Sketches; SoyezArtiste

Sketches; SoyezArtiste~ L'assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2021

Original artwork SOLD at Square Pear Gallery 

In the muted colors after morning, softened by the mask of sleep, I first saw the artist’s muse. It was the day of the amber light from the solar eclipse, and I had overstayed in bed again, eclipsed myself by dark depression, unable to draw, unable to look at my pencils and papers.

My eyes were closed, but a whisper woke me, then she flowed down around me, surrounding me with her scent, focusing me on her smile. She whispered, “Let me do that,” and started to move her hands around me, tai chi around me, long hair above me. She moved her hands through me as though I was a cloud. She knows I am vapor; her waves flow unobstructed through me and I lose my breath, lose my voice.

In my silence, she spoke again, “With the first sketch in your mind, you think that you and I are two, when we are one. Don’t look for me; I am here. I walk with you, not behind or beside, but with you, closer than a Doppelganger.” Then her hands melted into mine and we took up my pencils, drawing black and white sketches of foregrounds and backgrounds that blended together, like a teardrop in an ocean. It frightened me, for I could not see her face; as I cannot see my own eyes. I was not ready to blend together, to be one thing without separation.

From the teardrop, she again became separate and floated across the room. As I reached out to her, she moved toward the door, with my sketches in her hand, saying, “Don’t look for me, I am always here.” I did not believe her and rushed to lock the latch, but she had disappeared into the forest where there was no path. I brought out a lantern to light the day that was night in the solar eclipse, but I could not find her path.

Now my fingers reach out in the cool of the middlenight and feel her heat, but I cannot see her. I leave gifts outside the locking latch; I wait; I worry; I press my palms against my head, but until I believe her and again become vapor, I will not see her, though she is soft in sleep beside me.

✎…