The Line Becomes Flesh

Aubrey Beardsley’s peacock dress illustration for Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé


Alla Nazimova as Salomé

I

Aubrey Beardsley’s 1894 illustrations of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé are perhaps as famous as the play itself. Recently, however, I stumbled upon a complete surprise in John Coulthart’s blog: in 1923, those drawings were brought to life in a silent film production of Salomé starring Russian actress Alla Nazimova (nee Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon). Reputedly the hostess of parties ablaze with debauchery--at her very own “Garden of Allah”-- Nazimova was unmoved by the studios’ fears of scandal and therefor took on much of the extremely high expense ($350,000) of the film’s production herself. Much of the expense seems to have come from the costuming, with all the textiles being shipped from Paris.


Nazimova, who inspired Tennessee Williams to become a playwright with her 1936 performace of Ibsen’s Ghosts, had little trouble playing Herod’s sultry teenage daughter convincingly, though she was herself 42. However, the film flopped miserably, as the morals of the day found it just as unacceptable as Wilde’s and Aubrey Beardsley’s contemporaries had found the play and its illustrations.


“The Dancer’s Reward” (Aubrey Beardsley)


Alla Nazimova

Black Cape (Aubrey Beardsley)

Above, you can see the inspirations for the collar, the flower-designs, the shape of the cape, and the odd head-piece.



Though I do not have Nazimova’s version of Salome’s famous Dance of the Seven Veils to share with you here, I do have something that is infinitely (in my opinion) better: Rachel Brice, performing a more modern, stylized version of what Aubrey Beardsley called “The Stomach Dance.” Among the long list of things Brice could convince someone to do just by dancing for them, I can add: her performance convinced me to give up several hours of the day towards trying to learn this style of dance.



And here is Zoe Jakes (not me, unfortunately), to show you that there are really no limits to what your body can do. I’m serious. Just watch.




Enjoy!

Erzulie Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

some notes:
"Voudoun has given woman, in the figure of Erzulie, exclusive title to that which distinguishes humans from all other forms: their capacity to conceive beyond reality, to desire beyond adequacy, to create beyond need. In Erzulie, Voudoun salutes woman as the divinity of the dream, the Goddess of Love, the muse of beauty." 138The Divine Horsemen

One of the most striking aspects of the traditions surrounding the devotions to Erzulie is that they always end with her weeping. Erzulie is lovely, beautiful, and she has the adoration of all men, yet she does not strike hateful jealousy in the women, because of her child-like innocence. She induces wonder and care, she is like a child. And, though she begins all celebrations in her honor filled with giddiness and pleasure at the excess of beautiful and expensive things that are always lavished on her parties, she slowly grows sad, accusing the people of not honoring her enough, not giving her enough, not loving her enough. In Maya Deren's book "The Divine Horsemen," she suggests that this is just another aspect of her child-like behavior (along with an "impatience with economies, with calculation, even with careful evaluation" 139), that you cannot give a child enough attention to satiate its need, and that those present at the devotions understand this and soothe her. I feel, however, that perhaps Erzulie is right. We do not devote enough of our attentions to child-like wonder, to endless and all-enveloping love--if we did, the world would be a much different place.
In Candomblé Ketu, Ewá represents the water element, and is the goddess of enchantment, beauty, and harmony. Like Erzulie, in the related Voodoo pantheon, she is universally loved and loving and "represents all that is fragile and sensitive." According to Morwyn, in Magic from Brazil, "Euá was so beautiful that men would fight to the death to possess her. In order to stop the carnage she changed herself into a puddle of water that evaporated to the sky, condensed into a cloud, and fell as rain. Thus she is known as the deity of transformation."

Here, I am fusing the two water divinities, hoping for a major transformation such as the one Erzulie begs for, one in which I no longer need to mess with stupidities like balancing my checkbook, for example... She is still paired with the Green Lion of alchemical transformation, and they rest beside Legba's tree, which opens the doors to the other worlds. If you look closely, you can see the first bird forming from the clouds billowing up from her scarf.
More on Erzulie, Ewa, and Legba here and here.

Transformation: Erzulie-Ewa and the Green Lion, Part II

Part I is here.

Nature Gives Lessons in Perspective, Part II: The Sculptures of Patrick Dougherty

(see Part I).


"Natural Selection," 1996
(22x8ft)
Copenhagen Botanical Gardens, Denmark


"Jug or Naught," 1999
(up to 20 ft)
Frederick Meijer Gardens, Michigan


I just discovered a very unique artist on Garden History Girl'sblog. Patrick Dougherty came to accept art as his life's work only after a career in health-care administration: "I just loved making things," he explains, "but I had trouble understanding the relevance. I didn't see the purpose if you couldn't make a living out of it...But then I realized that the subtle emotions that art and dance evoke in humans are the most important. They are the ones that make us feel deeper." He found that most types of art didn't allow him the scale he wanted to work with, and that frustration led him back to a childhood tool: the stick. As he turned his full focus towards his new art, he regained something else from childhood--that ability to get completely lost in a process, forgetting about the end result (as well as its "sellability"). "Having the product at the end is not my goal. My goal is building it. It's someone else's job to contain it, have it, maintain it." His sculptures are by nature temporary, yet he puts an immense amount of time and energy into each one. He also reverts to the child's ability to work well and on equal footing with others, asking his volunteers for their opinions and suggestions, and creating a solid group atmosphere; the routine interruptions of his work by visitors and curious questions seem to be a positive and welcomed part of the experience for him.



(2006, created on the Brahan Estate in the Scottish Highlands)

One interesting aspect of being an itinerate sculptor who works out in the open for several weeks at a time all over the world is that he is exposed to all kinds of people and their philosophies. He has neighborly, over-the-backyard-fence conversations with many more neighbors than your average North Carolina dweller. He also ends up temporarily residing in some odd places. Pat Summers describes one such dwelling in an article in Sculpture Magazine (July/August 2005):

"Some 400 years old, the [Shinto shrine] was believed to be haunted by several families' ancestors. There were monkeys that threw things and reportedly carried off small children, as well as snakes that came with the temple and could not be harmed. Under the new tin roof, the original straw covering may have sheltered scorpions, as anyone trying to sleep below was well aware."

And, he says, "I've learned to swallow things. Not to be rude, you have to learn to put something in your mouth and swallow it whether you like it or not. You just do it and take the consequences."


"Arcadia", 2004, LA.

This year, he created a 25-foot high installation he named "Summer Palace" at Morris Arboretum, in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, using only natural materials he gathered around the site. With the help of several volunteers, he worked through whatever weather--and some of it was apparently pretty rough--to create the palace in the allotted three weeks from maple, dogwood, willow, and ash branches:


"Summer Palace"
"Before I left my house to come [to Pennsylvania], I found a snail shell and everything just kind of came together from there. I started thinking about the idea of a pagoda and a layer-cake effect." The end result was the image shown above, which leads its visitors through circular halls to a child-sized central room, much like many of us created in the woods as kids, except...not.


"Childhood Dreams"
Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007.
Photographer: Adam Rodriguez.

Remember, there are no nails here, just twigs.
He talks a bit about his ideas, process, and the above image, "Childhood Dreams," in this video:





"Bivouac," 2003
20x30x20ft.
Three Rivers Art Festival, Pittsburgh, PA

In an interview with Roberta Sokolitz, he says:
"Perhaps I should say something about drawing here, because it is so central to the success of my work. Ironically, I have never been comfortable with a pencil. Early attempts to change my left-handedness to right-handedness caused me to seize up when handling anything to do with mark-making. There has been a tremendous release as I have learned to use saplings as lines and full-body motion as a kind of pencil. I use all the drawing conventions to make an interesting surface--hatchmarks and "x"-ing and raking diagonals. I use emphasis lines and shading. I have learned that sometimes one small little branch can be employed to cool a heavy line. There is also the potential to introduce sticks into the surface in one direction, thus massing the tapered lines and suggesting a kind of motion and directionality."
This type of painting with sticks can be seen clearly in the above image, Bivouac. Below is "Just Around the Corner," which looks to me like a real-life version of a Jacek Yerka painting:


"Just Around the Corner," 2003
18ft


"I think it is important to capture the life of nature. I want to show that there is vitality and motion to the installation. I want to capture the air and the wind moving around it."


"Paradise Gate"
Smith College Museum of Art, Massachusetts, 2001
Photographer: Stephen Petegorsky.


Na Hale 'o waiawi ("Wild Dwellings Built from Strawberry Guava")
The Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2003.
Photographer: Paul Kodama.

Dream Detective, Part II

photo by Abelardo Morell

(Part One is here).


photo by Abelardo Morell

He’s not even gone long enough for water to boil, and he comes back with two steaming mugs. He sets mine down in front of me and eases into his chair. It’s not just that he’s a slouch, you can see that he dreads this almost as much as I do. I almost feel sorry for the guy.
I look at the pale tea.
“Don’t you want to ask me anything?” I say, trying to help him out.
He drums his fingers some more, this time on the edge of his desk. “Well,” he says, looking pointedly at my tea. He gestures sort of over-casually towards it. “Well,” he repeats, “actually, no.”
I stare.
He returns to drumming.
I sniff at the tea suspiciously. It has no scent. “Are you going to drink yours?” I ask, probably not very politely.
He almost smiles. “Do you want to dream with me, or do you want me to dream with you?” he asks.
I don’t even want to dissect the question, so I decide to just throw in. I take my first sip. It tastes like it smells, which at least kills one source of anxiety. He immediately looks away, towards the window.
I try to focus on the fact that he isn’t simperingly sympathetic, that he doesn’t try to pull little tears out of me or lip-sync all the standard concerned lines regarding the state of my soul or spirit. I try to focus on his obvious leanings towards being a wise-ass, on the fact that the good calming Doctor Saromi loses all pretensions of self-control at the mere mention of his name. I try to focus on anything other than what this is, which is me drinking warmed-up nothing with this obviously unhinged individual who thinks we’re going to spend the night together on some other plane of existence.
It occurs to me that I might not look like me when I’m dreaming, and one thought leads to another until I’m snickering alone in my chair like I’m the one with a weak grasp on my surroundings.
He keeps drumming on the table.
“Should we have a secret handshake or something,” I snigger, trying to regain some kind of control. “You know, what if I don’t recognize you or something?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He slugs his tea like he’s trying to believe it’s really what he wishes it was. Then he turns to me, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and he says, “I’ll know you. Trust me,” he says, and he grins, kind of maniacally. “I know what I’m doing.”

********

Technically, my end also requires no sleeping aids, but really, all rules are just suggestions. The path I walk creaks loudly when unoiled, making the mere idea of detective work a farce. So this lady can smell my medicine. It only means she’s conscious.
From the moment she leaves my office, I begin preparing for bed: I open the cabinet.


If only she had chosen to dream with me, now there would be something to look forward to.


photo by Abelardo Morell



*Note: All photos in this post are by Abelardo Morell, an expert at showing two worlds in one place, particularly through the "camera obscura" technique. Fiction by Zoe Jordan.