The blues in this painting by Matisse, converging as they do like a gymnast accomplishing the perfect flip, extend beyond the visual revelation into possibilities. To possibly become an aerial destination, seen from above, your jutting shoulder the ledge for a flock of birds. To hold in your writing hand a winning lottery ticket for a 1934 classic Buick convertible. To fall in love before three o’clock on this bucolic afternoon. To possibly, stupendously: stop a war. Dig out rot & corruption. Build an illumined shrine. Change the resonance of your voice, your wardrobe, & the way you dance. Personal failures, minor triumphs & dreams, converging as they do like a ball (spinning) made of clay, made of iron. A white star pulses in the human heart, an archetype as transformational as Sri Yantra. Possibly these shades of blue, pulsing cosmologically, as fulfilling as a yield of wheat, change everythingat once. Do you see what you did Matisse?
Henri Matisse Nude Painting, Plaster Torso and Bouquet of Flowers, 1919, oil on canvas
So far in January I have used the pen & the book to keep track of the hours I put into my current B&W work – on a long roll of Fabriano mid-weight paper.
3rd section
Working on the floor like an iguana I am almost 1/3rd through the roll of paper working with black & white gouache, B&W ink, water-soluble graphite pencils, and drawing pens.
4th section almost complete
Introducing Boudicea, Queen of the Icenis. I am developing a metaphor in ‘now’ for Boudicea based on her famed history & Celtic roots.
Detail 4th sectionDetail 3rd sectionThe pen and the book to keep track of the plan. Writing hours worked after they are done.
I will shift into a different ‘feeling’ of depiction soon. Around the 1/3rd mark.
1st section2nd section – my phone camera is disappointing.
This work will mirror (in part) & dovetail with my previous subject matter on the ‘long blue roll’ of Fabriano mid-weight paper (same height and length).
S. McCabe, Druidica Blue: Deja Vu (Cave Art of the New Psyche) 2022, 5’H X 35’LDetail 2nd sectionDetail 2nd section
So it seems I will have a two-part work on two rolls of paper.
Detail 2nd section
Now it seems the plan is for the work to become a diptych. I think this fits the criteria for a diptych.
Detail between sections 1 & 2
My goal is to reintroduce images from the ‘original’ (first) ‘mostly blues’ roll of paper into the B&W (second) roll of paper and develop the themes manifesting my investigations over the last few years.
S. McCabe, Druidica Blue: Deja Vu (Cave Art of the New Psyche) 2022, 5’H X 35’LDetail
My plan will take a few months longer as I complete part two of this two-part work (a mere 2/3rds of the current roll of paper to complete).
Detail
Info about the overall project:
In 2022 I completed a long painting/drawing on Italian mid-weight paper titled ‘Druidica Blue: Deja Vu (Cave Art of the New Psyche).‘
I began this painting over a decade ago as a gift for somebody who had changed my life. And then the situation imploded. The implosion had been coming, like a not-silent comet, for a long time. What I had thought I wanted I didn’t. And then I had no choice in the matter. It was, as these things go, all for the best. I finally finished the painting this past year.
‘Sunshine of the Black Bull‘ – 2011 & 2023, acrylic on canvas, 30″ X 22.”
I wanted to say something and ‘borrowed’ more powerful work than my own to do so.
I wanted to say something about what is happening to the bodies & minds of children, to brothers & sisters, to young people, to mothers & fathers, to grandmothers & grandfathers in Gaza, Palestine. To their pets, homes, and possessions: their photographs, clothing, toys. To their health and their future.
“I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.
“I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think they need machinery like that.”
Follow the Tate link to find out more about the Kathe Kollwitz series of woodcuts titled War.
Like many, I am familiar with Kathe Kollwitz’s great skill and mastery in emotional imagery addressing war. She lost one of her two sons to WW1. She lost her grandson to WW2.
Like many, I have read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a great writer and literary artist who as a prisoner of war (in WW2) experienced the firebombing of Dresden, Germany.
I do not claim copyright to the work of Kathe Kollwitz and use it for non-commercial purposes of education & commentary.
How would the man wearing a hat describe tidal waves of salt & coral-like branches of salt.
Flying carpets of salt & police made of salt. Fish made of salt.
How would he describe the zero stamped on his documents.
How would he describe the wooden chair outside the chamber of the committee.
How would he describe his favourite song from happier days.
Beneath obsidian moonlight magicians fall in love.
In moonlight orioles glide underwater.
In cold water narwhals reveal the depth of the abyss.
At the crumbling edge of the abyss zebras surround a whispering pearl.
The pearl whispers, ‘Go into the night, obsidian moonlight.’
Magicians fall in love.
The pearl whispers the names of the Four Horsemen.
The Four Horsemen harness the magnetic energy of whirring machinery.
Beneath whirring machinery oil drips into infinity.
How would the man wearing a hat describe catfish & ballet & airplanes in tidal waves of salt.
How would he describe infinity streaming through his eyes.
How would he describe vibrating like Medusa.
How would he describe the consequences of miscalculation to the committee.
Children drag baskets filled with papyrus scrolls while pretending to live in rectangular time.
In the landscape of infinity magicians fall in love.
In moonlight oracles glide underwater.
How would the man wearing a hat describe shadows beneath tidal waves of salt.
Coral-like branches of shadow & flying carpets of shadow. Police made of shadow & fish made of shadow.
The shadow of a zero stamped on his documents.
Beneath obsidian moonlight magicians fall in love.
I posted this as a rough first draft and have since made numerous revisions. There is always so much one can do with a poem. Though at some point one must simply accept what is and move on.
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