Swept Away

"And so this loverboy found him a flamingo
and this flamingo showed him how to tango
 and
when they tangoed it would send
their hearts a flutter, tease him 'till he stutterd
made him so young and tender
 sweet to surrender,
 was so young and tender,
sweet to surrender,
was so young and tender......"

Well if you've been listening to this blog for a while, or just hung around the wrong  types of cafes and pubs in the seventies, you'd know that those words belong to Tim Buckley's "Sweet Surrender".

Now I always thought that the words were "Sweet is Surrender".

And if you are a human being and not some google gahgah robot, then you'll recognise that sometimes Surrender is truly Sweet.

That feeling...... that feeling of relief when you finally give into temptation, that feeling of sublime de-stressing when you mimic Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; that feeling of elation as you step over the imaginary line and sail off into the abyss ....

That feeling of flashing your ankle on public transport, of giving into the temptation of chocolate, of opening that second bottle of  expensive wine,  or that feeling of forbidden carnal temptation involving leather, feather dusters and Elvis Presley records ....

Ahh Elvis.... :)

And so, I guess I should have warned you that this post is about the little girl named Mildred who gives into temptation in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes" - and loses her feet to the King's Execitioner for her trouble.

Of course Andersen, as a writer for children, doesn't dwell on the amputation.

Instead he dwells on both the epiphany and Christian theme that runs through the story - the epiphany being for both Mildred and the reader; the theme being that once the little girl truly repents her sins (her sins were that she tricked a little old lady and wore Red shoes to church) she is allowed back into the body of the church, and hence, metaphorically, the Kindom Of Heaven - where all little girls named Mildred belong.

Thank goodness Andersen didn't dwell on the amputation. That meant I could do it.

If you hadn't guessed this is my image for Illustration Fridays 'swept'. In Andersen's tale of divine retribution and redemption, the little girl is literally 'swept' along by the red shoes, and then literally 'swept'  off her feet by the king's executioner.

Well, maybe that should read "her feet are swept off by the king's executioner...."

I like Hans Christian Andersen. Not only was he a deft hand with a pair of scissors (see his cutouts), but he had a metaphorical axe the size of a ..... er an axe!

Thank you so much to everyone who wished me well in the book exhibition. Yesterday was the opening. There were tons  of people, there were some amazing works by a multitude of artists that I felt proud to be showing with.

And I was lucky enough to be given an entire room for my work :) How cool is that!  After it leaves Newcastle the exhibition will be going to Mackay in Queensland and thence, if things go well, to Tasmania.

Yippee! :)

Oh here is the child 'friendly' version - except Mildred looks like a vampire! I went for the colour 'bleed' look from the fifties :). Blood, pig, ravens are for special people.

 

PS the l ittle girl's name wasn't "Mildred"..... it was Karen, but my friend Karen Whitaker, the fabulous artist, doesn't deserve to have her feet chopped off. ")

She does however, have a fine set of toasters on her blog at the moment which are well worth a gander :)

see  you!

 

Illustration Friday: Linked

Linked? Pirates?

Well, I have these pirate characters in the back of my head, just waiting to get out into the 'real' world.
"Aharrgh Finnie! Pick us for 'linked'!" they yell at the tops of their scurvy pirate voices.

So.... how can I work them into 'linked'?

Hmm.... What do pirates do? Well bad pirates (ones who aren't good at their job) get captured and tied up by 'good' pirates. Bad pirates shuffle the plank; they take the dive, splash in the water a bit with their hook hands and wooden legs. And then of course they sink with one final "Arghagghhhhh" and 'faire glou-glou'.

And ...... a little while later their dissasociated body parts make an organic link with the rest of the world - via shark teeth.

So after all, I can manage to work in the idea 'linked' in there if I try. Good pirates, bad pirates, shark teeth. Simple.

But what's this got to do with the above illustration....?

Nothing....

The pirates are still in the back of my head, screaming and yelling and yahooing. Even as I type they are having a wild party, possibly a wake. (Yes, I know, they must be 'awake' otherwise they wouldn't be making so much noise) Hopefully they'll run out of gutrot rum soon. I know I have.

So the genesis for this illustration comes from "Genesis". Well I think it does. Michaelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Adam and God. A little retrospective stealing from the wiki tells me:

The Creation of Adam is a section of Michelangelo's fresco Sistine Chapel ceiling painted circa 1511. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. Chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis on the Sistine ceiling, it was among the last to be completed.

And so in this illustration there is that idea of the linkage of man to the spiritual, the idea of human hands reaching out to Heaven, to the 'known' unknown.

But if you accept Heaven, then you must accept Hell - and so, if you look hard enough, you'll see just a little bit of Hell in the second illustration (below). Courtesy of  Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel and  our very own Joe Beale (who brought Brugel to my mind). (Have you seen Joe's work? Do yourself a favour, take a look, stretch your legs out, there's a lot going on in Joe's work.)

And of course there's Kali, Vishnu, Shiva and Ganesh.... and Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

I made a lot of different versions of this. Here's just a couple...... Feel free to click on them if your mouse finger is feeling itchy.

And lastly, there is the idea of Menage a Trois. The sci-fi look is something not to my taste. It so.... so 70's! (insert wink here) The eyes on the figure in the middle? I see they are blank, he is emasculated, he is not seeing. Well at least I hope he is not.....

Thankyou for looking at my work.