Sunday, June 04, 2006

Sex and the Artist

This is a rather funny, depending on how you look at it. A dear blogging friend, Bill, bought one of my watercolor pencil drawings:

The Dance, The Dream, Disappearing Into Each Other

Dance, the Dream, Disappearing Into Each Other, 8.5" x11", watercolour pencil on paper, 2006.

The writing along the blue woman's leg: 'shadow my desire'; up the older woman's arm, 'what rises into the self?'; and curling from thigh to breast to arm, 'repose curls in on itself.'

(click on it for larger sizes)

He wrote in a recent comment, "By the way, my Mother in law thinks my awful painting of those people having sex should be removed from our quest bedroom. I love it by the way and will post it framed soon."

Huh? I overlaid (uh oh, I'm noting my terminology) 3 sketches of the same model from the same lifedrawing class and then colored them so that they seem what I thought was melting into each other (uh oh, terminology again) like a dream, sort of surrealist. All I can see is the figure 8 of the composition, which I like and didn't notice until it was finished. But now that he mentions it...

A prime example of how the artist creates a work but doesn't thereby generate the meaning... (Wayne Booth's Rhetoric of Fiction, but don't ask me for a page reference, it's in storage! Booth says there is a gap between author and text, and between text and audience. I'll say!)

But perhaps unconsciously... (O, roll over Freud, roll over).

8 comments:

  1. It's beautiful and mysterious. To me it suggests life: sex, dreams, love, and our ultimate disappearance into each other and into the universe.

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  2. Some people just equate nudity with sex and leave it (or join in?) at that. I love the way the image flows, its different layers and depth (the large view is marvelous). If anything, the interpretation is revealing of the interpreter.

    And I was smiling at the "quest" bedroom typo. Here's to exploration! :)

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  3. I left a comment here yesterday, but it didn't "take." I remember this drawing and had assumed that this was underlying the other things you spoke of — it's all connected, after all.

    quest bedroom!

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  4. Anonymous1:10 PM

    Well, perhaps the guest bedroom is not a good place for it. I enjoy reading the comments and love how you surround yourself with beauty. I am trying to do the same.

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  5. Bill, the guest bedroom is a great place for it! I meant this post to be a little jovial, that's all. Honestly, I didn't see what was implied. And I'm not displeased, either- :)

    Patry, e_journeys, and MB, thank you for your gracious responses, as ever, much appreciated.

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  6. I liked to think U had a quest bedroom, made for interesting room.

    Smooch,
    The Tart

    Oh, lovely art piece!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sex and the artist
    I like this watercolour. The churches, the religions often criticized the sex. But. .le sex is part of our body, a possibility of giving and of receiving. The sex can be an activity sacred.

    J'aime cette aquarelle .
    Les églises , les religions ont souvent critiqué le sexe .
    Mais ..le sexe est une partie de notre corps , une possibilité de donner et de recevoir .
    Le sexe peut être une activité sacré.

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  8. Cette femme, qui caresse le sexe de l'homme , elle donne et elle reçoit .
    C'est le coeur des relations humaines .
    C'est une belle chose .

    ReplyDelete

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