now showing: dreamscapes

one of my fave-ever faerie tale feet mixed-media paintings is now showing in

DREAMSCAPES

the lastest gallery show at the metropolitan arts council!

*on the drafting table during the process of creating this piece: plenty of constellations, imagery, and eraser dust for everybody! :)*

shakespeare was writing romeo & juliet the same time he was writing a midsummer night’s dream. one tragic. one comic. but two pairs of star-crossed lovers. (ovid’s pyramus & thisbe - the play within the play of midsummer— was one of the before-shakespeare inspirations for r+j, btw.)

were romeo & juliet defying the stars, or was their story predetermined by Fate? the cosmic significance of living life by “the card you were dealt,” & recognizing the pattern of emphasized opposites and motifs in this tale—time/youth; day/night; light/darkness; earth/heavens; wedding/death; and most of all, perhaps: love/hate.

*& yes, i used italy’s summer constellations for the sky, albeit not accurate to the earth's orbit in 1592 when the play was first performed.*

my composition is a spin on a playing card.

right side up or upside down, male or female, two lovers with a universe between them.

[bonus: there are two wires on the back so you can have romeo (or juliet) rightsideup or upsidedown and then change your mind and back again.] ;)

as one of history’s first feminists juliet not only proposes to romeo, but defies her father’s arranged marriage to paris, too.

we dream of equality and the peace (the translation of romeo’s pal benvolio’s name, btw) cried for within this play, even as opposites pull at us. (ex: romeo & friar laurence’s exchange in II.3. as they each vie for the sides of youth/age; haste/patience; danger/precautions... but they’re both working in their own ways for peace.)