as drawings and will become machine and hand embroideries as well as paintings, prints and interdisciplinary work.
This work and these stories continues to occupy a significant part of my art practice.
The images and stories are based on the tradition of "Ana Suromai". The origin of this ancient and mysterious tradition are present in the myths of Baubo and Demeter and are there described in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The gesture itself,
literally " to raise the skirt", extends forward into later Greek stories and into the stories of Pliny and Plutarch.
The gesture has resonance in more modern myths generated from the tales of the hidden things beneath a woman's skirt. And even into this century with the ever present image of Marylin Monroe with her skirts billowing over a subway grate.
The Defy Death images marked the start of the body of work. The work began as drawings and will become machine and hand embroideries as well as paintings, prints and interdisciplinary work.
This work and these stories continues to occupy a significant part of my art practice.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Are the stories relevant?
I am back at work on 1001 Funny Things, I was working away today and thought about the issue of the relevancy of the stories. Elizabeth's stories encourage us through really provocative humour to explore ourselves to the very depths of our desires. Working sentence by sentence by sentence on the images I am becoming intimate with the meaning and let's call it the "scape" viewable from each created verbal image and idea.
Just to remind any followers of the blog we have based the stories and the images on the character of Baubo and her antecedents.
Just to remind any followers of the blog we have based the stories and the images on the character of Baubo and her antecedents.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Knowing
Here is the story called Knowing, this is one of our collection. I am including one of my first sketches for this story.
KNOWING
I always knew that one day I would find myself somewhere else. My therapist assured me it was a resistance to commitment but I continued to save for that eagerly awaited moment, content to deny myself luxuries she implied were an insane depravation. Well, that day finally arrived when, on my fortieth birthday against all odds in an unpopular cafe on Main, an abandoned brochure attracted my attention over cappuccino: KINESTHETICS, KUNDALINI AND THE KABALA ON KNOSSOS FOR UNDER $300 A DAY and I had my very first vin-dit (a very personal shove in the direction of my zah-mah-ki-bo, remember Bokonon?).
The process must remain secret (though the weather’s been great) but these three things may be revealed: rather than uncoiling spiritual energy up the spinal channel to the radiant thousand petaled lotus, as per usual, I have been directed to master unfurling the curled kundalini OUT; I have rediscovered horns, crescent moons, sacred Yonies and the mystic in mathematics: 25,920 (2+5+9+2+0=18, 1+8=9, 9 3=3) makes my heart beat faster (43200 beats in twelve hours and 25920 60=432, 432,000: the number of years reckoned to the Kali Yuga, wow!); and this morning in the pale absinthe dawn of the new moon, I lifted my skirts and cowed the bull, my bare feet wound themselves in the curls at his loins and I rode him, the power in his shanks shifting between my thighs - well, let’s just say life hasn’t been the same since. And thanks to high interest no risk futures I can pursue my dream; I don’t know, I’d be content with a small herd, maybe 18, a few colourful skirts and a red petticoat.
KNOWING
I always knew that one day I would find myself somewhere else. My therapist assured me it was a resistance to commitment but I continued to save for that eagerly awaited moment, content to deny myself luxuries she implied were an insane depravation. Well, that day finally arrived when, on my fortieth birthday against all odds in an unpopular cafe on Main, an abandoned brochure attracted my attention over cappuccino: KINESTHETICS, KUNDALINI AND THE KABALA ON KNOSSOS FOR UNDER $300 A DAY and I had my very first vin-dit (a very personal shove in the direction of my zah-mah-ki-bo, remember Bokonon?).
The process must remain secret (though the weather’s been great) but these three things may be revealed: rather than uncoiling spiritual energy up the spinal channel to the radiant thousand petaled lotus, as per usual, I have been directed to master unfurling the curled kundalini OUT; I have rediscovered horns, crescent moons, sacred Yonies and the mystic in mathematics: 25,920 (2+5+9+2+0=18, 1+8=9, 9 3=3) makes my heart beat faster (43200 beats in twelve hours and 25920 60=432, 432,000: the number of years reckoned to the Kali Yuga, wow!); and this morning in the pale absinthe dawn of the new moon, I lifted my skirts and cowed the bull, my bare feet wound themselves in the curls at his loins and I rode him, the power in his shanks shifting between my thighs - well, let’s just say life hasn’t been the same since. And thanks to high interest no risk futures I can pursue my dream; I don’t know, I’d be content with a small herd, maybe 18, a few colourful skirts and a red petticoat.
Monday, June 28, 2010
She I, II, IIi
These acrylic paintings are "She" from the story Lunch. I would like to tell you more about their evolution, coming soon....
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
What inspires me about this work?
I wanted to begin to answer the question what inspires me about this work?
First, I love Elizabeth's stories and I am fascinated (as we both are) by the richness of the source material. Really one could work from this material for ever.
Elizabeth's stories are as poignant as they are funny and brilliantly composed (I promise, soon I will include more) and I kind of enjoy not so much illustrating them as reading rereading listening and responding to the qualities in them and allowing the imagery to draw itself. My hand just draws her stuff really effortlessly(almost).
The depth of the history of these original stories keeps me desiring to explore them in images until I find my own answers. They are for all of us, they teach and they express and they play with our imaginations and they heal.
But they also offer profound truths. The essence of all the stories has to do with the healing power of the feminine. To me (to us) this is a crucial component of this whole body of work. As we keep our dedication to its evolution and development as artists in the atmosphere of a troubled world in need of healing we have this in mind. More about this as we go. Comments desired.
Elizabeth and I have been collecting work for over 12 years we will continue to do so.
Also, (for me personally) the power of the skirt as icon, image, expression, my love of the skirt as an imaginative transformative garment has been part of my vocabulary as an artist and my iconography forever. It is simply always there.
15 years ago I created a show called My Mother's Skirts which was an exploration of the profound impact of remembered gestures of my mother in her skirts.
Here is one of the images from that show called The Skirt as a Barrier. These are mainly scratch drawings, a technique I basically modified for my own uses from silverpoint (an ancient for of drawing on gesso with silver).
First, I love Elizabeth's stories and I am fascinated (as we both are) by the richness of the source material. Really one could work from this material for ever.
Elizabeth's stories are as poignant as they are funny and brilliantly composed (I promise, soon I will include more) and I kind of enjoy not so much illustrating them as reading rereading listening and responding to the qualities in them and allowing the imagery to draw itself. My hand just draws her stuff really effortlessly(almost).
The depth of the history of these original stories keeps me desiring to explore them in images until I find my own answers. They are for all of us, they teach and they express and they play with our imaginations and they heal.
But they also offer profound truths. The essence of all the stories has to do with the healing power of the feminine. To me (to us) this is a crucial component of this whole body of work. As we keep our dedication to its evolution and development as artists in the atmosphere of a troubled world in need of healing we have this in mind. More about this as we go. Comments desired.
Elizabeth and I have been collecting work for over 12 years we will continue to do so.
Also, (for me personally) the power of the skirt as icon, image, expression, my love of the skirt as an imaginative transformative garment has been part of my vocabulary as an artist and my iconography forever. It is simply always there.
15 years ago I created a show called My Mother's Skirts which was an exploration of the profound impact of remembered gestures of my mother in her skirts.
Here is one of the images from that show called The Skirt as a Barrier. These are mainly scratch drawings, a technique I basically modified for my own uses from silverpoint (an ancient for of drawing on gesso with silver).
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