Dance 'Round Him, You'll Glitter Like Gold....

"Dance 'Round Him, You'll Glitter Like Gold" -Rumi

When I was very little, frequently my daydreams would include a big old house with many rooms to explore, and each room would have a box inside of it, a magic box waiting to be opened....

In the midst of all the farm work that you see me doing on my blog posts, I do have a quiet side that I don't share very often, and that is my artistic side. I have decided to try and devote more time to this side of myself and am starting by sharing some of my art.

This blog post is about art. It is not about politics or the divisiveness of religions, it is about art and love and beauty.

The pictures below are of a specific grouping that I made for Art on the Farm 2008.

First, I was very (and continue to be) impressed with the God/love poetry of Rumi. I made two 'dream boxes' that are pictured below. The first one, is handwritten in French and is an original composition of mine.

It reads (translated):

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

but the beholder is not allowed to own beauty,

touch beauty, feel beauty.

Beauty mocks us and then disappears, leaving us jealous of its abilities.

Beauty generates the ugly and gains them as it's loyal followers.

I hand wrote the translation in French and then overlayed it on a black painted wooden box, and the front and sides are hand tinted with pastels and acrylic. There are fingerprints, on purpose... a trace of one's personality, more important than beauty.

On the front panel is a page from an old book. At the time I was making the boxes, I did not choose the pages for content, but for their sepia tone. It was not until the whole project came together that I realized the cohesiveness and the oddity of how each piece of my project complemented the other. The front panel begins with, "...are all invisible to him...."

I then created an aged ribbon of sepia and hand wrote, in French,

"I love you, but I don't know why"

on the entire length of the ribbon.

Love, without thought. Another Rumi-esque quality.

The second, and most important, box

was painted black and layered with elements of time. An ancient clock key, a fortune I had picked up off the sidewalk that reads, "A man without aim is like a clock without hands, as useless if it turns or if it stands", a page from a scientific magnetic observation chart that I had found in the attic of this old farmhouse and my favorite quote about time,

"Time flies, suns rise and shadows fall, let it pass by, love reigns forever overall.

On the front panel of this second dream box the sepia book panel reads, "Physical beauty is a noble thing when it is seen in perfectness; but the manner in which the moderns pursue their ideal prevents their ever really seeing what they are always seeking; for, requiring that all forms...." I honestly didn't read the words on these panels until after the project was complete. I chose them solely for their color. Amazing, huh?

When you open this second box you are met with your own reflection staring back at you from a piece of shattered leaded glass mirror that is wrapped (so as not to cut). As you stare into the mirror inside the box, there are words on the mirror. As you read the words, you see your reflection looking back at you. The words on the mirror are from Rumi. They read,

"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you,

not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along."

Of course, when I tried to photograph it, it lost some of it's effect due to my reflection having to include a camera. But, I think you can get the idea..
At that moment, you realize you are reading about looking for your love while you are looking at your own reflection, and you shut the box!

My display for the show included many fragments of mirrors, all with Rumi poems and quotes on them, sparkling and reflecting the light from the white prayer candles.

The white candle is a prayer candle.

Pure white, for the pureness of God's love.

C'est tout. (: