- Published on
"In the Shimmering Black Soup" oil on paper, 20 x 20 inches. (click on the image to purchase)
Continuing an exploration of the poem Fiddleheads:
I think I’ll come back to life now. It’s odd to think of something so big we could miss
the elephant we’re living on, like this planet Earth, is she alive and we’re her brain cells,
each one of us flickering, going out, coming back to life? Even Chicago looks poignant
from the top of the Hancock, organized and sincere. Think if we were photographing
Earth, how dear she would be, how we’d watch her shimmer in the shimmering black soup
of the firmament, how alone she’d look and how we’d long to protect her, the way it feels
Continuing an exploration of the poem Fiddleheads:
I think I’ll come back to life now. It’s odd to think of something so big we could miss
the elephant we’re living on, like this planet Earth, is she alive and we’re her brain cells,
each one of us flickering, going out, coming back to life? Even Chicago looks poignant
from the top of the Hancock, organized and sincere. Think if we were photographing
Earth, how dear she would be, how we’d watch her shimmer in the shimmering black soup
of the firmament, how alone she’d look and how we’d long to protect her, the way it feels
In The Shimmering Black Soup
to protect a woman at the height of orgasm, the liquid giving, the seawater slide of coming
back to life. When you hurt me, I evolved like a backboned sea creature, translucent
nervous system sparking along in the meanest deep where I was small enough to not care
and my passions ran to swimming, gulping, spitting bubbles back into new oceans.
- FROM FIDDLEHEADS BY MAUREEN SEATON
Seaton's poem takes us on a ride, sliding into the worst of things, the deepest ocean, the blackest soup and yet leaves us shimmering and sparking, resilient and curious and compassionate.
back to life. When you hurt me, I evolved like a backboned sea creature, translucent
nervous system sparking along in the meanest deep where I was small enough to not care
and my passions ran to swimming, gulping, spitting bubbles back into new oceans.
- FROM FIDDLEHEADS BY MAUREEN SEATON
Seaton's poem takes us on a ride, sliding into the worst of things, the deepest ocean, the blackest soup and yet leaves us shimmering and sparking, resilient and curious and compassionate.
And that's the trick, isn't it? Shielding our spark, evolving our shimmer so we can see all the beauty and feel compassion for our small selves and our large world and each other in the soup. It isn't easy, and it's not for the faint hearted. But Seaton says of course the Earth would be dear to us if we saw her there in the blackness - and maybe, just maybe, seeing ourselves from afar, sea creature, translucent we evolve compassion for our bubble-spitting selves.
About the art: another piece on artist printer paper, an absorbent and fairly smooth substrate. I learned from prior pieces on this medium to go heavy with the paint, build layers and allow tons of drying time. This figure began as an idea for another queen (I so enjoy painting them) whose crown became heavy, jester-ish, weighted. Sometimes when you follow the paint, these things reveal themselves. Rubber wedge, brushes, fingers, paper towels and chopsticks used in creating this piece. She's been given a coat of Gamvar to deepen the darks, making her even more mysterious.
It's time for the April Reader Giveaway! What poem (or lyric or quote) gives you a deeply visceral response? Leave a comment and you'll have a chance to win an original piece of art - FREE - just for sharing your thoughts. Huzzah! The winner will be selected at random by Wonder Mike and announced at the end of the month.
First of all, "Shimmering" took me IMMEDIATELY to the movie theater in Cranford NJ circa 1958 or '59 where/when I saw my first Disney movie—I'm guessing Snow White, and to fairy tales I heard as a child and the images I concocted in my mind as I listened! Oh, that deepest ocean, that blackest soup, and my earliest efforts to shimmer and spark.
Whew! fierce stuff, all of it!
My eye goes again and again to the molten liquid dripping down from the headpiece—and a feeling of rising up from the black soup.
WOW.
(And Wonder Mike says thanks for entering the April Reader Giveaway with your comment! ).