Saturday 19 September 2020

Last 4 Blind Tiger Circus images

 







Last four images (printed in these colours anyway) finished this week - 

19 - it gets harder to explain without writing out the whole poem but it mentions an empty room and a chair, the poet asks where the tiger comes from, sees the spoor on the floorboards and the delicacy of its footmarks...

we are neither here nor there, left unfurnished....

20 - The Amazing Flying Man; the poem talks of beeswax and feathers and my flying man is like Icarus, leaving the tents far below, ethereal..... but will he fall

21 - the smouldering tiger skull watches the parade pass by from the edge of the forest and the circus move on against the bleak background of the city.....

22 - in the hollow cauldron of the skull are two ghostly puppets, but who is pulling whose strings.....


Thursday 10 September 2020

Broadband collapse

 Apologies for lack of blogging; our always tenuous internet connection finally caved in and we were without one for over a week - now have temporary computer haven annoyingly right by my printing station, very inconvenient, a different world polluting my sacred space...however, useful for food supplies from the outside world.....

One benefit was that we had to do massive clear and clean up so that BT engineer could enter safely and without touching too much ( or get inky) - not the sort of house for much social distancing; but we now feel virtuous and ready for the winter and good clear-out job does make one feel good and vents a lot of frustrations, and also the discovery of buried stuff can be inspiring ( not needed at this point tho- have enough inspiration already and just need to get things FINISHED ) - P still working on a new computer station where new cable will have to come in and there have been many trips to the dump, encouraging, every cubic centimetre of paper which leaves this house is a minor triumph...

however printing was interrupted! and may be again next week when engineer returns annoyingly...hope I can last 4 images done then...

meanwhile










here is the next batch...bother - the first image of the ant should come between the mother and child image and the acrobats...never mind - I will continue the commentary in the correct order...

image 12 - the bareback rider - the poet talks of 'a woman who has lost her love is trying to catch may petals' and a capsized moon...

in poem 13 there is a child's voice and her mother is calling to her and here they retreat to their caravan - the fringes of the circus are always even more mysterious than the show.....

poem 14 speaks of a sleeping child and 'the ant... who knows the circumference of all things' - and I enjoyed researching flea circuses for inspiration; the wisdom of the ant probably surpasses that of the didactic group of watchers in some things....

15 - is probably the darkest poem/image in the whole set and needs to be read in full to be understood. I made an image On the Edge - we balance precariously on the circumference of our planet at a moment of great decisions. Will we fail the moment. the poet begs the Tiger for 'mercy, mercy, mercy....'

16 The poet says Blind Tiger when will we learn the subtlety of extinction.... and again an edge-land figure - the clown  stands in the wings and looks out at the forest edge...

17 - the poem mentions the elephant and a woman, and miracles of incarnation; the power of nature.

18 but all the images after the acrobats one have taken a more melancholic turn, the figures are all  white - ghosts of themselves.....

to be continued, in ten days time hopefully.....