Saturday, November 5, 2011

What risk?

I finally checked out Shadowplay Eterniday through Friends University interlibrary loan and found the shadowbox below pictured in the book. There's a good chance I could have seen it before, but I do not think I have...I do tend to remember these things. So strange how 70 years ago Cornell also conveyed some of the same spirit that is captured in my creation of Phos Hilaron and the Embarkation poem...and I find all this after that whole process/painting. This is why I create: once my eyes are open, I begin to identify the kindered spirits that surround me.

Joseph Cornell Toward the Blue Peninsula (for Emily Dickenson). 1953.
 
Of course when I saw the shadowbox was dedicated to Emily Dickenson, I had to check out why. Long before Cornell, Emily Dickenson expressed her love and fear of living freely as a spirit designed to hope (she calls this hope her "Blue Peninsula", see poem below).

Emily Dickinson (1830–86)
It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness—
I'm so accustomed to my Fate—
Perhaps the Other—Peace—

Would interrupt the Dark—
And crowd the little Room—
Too scant—by Cubits—to contain
The sacrament—of Him—

I am not used to Hope—
It might intrude upon—
It's sweet parade—blaspheme the place—
Ordained to Suffering—

It might be easier
To fail—with Land in sight—
Than gain—my Blue Peninsula—
To perish—of Delight—
 
In a similar creative process, long before Cornell, Emily Dickenson expressed her love and fear of accessing this spirit (see poem below). Cornell is definitely responding to Dickenson's poem with this shadowbox---he is allowing her to dream (the empty perch, the window sooo blue and full of hope), while anchoring that free spirit with a solid depiction of reality (there's actually more reality than dream depicted within the box walls).

70 years ago Cornell, and 150 years ago Dickenson, also conveyed some of the same spirit that I connected with in my creation of Phos Hilaron and the Embarkation poem. So cool that I find these two creations after completing my own creations. This whole orchestration perfectly illustrates a large part of why I create: once my eyes are open, I begin to experience the kindered spirits that surround me.

It seems I am not the only one to believe the only risk of dreaming big is to actually attain the dream. Even failing to attain the dream is not so bad when everything along the way is part of a great journey, the poetry of life. Not so bad. Where is the risk? Where is the sting? The risk, then, is that I attain one dream before receiving the next...and so far, my dreams more than outpace actualization.

Joseph Cornell: "The traveler abroad is dependent on outside things; he whose sight-seeing is inward can in himself find all he needs."

Emily Dickinson: "To shut our eyes is Travel"
 

No comments: