[Note: If reading these posts out of order, you may be confused. Two of the gals that modelled for me during the period 2005-8 have since had twins. This post is about my work with R___ K___. S____ also worked for me starting about the same time. I wrote separately about her twins, and a dream I had while she was giving birth.]
I went to great lengths to work with R_____ one last time before she moved to California.
Pregnant, and recently married, she was all a tither with anxiety over the move, and I think remembered the deep relaxation often induced by this work. We chose a day, and I arranged to have a taxi bring her from the West Village, over to my studio in Brooklyn.
She and I worked just three hours. It was magical. Her gorgeous body was radiant, as the pregnancy was just beginning to show. We spoke frankly about our lives.
The ritual had gained a lot of momentum since we'd worked in 2005. I laid out a simple program. Poses, poetry, then more poses. This time the poem was fun. We were talking about other things as the words rattled out and I painted them into the work, horizontally across, then vertically.
I knew when R____ materialized out of nowhere, that it might be years before I saw her again. Sure enough the car arrived. She flew away, a gorgeous bird, to a happy life. I was choked. I sat at my computer and lifted the four cardboards of words carefully, and typed them in. With only the most obvious modifications, here they are, the voices that I heard in the courtyard that day, speaking of me, now speaking of R_____, of my project, . . . ways to think of it, . . . ways to work.
Fiery film like a symbolic metaphor shimmers,
yet investigates glorious music for communication.
Important opportunity,
Confront the ennui of my verbose experiment
Must I weld through glass? It's gone my asthma!
Co-dependent daughter knows a better surreal harmony.
Understands a psychotic scale, Sanguine hence clever.
Make impressions, write observations, delve every finest character.
Approach, through your original studio
almost understand question, choose a sad torpid companion.
Doctor aesthetic, Sculpt passion, concrete Herculean leader!
Munificent Friend, cunning Beauty
Sound not laughter!
Cruising Dude, discover the sweet guile to investigate an opinion.
PM smoke - you can all think to create individual music.
Imagine, understand there will always be her absurd instrument,
Please share about electric strength!
Chant Equality!
Observe her borderline society that forms the subject.
Check your differences,
Start inclusively, capture canvas
Hate competition, give peace, model looms dead
Child paints grand rhythm comes gives health
I abuse a psychedelic joke, very arid grandeur
Metal Mother, come sing!
Must muscle horny man
Use praise, chisel some unity
Since Memory trashes Life
Laugh!, Languish, Scream!
Dormant pressure, my fresh love, wants freedom.
Look no feeling enervates this body
Mom, stick junk, pain . . .
This serious purple sleep could make free diversity
A deep white smear's best for after nude work
Sister always eschew when sure like star,
We're never curious, as opaque.
Demand break.
Beg then walk with power above,
Dust you know, Nefarious, Obtuse One!
[This is the original. The raw sound. The words we chose and arranged and read, as sounds. Some analysis of this work, and my evolution of the piece now follow.]
Fiery film like
I'm having problems with this spelling. She doesn't like 'like'. Plain and simple.
Simile is not her method. Metaphor is.
Like is to Sign ,
As metaphor is to Symbol.
I liken Design,
As a Door to a Thimble.
So . . what do I do with it?
Fiery film like . . well yes R___ K___ had left to join her movie director husband. I had long since given up my film career, and was not thinking of restarting. Hmmm. What else could she mean? There must be a way to read this, Dylan-like, so that it makes sense.
The answer came to me:
Fiery film like
sounds like
Fire eye filled in light . .
This makes sense. My kiln, a gas kiln at my studio in West Haven, has two 'fire-eyes', devices that keep the burners on, and turn them off if there's a problem. Also, lately I've practiced looking into the sun, and also looking into my kiln even when filled with nearly white light. A simple meditation.
A symbolic metaphor shimmers!
Yes! She's glad I've cleared up the simili thing. Metaphor baby!
And so. . . it evolves. But stays true to the sound. Always. Always. Always.
If you falsify what I say,
I'll call and lie to you some day.
If you falsify what I said,
You'll gratify me when you're dead.
So I tread politely around this lady. Truly I do. Manners. Manners. Manners.
Note to R___ K___ curious, did you ever think this would keep speaking to us for so long? MP]
