Is Lion, Is Fed

Is Lion, Is Fed

"Is Lion, Is Fed" - acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas, 16 x 20 x 1.5.  Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need for framing.  Hanging wire is attached)  Available here and at Artfinder.


As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

​from "The Weighing" by  Jane Hirschfield


Thank you in advance, dear reader, for continuing to go into these darker corners with me this  month, as I explore the more intense side of portraiture.  

As with Monday's portrait, this one told me exactly who he was.  Hirschfield's  poem came immediately to mind.  The phrase is lion, is fed​ resonates with my in multiple ways.

Outside the context of the poem, the phrase is a reassuring mantra of strength and abundance to this leo woman, who sometimes needs reminders of her own ability to independently survive (and even thrive)  during turbulent times.  

When I put is lion, is fed back into the context of the poem, it reminds me of the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, who teaches us we are not separate from any other thing in the world.  We are the lion, we are the eland, we are each other.   It was announced earlier this week that Nhat Hanh, nearly 94 years old, has stopped eating and is preparing to depart.  He, like the eland, becomes part of something else, and yet he, like us, was always a part of everything.  Even you.  Even me.  There is comfort there.

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About the painting:  Beginning with an inspiration image (a woman, this time, used for posture and shapes, but not the face) and another Adrian Ghenie palette photo, then building layers and blending, moving, invoking happy accidents with rubber wedge, squeegee, paper towels and hands.

Adrian Ghenie palette

inspiration pose photo

roughing in the form

finding the face

building layers to later destroy