Painted a face across the mask

[sovay]

Today I finally saw the Sackler Museum's "Gods in Color: Painted Sculptures of Classical Antiquity." My father is in love with Cycladic figurines, as sharply angled as Art Deco, scoured white or painted geometrically in red ochre and azurite blue. The reconstructed bronze head of a youth with darkly corroded hair and inlaid gold lips and brows, iris-ringed eyes of glass and glaucous stone, made me think of My Brother Michael. None of these statues gaze into the past, remotely, time-blinded. Their clothes are intricately bordered, their arms flushed from the sun; their eyes are all focused on things you can't see. They look too bright. I love them.

My poem "Reliquiae," written last January for nineweaving, is eligible for the Fourth Annual Pedestal Readers' Awards. So vote, if you feel like it! There's other good stuff there, too.

Tomorrow, Arisia!

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am glad you saw the painted gods. The whited deities of classicism--ah, they're like the acolytes in Theodora Goss's story, cancelled into purity. What if the moon were so restored, with a harlequin's face?

Might you read "Reliquiae" in Orlando?

Nine

[sovay]

Oh, I am glad you saw the painted gods.

I have wanted to see an exhibition like this for years. The brochure is available online, if you want to look at some of them.

Might you read "Reliquiae" in Orlando?

Hmm . . .

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would go better with my presentation? As a sort of amuse bouche? "The Wedding in Hell" might not be suitable for luncheon...

Nine

[sovay]

Maybe it would go better with my presentation? As a sort of amuse bouche?

What I'm not sure about is how many readers will have the background for "Reliquiae." Technically, "The Wedding in Hell" doesn't require knowledge past "A Crowd of Bone."

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

True, O Queen.

(Though it must read on some level--it was published.)

Nine

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

That exhibit looks marvelous. I'm sad I'll not reach Boston in time, most likely, to see it.

Enjoy Arisia!

[sovay]

Enjoy Arisia!

Thank you! So far, so good!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Excellent, congratulations!

Also, I think I might ply pedestal with the Crow/Earworm poem, see how that goes.

The gods are very strange in color to my eyes. Strange in paint, anyway, but the paint on what I've been able to dig up is beautiful.

The numinous is not my department. But I enjoy some interdisciplinary work every now and then.

[sovay]

Excellent, congratulations!

Thank you!

Also, I think I might ply pedestal with the Crow/Earworm poem, see how that goes.

Go for it. Good luck!