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| feel good |
| 11.18.07 (11:23 pm) [edit] |
|
posted by: unmutual (reply)
post date: 11.21.07 (4:38 pm)
Mmmm.. warm fuzzies.
posted by: junirambler (reply)
post date: 11.22.07 (7:15 am)
My eyes keep landing on the tendrils of black ink that seem to linger on the skin or that appear, in some places, to be slithering their way north, in complete defiance of gravity. I can't tell if the red tongued creature has poisoned the pool he sits in or if it's the other way around, but either way, I feel as though I'm being sucked into something that's dangerously alluring.
I can remember, as a teenager, being brought by a friend, to an evangelical church – a place that, by today’s standards, would be considered a "mega-church" -- the church itself was far more stadium than chapel; the minister more rock star than pastor. All my life, I’d felt out of place at religious services. Whether Catholic, Unitarian, Lutheran or Baha’i, I always found myself looking around the room at the other people there, wondering what I was missing. And at the evangelical church, I landed, uncomfortably, in the same situation except, in this instance, the congregation numbered in the thousands, not the hundreds; the benediction was given over a sophisticated sound system, accompanied by pop music and delivered by one of the most skilled orators I’d ever heard. This time, when I looked around the room, and saw the throngs of people with their eyes closed, arms in the air and faces towards heaven, I found myself tempted to join them – not because I could find any evidence of god in anything that was going on, but because the unity of the mob, the rhythm of their swaying, and the palpable electricity in their shared titillation made being a part of it all dangerously alluring. When I left, I remember feeling, in equal measure, sick and frightened.
Often, bright people will wonder aloud about the followers of individuals like William Jeffs, David Koresh, Pat Robertson, or even Hitler and ask themselves how any reasonable person could get caught in the webs that these (evil?) people spin. But I think I understand it.
And so I come back to those tendrils of ink: black fingers stretched across the skin, pulling the flesh back into the baptismal font. Perhaps there’s no religious allegory here at all. Perhaps, like all good art, there’s something reflective about this piece that makes it impossible for me not to see a bit of myself and my experience somewhere on the canvas. And perhaps, given that truth, others will look and see something entirely different or, depending on their experience, nothing at all.
But either way, the more I look, the more I find it impossible not to notice that both figures in the water are children.
The more I stare at that black water, the more I’m forced to consider our own rituals of dunking innocents into pools of blind faith.
And the more I mull over that red tongue, the more I have to wonder: if the eyes really are the windows to the soul, what are left with when they’re devoured by something so dangerously alluring that we simply can't turn away?
~~~~~~
Please forgive the ramble, love.
And please keep drawing.
j
posted by: swanktrendz (reply)
post date: 11.24.07 (5:00 am)
I can always forgive the ramble. In fact I encourage you to ramble more - such a way with words.
posted by: thejongleur (reply)
post date: 11.25.07 (4:14 am)
Reply to: unmutual
Well.. cheers!
ams
posted by: thejongleur (reply)
post date: 11.25.07 (4:23 am)
Reply to: junirambler
I was a little older than you were when I went (for the first and only time) to an American "mega church". I remember gazing up at the huge rolling display which gave the names of children obviously misbehaving elsewhere in the building, because when a new one appeared, a clearly angry adult would stand up and storm out of the room, often never to return.
I couldn't help but imagine those children either desperately seeking out the love and attention of the missing.. or with equal desperation, trying to save their parents from a terrible fate.
~~
I do wish you'd do a little more of this thinking on paper.
ams
posted by: Lindy (reply)
post date: 11.27.07 (1:15 pm)
There is something amazing that comes together when you draw and she writes.
Sometimes, it's all I can do to sit back and watch.