#AWM15: TRANSPORTED (ON THE BACK OF AN OSTRICH)
What aspects of your illustration (large and small) transport you?
What aspects of your relationship with the art transports you?
Where––to memory? To false memory? To pure fantasy?
How does this transportation manifest in your writing...should it?
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the textures and physical characteristics of the ostrich itself transport me––initially to a place of bird-based revulsion,* and then to a place of pure delight, as the characteristics of the ostrich are released from their initial impact** by the magic of the ostrich’s positioning. This ostrich, while apparently in the desert (the pyramids lead me to believe…), has chosen not to stick his head in the sand. Instead, he has stuck his head into the top of a pyramid and then reemerged from the side of the pyramid, and is now staring at me.
I like the question about where the image brings me––”To memory? To false memory? To pure fantasy?” I think, as we can see from this post, fantasy most clearly defines this transportation. And yet, as I mentioned below, the robin is memory––as are all the other birds I’ve ever seen. Outside, right now, real-live, present-moment birds are singing…and yet, in the time it’s taken to write this, their singing has become memory too.
And what, I ask you, is “false memory,” except memory?
*Where does this revulsion come from? It’s not pure revulsion so much as revulsion mixed with fascination--that distinct chemistry we reserve for the “other”: these birds, these airy structures layered in feathers, like balsa-wood boxes with wings, what are they? They are unlike me. Also, this revulsion/fascination is an example of transportation-by-association almost twice over: an ostrich exhibits few of these characteristics. When I see its mass of feathers, I think of the robin I saw hopping along the sidewalk in Minneapolis last week, not about ostriches. I’m pretty sure ostriches are pretty heavy, and I think they run instead of fly, and instead of looking down on the wide landscape-in-miniature, they supposedly stick their heads into the sand. All this is hearsay. I’ve resisted looking ostriches up on Wikipedia as I’m working on this project, as I don’t want my imagination to be “tainted” by facts.
**And yet, this initial impact lingers somewhere between my eyes and the image, and continues to resonate within and alongside subsequent impressions….
