Listening to the Voices of Dead People
9th February 2019
DISCLAIMER: this post does not involve cruelty to animals such as bungie jumping rabbits force fed on crack. (SPOILER: Ending is ghastly.)
I’m in my lifelong sanctuary, my thrill zone which I suspect even a bungie jump from some spectacular height couldn’t match. ( I’m just guessing of course-bungie jumping appeals to me as much as inviting a psychopath to rearrange my internal organs.)
I’m up late, very late, or is it early ( depends which side of the moon you sleep against), and I’ve got my headphones on, listening to dead people. #Georgemicheal. #Davidbowie. #Leonardcohen. Now Leonard’s a guy who created sublime music to commit suicide to. And he ended his music career on a note which perhaps superseded his entire history of straight through the heart punch. #SoYouWantItDarker. But I been there, done that. Now ironically it neutralises my deathwish. I plug in and soar on a complex wave of melancholic euphoria.
This is as dark as I can get.
May not look terribly dark at first glance. Such is the subterfuge of artistic expression. In this mixed media collage portrait, I have embedded old photographs of my mother (earth) and me as a child. Go figure. References to deep-seated needs resonate. And then there’s this theme……
Now this is bizarre because, in spite of being indoctrinated throughout early childhood in Catholicism, I chose in my turbulent transition to adulthood to reject this core element of my upbringing. Yet in my search for symbolism in my art to reflect a constant deeply needed sense of protection and guidance, I fall back on emotionally loaded references which I had in my teen-hood rejected. Why do I have the male figure represent me? Now that’s another kettle of fish. Watch this space!
Here’s one of my all-time favourite songs, granted not something to listen to if you’re two sheets short of slitting wrists, but if you’re of the calibre to fight on and catch hold of the horns of unicorns, listen with this.
