Brief Moment in Time and Space
Roseanne Truman
One of my blog readers, Roseanne Truman, has sent me a lovely work of hers, an appropriation of an appropriation (she says), but with a delicacy that nevertheless makes it unique. Rose says:
I like making connections with ancient art and contemporary art; the discovery just happens anyway, especially looking at my friend [x]‘s work. That said, it is always though his immediate environment and life experiences which are amazingly transformed in his dreams and art. He recently painted a big star on the head of a horse – I’m sure he was influenced by his landlady’s pony (he sometimes checks on it when she goes out, as it frets a bit and he has an affinity with horses). The pony has a tiny white patch under its forelock. He also painted himself riding it (he saw himself in the dream in armour)…but it is also like a mirror image and he is facing the viewer squarely. Maybe the small things influence us more than we realise.
Rose inhabits places of soul, often hidden and under-appreciated, that give life richness, for ourselves and for others. (I also think of Bachelard’s wonderful reveries.)
My own take on this work is as a subtle pointer to the eternity of the present moment, given due reverence and holiness by the attendant maidens, the redeeming feminine releasing us from the strictures of ego. And the delicacy of the butterfly, gently and relentlessly attracted to the sublime sweetness of this moment! I think here of Jean-Pierre De Caussade in The Sacrament of the Present Moment:
O, all you who thirst, learn that you have not far to go to find the fountain of living waters; it flows quite close to you in the present moment; therefore hasten to find it. Why, with the fountain so near, do you tire yourselves with running about after every little rill? These only increase your thirst by giving only a few drops, whereas the source is inexhaustible.
