"Fatal Fetal" 9x12 pastels
I've also added a section for a charcoal drawing I did for EBSQ and I will be adding more as the year progresses. :)
It seems Karin Jurick's Portrait Challenge in the Different Strokes by Different Folks blog got me embedded in portraiture mode for the month of January. I'll also be working on a self-portrait or two. Oh boy, more images of me for the wall! I thought for certain I had enough of those!
The cheerful pastel drawing above was done for an EBSQ show "Conversations with Dead Poets" It received Juror's Choice Award and it's also sold. This is how the piece was inspired:
This show exposed me to more poets than I've ever encountered in my life!
One of the first poets I responded to was the late Anne Sexton who lost her battle with mental illness and committed suicide in 1976 at age 46. My 9"x12" mixed media entitled "Fatal Fetal" was inspired by "Wanting to Die". The whole poem was powerful but these two stanzas were the ones that inspired my art:
"...To thrust all that life under your tongue!--
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,
and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison..."
The poet seemed alone and hopeless. The figure in my piece seems cold and appears to lack comfort from clothing or human contact. Taking the fetal position and her fingers in her mouth, she appears to be regressing into a dark direction like a deep depression.
I remember finishing it and planning to paint it in oils on canvas at some point. I still might. I was proud that I made up the figure lol Anyway, as I said this piece sold but I am selling prints in Imagekind where you can also order it in your preferred surface and even framed. Well Red, glad you brought it up since I never touched it since last year lol!
If you need a happy fix, let me show you a video of my bird Joey in case you haven't had the pleasure of seeing him! He's been quite popular on Youtube!
