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Saturday, September 25, 2010

still thinking

YES, Still thinking

I wanted to post this painting but wasn't in the mood to write yet so when I came to the title of the blog piece I simply wrote still thinking.....and it stuck for me....(which I am thrilled to report is all that matters) so I am officially naming this piece "Still Thinking" which then starts to remind me that the big celestial cosmic clock is ticking away and I'm yelling back at it YES I am still thinking........and painting, and lots of other things.   HOWEVER I do think about the sand in the hour glass running out...a little more than anyone wants to hear about ....but I daresay we all think about it.  I know I've been thinking about it since I was five... I remember looking at my parents and feeling sorry for them because they were further down the timeline than I was....and remember the wonderful feeling of having all of my life ahead of me instead of being in the middle or as it's becoming more and more, behind me. 
Andrew Marvell wrote TO HIS COY MISTRESS which I read in probably 1969......thinking hmm...that's interesting.......but now I reread it and yes, it resonates.

I want to paint every painting I've painted again .........and do it better.  I want to try different color schemes.........different backgrounds, .....different treatments of the flesh, lose the edges, find the edges, hi contrast, low contrast, figure in shadow, figure in the light, large, small, colorful, somber, and on and on....Painting is so very wonderful.  Let all the days of the rest of my life include color, design and drama!  Time's winged chariot is coming so it's time to make manifest!

Here is Andrew Marvel's (no not a super hero) poem
Hope I don't get in trouble for posting it....ah but he's dead and it's over 50 years so it's public domain I think.  




To his Coy Mistressby Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.