Or All About Standing in the Right Place, Even Briefly
Ages ago, in my brief but diligent foray into French-language comics (which are, incidentally, the best in the world) I read one called “The Blue Space Between the Clouds”.
Written and drawn by a gentleman named Cosey (that’s his nom de plume) about a curious quest to the Himalayas interlaced with a lovely reflexion on mortality of artist versus immortality of art, with tempering of soul stribving to dominate inexorable etiolation of body.
I’m not a huge fan of hippy-age comics, replete with advice on what LP’s to put on the turntable while reading, but history and sociology aside, it contained an image (hence the eponymous title “L’Espace Bleu Entre les Nuages”. An image of a painting, done by the ageing painter stubbornly clinging to… well, what exactly we are never told, except that his grip is loosening.
If I recall correctly, he dies more or less at the moment when the clouds overhead briefly part in a split-second replication of his painting. Deus ex machina skeptics shake their heads, but to me it was always the equivalent of the flood of butterflies from the mouth of the dying, the fleeting incidence of still-visible transcendance, the return of art from material to immaterial.
Now, as to where all this is going, it has forcibly reminded me of two things. One, that I prefer to trust my imperfect memory rather than go back to something I read nearly two decades ago to double-check (besides that, though we’ve met a couple of times, Cosey is a hard man to reach), and two : if I must wait two decades for a blue space between the clouds, then it’s likely that I haven’t been paying sufficient attention to the sky. A few minutes outdoors can provide imagery for many months’ worth of pictures.
The point is, though, that beauty doesn’t speak for itself. It needs spokespeople to speak out for it. Obsessively, compulsively, constantly. It’s a full-time job, but not the kind you find in the Help Wanted pages of the classifieds. Actually, this newsletter is something of a rain check (because of the clouds) as I had wished to endeavor to write something on the nature of nature, but have once again run out of time.
I did, however, take part in an agreable conference/discussion evening in Saint-Ursanne last week, on the subject of the vouivre, which is the French word (sort of) for wyvern. Uncommonly fascinating, although we didn’t get anywhere as far as I wished down the windy road of public forum debate to the heart of the matter, the nature of nature and spirits of same. The regionalization of larger myths through the slow distilling of anecdote out of symbol, until old wive’s tales are all that remains of much vaster themes. Or, perhaps there are creatures who grow and mulitply, passing from the particular to the universal by the their vigorous expansion, in the image of the Green Faces, especially when seen from where we lean on the railing of our 21st-century belvedere overlooking the past. Personally, I am very tickled that a theme which originated in the fringes of the Roman Empire and as far away as the borders of the Tigris can end up today on a tower gate in Saint-Ursanne, for the space of a season. Modern fantasy’s forays into the imagine-imagery of the past are like drawing water from a well. It’s deep, and the sip you get is ice-cold and refreshing, golden on the tongue and silver in the throat.
A handy thing for a self-appointed spokesman, to be sure.
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Lower right: The Blue Space Between The Clouds.
(Just for the anecdote, my webmaster Dom was taking pictures – very different and romantically beautiful ones – from the OTHER side of the clouds over the lake. Isn’t that grand, how we all are entitled to a different show on the same channel?)
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT
And speaking of webmasters, Dom has created a new category in the scrapbook for those of you who’ve attended events and wish to share a few photos. It will function with an interface similar to the Fan Art section, with the available Photoshop script.
Images are to be submitted for validation, please forgive me in advance if I must make choices between similar subjects. They should have the following headers: YEAR.MONTH.DATE – Place: Suject, which will allow them to be archived according to date. Dom will open new section and put it on line at the beginning of July.
SAINT-URSANNE
And last but far rom least, there will be a LOT going on in Saint-Ursanne this summer.
See the official web site for details. I’ll post the dates of my presence in “OUT & ABOUT”.
There is a very nice report on the event on the Swiss-German television. Go to the media page of the official site and click on “SF1, reportage”. (It’s in German, but the images are good.)
And, given that we are not above a little shameless marketing, there is a shop with a few items done specially for the event.
By far my favourite is the Fern pendant designed by a very talented local jeweller named Francis Schwab, working from one of my sketches. Engraved “johnhowe07” on the back, this edition is limited to 100 pieces.
