a toast to friendship (of the magical variety)

Magical Entanglements part II                       

Featuring my imagined meeting of Leonora  

Carrington and Remedios Varo.                

                                                                         

Hello dear Man Ray, I hope this Sunday finds 

you well. I wish us both luck on finishing this

 challenge. Sincerely, Sal (fairly awful penpal

 and perpetual chamuco)                        

Un tentempié para romper el hielo

A brief amouse-bouche to break the ice...

Act I The Soul’s bandaged tendrils begin to stir. 

Multiple reverberations of a mask-like face in profile (the Soul) hover above a body of water. The Soul is awakening. Near the front-most face lurks the hooded figure of the “ghastly fright” steadily climbing spindly steps built upon a small boat. An unexpected agent for catharsis that aids the Soul’s escape. The water consists of ribbon like scraps. Along some of these lie the first two stanzas of the poem.

Act II Behind the bee mask, basking in the escape.

The ecstasy of escape (and inspiration) achieved long at last. This scene depicts a world that has come alive and awakened through the joy of escape and palpable poetry. The Soul, disguised as a bee, revels and blooms in the crescendo of activity and flourishing flora. The boat that aided her escape now has turned into no more than a paper boat, it’s purpose has been achieved. Even the dried wood that had provided a ladder now is once again a living tree. Tangled among the blooms can be found fragments of ribbon that contain the following two stanzas.

Act III Far from the explosions. Back to the burdens of constricted constructing. 

The flights of inspiration have passed. The absence of those waves of fervent joy is palpable. The Soul now un-shrouded must return to its toil and limitations. This scene depicts the Soul as the Poet tenderly holding a robin, its fellow captive. While quiet exhaustion is felt, a writing desk can be observed in the background. The Soul retains the tools needed to escape and flourish once more.
This was all inspired by an Emily Dickinson's poem "the Soul has bandaged moments" and was originally written and conceived as a proposed installation that was, Alas, never to be... It is a re-interpretation as a visual poem in three acts blending the poem's actual imagery and other recurring elements of Emily Dickinson’s pictorial language. While originally composed as a diorama depicting three distinct scenes it is something that I currently hope to adapt to a different media.