Before the churches rose, before the calendars named the months, women walked the turning earth on bare feet and felt a pulse beneath them older than any catechism. This painting belongs to that elder country.
A woman dances at midnight among violet blossoms and dark loam, the ankles bound in thin chains. The damp ground below quickens with wildflowers and ribbons of teal brushwork, each stroke a small wind drawn through grass.
The Dance
The piece takes its subject from “The Quickening,” a song from Shattered Goddess. It attempts in pigment what the music attempts in voice and string: a return to the pre-modern sense of the earth as a living thing. The old faiths understood this. So did every midwife, herbalist, and practitioner who held the earth sacred.
This started as on of the typical full gymnast / ballerina poses to try and box the photo. I then realized I needed another dancer to do that. That worked but it was boring. Then as I was going through the color coordination of the outfits, I was, like, “what if I took the floor away? No one has gotten that shot before.” So I did, and did. Then I was reminded of the scene from ‘Scott Pilgrim Verses the World’ where Wallace is telling Scott that if he really wants the girl, he has to give into the ‘L-word’, to which Scott answers “Lesbian?” and Wallace says “It’s ‘Love’, I wasn’t trying to trick you.” So, I may have incorporated that into the scene. Lastly, I worked on the camera focus, aperture blades and whatnot. So, that’s the process, kind of ho-hum. The result is two interpretative dancers practicing for the stage in the future.
Today’s doodle is a dyoptych. Technically, a dyoptych doesn’t exist, as it means two fold. In the art world a polyptych typically start with triptych, or tri-fold, a series of three paintings. I’m lazy, so I invented the dyoptych. What’s it about? Beyond the usual celebration of the human form, its an imagining of the Dervish, as portrayed in the DnD world.
Dervishes (aka Whirling Dervishes) in the real world are male (though it’s changing) and focus on the universal values of love and service, deserting the illusions of ego to reach God (Allah). In most Sufi orders, a dervish is known to practice dhikr (previous sentence) through physical exertions (dance) or religious practices to attain the ecstatic trance to reach God, but they are not weapon focused, that is pure fantasy.
Second Panel of the Dyoptych – focuses on the glitter, because there is no life without glitter.
In Role-playing Games (RPG) Dervishes are a dancing order, more like belly-dancers who carry weapons, who have an affinity for water (as noted in the Guild Wars video game), and are deadly assassins – the Mideast equivalent of Ninjas.
Here, an unnamed dervish, let’s call her Anya, dances in practice for a coming performance, drawing power from the water surrounding the holy site in which she dances, unlike the assassins or ḥašīšī ‘hashish-eater, also of Mideast origin and the genesis of the term assassin, she draws her power from music and form. Now, the music is totally in her head but is definitely Mideastern in origin (why substitute for a good thing :).
The second panel of the Dyoptych was accidental. I was positioning the Scythe and said to myself, “Self, this is a good angle for a picture.” Beyond being an artist I’m also an aspiring photographer.
Totally inspired by the playlist I’m listening to (Middle Eastern dance music), singers like Elissa. I also noticed she (the dancer in the painting ) looks like one of my friends – there is no subtext – okay, maybe there is, she looks like someone I’ve crushed on for forever, but ‘twill never be. Then again, maybe it’s the Bumbu creating false honesty. Anywho, here she is, an artist of the dance.
Silly title, I’m at a loss. This is a continuation of my #Fairy / little people #artistic binge (it’s out of my system, I think). This is what happens to your #phone when you are asleep after a #night on the town. It’s why your #lighter (if you’re into that) is drained, your battery dead, and you’ve dialed your last crush, but swear you didn’t, when you awake the next morning.
There’s actually two pictures. The darker one is the original, but it was impossible to see the cool stuff in the background, so I lit things up. #art #digital #new #modern
