Art patrons and gam gazers--GATHER 'ROUND! Here at the Les Toil's Big Beautiful Blog life is carefree and fraught with bountiful babes and chucklez alike. Pour yourself an easy chair, pull up a kumquat daquirie and just put your responsibilities on hold for corn sake!!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Water Sirens (redux)


Hey all, I have a feeling this will prove to be the quickest I will have ever followed up on a previous blog. Anyways, I was inspired by two things to make additions to the below water siren art.

The first came from my seeing an endless amount of fairy images on a women's "My Space" page. It reminded me how bonded so many women are with those free-spirited fictitious little beings. I often love to show the less shiny side of our icons of happiness, not because I'm a cynical ol' crab but because we all need to be reminded no one is immune to bad days and that familiar sense of deep despair. So here we have a winged being associated with freedom and folly finding herself in a rather trying situation.

The second thing that inspired me to alter my art was receiving an email from my bud' Martha (who happens to be this month's Toil Girl in the Spotlight). She had some rather poignant remarks about my concept sketch and how she interpreted it:


"I love the rock art. It seems a bit lonely to me...all alone on the rock with the seas surrounding you and the dark skies above....I LOVE it personally and I like to see the darker side of you, Les...lots of girls want to see happy fat and sometimes it's just not that way...sometimes it's a struggle to see the beauty in something most people find grotesque or carnival...it's like standing on a rock in the middle of the sea, alone, while the world throws its worst at you...but the beauty is that no skinny, self-abased girl could handle it...she would be blown down with the first gale but a woman with a firm foundation in herself and size would be a lighthouse to bring others to realize it's not the size but the foundation that holds her steadfast..."


Martha, I want to say your eloquent evaluation of my art is nothing less than profound and poetic. I was incredibly moved by those words as I'm sure everyone else who reads them will be as well. Some will be enlightened by your words where as many will appreciate your ability to express so much of what they've felt in their own hearts about themselves.

In all honesty I hadn't even considered that the woman on the rock was in any state of despair until I received Martha's email. I have to admit she added depth to this image that goes deeper than the ocean itself. If and when I actually take this piece of art to completion, I'd love to have her words accompany it.

Now the question is....

...wings or no wings?

6 Comments:

Blogger SmileyTD said...

Martha's interpretation was/is great. There is a touch of melancholy in this artwork. (That's why I liked the choice of colors so well.)

And...I like her with wings. :)

6:11 PM

 
Blogger Krystel said...

I love what Martha said - I love the piece....and I like no wings. Wings give the sensation that one can "fly away" from the distress/sadness/despair/whatever that comes with who we are. If it were only so easy. Don't get me wrong - I'm a former collector of angels (only the unusual ones with big wings - not naked babies) - but one day I finally realized it wasn't the being itself, but their ability to escape from my world and the reality of who I am. I can't do that and I want to make myself not want to. In my opinion - wings are for those still living in the dream, not reality.

2:12 PM

 
Blogger Les Toil said...

Geez, I like that Krys. Much.

8:46 PM

 
Blogger jenny said...

i think i d like her to be a mermaid there is never a big women as a mermaid they are alway so skinny.

7:08 PM

 
Blogger valencia said...

The wings are a must. Sometimes an angel has to learn to fly even when she appears to be chained to a tombstone.

1:46 PM

 
Blogger valencia said...

Maybe one wing. You know you can still fly with one wing:)

1:48 PM

 

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