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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Sorceror Series: Revelation Sunshine

I have been enjoying the entries. I have been quiet because one of my personas is trying to get these seniors graduated. Anyway...
I was in love a number of times in my life. Not a lot but enough to appreciate it and question it.
Cree Summer, an actress from A Different World and various cartoon voices put an album out about eight years ago produced by Lenny Kravitz. Few people have heard of it and few people had been looking out for it. I was one of the people the album caught. I was in my first year at grad school and had rediscovered Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. You know art school and all that. Anyway I was wandered around looking for something interesting and I stopped by my friend Angelique's room. Angelique was sitting on her bed eating carrots I think and watching Leno. My state was slowly becoming altered so I decided to sit and visit and watch TV with her. Leno announced a performance by Cree Summer. I was skeptical. Her character from A different World was quirky and though presented as deep into her convictions about the world, a little flaky. Also she had come to be known for her cartoon voices as well. Well she came out and I just couldn't believe it. She was covered in gold body paint and dancing on a Persian rug. I thought I was in the sixties. The music started and it was a jumpy guitar with some Lou Reed chords. And I got sucked in. It was about the slow discovery of friendship to intimate love. And it may have been Lucy or something but I was completely into the performance. Honestly I though the song related to my growing friendship with Angelique but when I looked over to see if she was feeling the song. She (under the influence of some other smokable) though I was trying to take her carrots and slid over on the couch. After that awakening I went back into the song. It got me like songs do. Later I bought the album and listen to it often even to this day. The hook of the song was "out of my mind, into yours." WOW. Flashforward to a half a decade later and I am in love... You know, with the one I've talked about before and she dug the album. I mean she got it!!!! Deep in the bliss of new love I was teaching a mixed media class. Since I started doing the Collage Sorceror series work I decided to have the first project for the class be from a meaningful or favorite song. Being in my ambitious teacher/artist stage, I promised to do the project with my students. I chose Revelation Sunshine the first song on Cree Summer's album Street Faerie. I wanted to show how we were in each others head and we were sharing our dreams and experiences. And ain't that what love is?
The colors and meaning are consistent with my other work, though her color was (and will always be) orange. I took out any specific visual marks on the profiles and was using a relieved symmetrical design, cause that's how I made my students design their work. Images of things we enjoyed and where we want'd to be. While the Sorceror is at the center welcoming the Sunshine(her nickname) and the words of the song dance down the page:
Look
Did you see was I obvious Could you tell I did try to hide it.
Love is
Love is all
Love is all around
Love is all around us.
Out of my mind Into yours.

And I loved the rawness of it and the sincerity of it and it reinforced for me the power of music. One thing this this series has taught me is the power of life experiences. Cause I was deep in it, but Cree had another song on the album called Mean Sleep. Which stated I had a mean sleep over you and it hurts coming back to life. The beautiful thing is I can see the poetry of the painting without missing the power of the feeling that inspired it.... cause it was true and selfless. And the resounding truth I got from the voice of Elmira was:

LOVE IS ALL AROUND US.

Elias

1 Comments:

Blogger Matt said...

Elias,

Having liked all the paintings, this one is my favorite so far. Thanks for the story. Thanks for the message. Great stuff for springtime, if you ask me!

4:39 PM, April 14, 2006

 

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