|
There are many examples in literature and poetry of the relationship between blindness and seeing. Homer was said to have been blind, and Milton, James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges. Pablo Neruda’s poem about how poetry first came to him “out of the branches of night”
describes himself at this moment saying: “My mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul...” It has been a discovery for me to realize that we can actually
see something in closer detail if we spend some time investigating it with our eyes closed.
The exploration between blindness and seeing is a theme that is fueling my teaching, writing
and a new series of paintings entiltled “Seven Nights”, from the book by Borges with that name,
and the seven kinds of night listed in the Maori creation myth.
|
|
This series began with images of boats, the feeling of moving over unknown waters into new territory. The first painting, representing the Fool of the Tarot, is called Setting Out. Thus began my journey from my home in the southwest to the green hills and rivers of Kentucky.
The fool represents a way of being that lets go of imposing our will on the world; one who is willing to “step out and allow the ground to rise and meet you”. In the Hermetic tradition, the fool also represents Hierosgamos, or the sacred marriage of the sun and the moon, night and day, male and female; the reconciliation of opposites. The fool provides the willingness to step into the unknown.
This is an ongoing series that will have paintings for all of the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
|
|
For years the artist and poet have looked to the muse, that invisible source of inspiration and exchange, in order to create. I have been intrigued with the history of the muse. From Greek mythology we know that Zeus the Creator united with Mneumosyne, the Goddess of Memory, to give birth to the Nine Muses; to Calliope, Clio, Eutrerpe, Urania, Melpomene, Thalia, Terpsichore, Polymnia, and Erato. Memory makes love to creation, giving form to the inspiration. The uniting of memory with creation indicates that the poem, the creation, already exists. The act of discovery and invention are the same, come from the same Latin root (venire: to find). As Borges says, to invent, to discover, is to remember. The act of creating gives the impression not of discovering something new, but remembering something we have forgotten. It is worth beginning with the idea that what you are in the process of creating already exists.
|
