In Like A Lion

Out like a ram

One of my oldest friends gave me a book of Aesop’s Fables last month, the one illustrated by Eric Carle.

“This made me think of you. I thought maybe you can use it,” she said. Because maybe I’ve been working on a cautionary tale among all the news stories which offer cautionary tales and all of history which offers cautionary tales and of course Aesop’s Fables, which expose the truths of every day life, characters who split hares while considering their own nature.

The truths of every day life or wondering what kind of valuable lesson there is at the end of each day or each century is exhausting sometimes.

I kept trying to draw a lion last week, I kept wondering what is my lion? Is this my lion? (I wont show you all the failures) and played with ink and too much water then looked for a fable about a lion and found this one: The Man and The Lion which miraculously gave the story I’m working through, see below, (a cautionary tale) a center:

A Lion and a Man chanced to travel in each other’s company through the forest. They soon began to boast that one was superior to the other which resulted in quite a quarrel. Now they reached a clearing in the forest where there stood a statue of Hercules tearing the jaws of the Nemean Lion.

“See,” said the man, “that’s how strong we are! The King of Beasts is like wax in our hands.”

“Ho!” laughed the lion, “a man made that statue. It would have been quite a different scene had a lion made it.”

And then a forest appeared and I am cautious about how to approach the clearing. Some pictures take time to tell you what and how they want while others…

are always there. Like the flower series which haunts me always, and then this sort of lion headed red rose, with leaves shedding their vibrancy and roots feeling the weight, something under the ground not quite right, the story itself not normal. Nothing to see here folks! A cautionary tale?

Sometimes, I begin with a blank head and let the emotion or the atmosphere, the weather, or just my body, emerge. I don’t try to lead too hard, I never try to capture anything but then I admit it is fun to write about it and read way too much into it. This keeps me laughing at myself. This keeps my sense of humor and dread in sync. Painting and writing always seem a way toward the thing and through the point.

Other times, I plan and write and

one thing informs another thing and I am off to the races as they say, as if the races is where we want to go.

I’ve been writing about two photographs in my other project, one of my mother when she was a small girl and one of my grandparents, trying to understand why they left Germany, why they waited so long, what it felt like to send one’s children away, what are decisions like these, when there are only decisions to make?

There are 6000 words. A writer friend suggested to see what would happen if I cut it all up and let the pieces retell themselves and it’s been interesting to dissect a photograph and then dissect the dissection of the photograph.

And one night last week, we watched Godland, an Icelandic film about an early twentieth c. priest from Denmark who goes to Iceland as a missionary and traverses a landscape without the language or inner strength to fulfill his literal or figurative mission, only his camera equipment to capture the voyage. Said his boss.“No one said the task will be easy”

I drew it while I watched. I watched it twice. Director Hlynur Pálmason’s claim that it was a story. inspired by ten photos unearthed from that period of Icelandic history. The claim that the film was inspired by these photos is made up, there were no ten photos and I was smitten with the idea of someone wishing to fictionalizing a fiction while exposing the harshness and complexity of the truth of humans and nature, and the ways which they coexist, lie to themselves, the ways we attempt to capture a landscape or a people only to struggle with the impossibility to capture anything at all.

I love volcanos. Earth is the lion when it comes to volcanoes.

Anyway, there were doodles and pictures and for some reason, a move toward horses and people on horses and the character Eve trying to rid herself of the snake while Adam is either eating it or conjuring it, who knows which? Sometimes the only way forward is through.

This week is back to swans and lambs and ram lambs and swan rams painted with the tulip water, a faint pink. More pictures, maybe something settled next week.

I’m off to Philadelphia to visit my friend Margaux. I’ll say hello for you!