"Words! Mere words!": Painting poetry

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?"
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

I love words. I have a degree in English, I work at the public library, and now I'm in school for publishing. I even play roller derby under a Thomas Hardy-inspired moniker. I spend my days and nights with words, and sometimes when I wake up there are random words stuck in my head. I know it's kind of weird. I love the shape of words, and I even have a favourite letter. Is there anything better than a lowercase seriffed  g?

So anyway, I like to make art with words. My first example is even magpie themed! How fortuitous.

This piece was inspired by the song "Magpie" by Patrick Wolf. It incorporates a traditional nursery rhyme about magpies that goes: "One for sorrow / Two for joy / Three for a girl / Four for a boy / Five for silver / Six for gold / Seven for a secret, never to be told / Eight for a wish / Nine for a kiss / Ten for a bird you must not miss". Patrick's song only includes the first seven lines however, so as does my painting. I used modeling paste and a stencil to make the words, and then painted it grey. Then I drew a magpie on a piece of white tissue paper and pasted it onto the canvas using more modeling paste, and finished it with a bit of yellow highlights on the words. I love the texture it created, and I'm now a bit obsessed with modeling paste.

This next piece was inspired by the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. You probably studied it in high school, and I hope you paid attention.

My favourite lines from this poem are in this piece, again made with modeling paste and a stencil. I was originally going to paint the clock or make one from broken clock pieces, but then I found that picture on the cover of Discover magazine and it was too perfect to cast aside. I pasted it on and did my best to integrate it with the paint. After I had painted it I glued on a bunch of nuts and washers from the hardware store. I had hoped to use clock gears but they were a little too hard to find. I threw them on randomly and more or less glued them where they landed. I like how the formation looks kind of celestial, which ties in with the whole universe thing. Fun, right?

The next project I do like this will involve a line from The Great Gatsby that has been circulating through my head for the past few months:

"He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass."

Isn't that beautiful? And by that way, are you as excited as I am about the Baz Luhrmann adaptation? I seriously can. not. wait.

Anyway, Tess D'Urb-Evil has to get to roller derby practice now. Ahoy hoy!