Burning angels, burning desert

I'm not going to complain about the weather, not with people in the East drowning. My sympathies go out to them.

I did burn my feet today. I thought I could make it to the shade, just a dozen steps, to retrieve Orion's swimsuit. Nope. My painful and red little feet (size 6) are encased in footies, slathered in ointment. DUMBARTIST is Lisa.

I'm trying to maintain my little micro environment. My ferns are still alive, thanks to the artificial rain. My gardener will be here tomorrow and we'll see what else can be done. It's nearly eleven pm right now and the thermometer on the back porch reads 103.

Aubrey has disappeared into her summer studies. She is ambitious. There is a tower of books on various religions in her room, studded with post-it notes and bits of paper. Of course, what can I say? The tower of books came off the shelves in our house. OK. I can say, YES. My offspring is seeking knowledge.

Orion is playing TAK under the fan. He 'should' have been in bed two hours ago. It's summer. He will have schedules soon enough.

I'm deep into working. I suspect you gathered that from my silence. Sorry. It is the nature of the art that sometimes I must sort of go away.

A few words on burning angels...

The first "Relic" sculpture I did was inspired by these vague memories of an experience I half remember from early childhood. The images are sharp. The facts are fuzzy and unverified, as relatives have long gone to other worlds....And dust.
It mostly has to do with a cross burning in my Aunt's yard that went from bad to worse. It mostly has to do with commotion, shouting and being carried out of a big old house. It mostly has to do with jouncing on an uncle's shoulder past a painting of an angel going up in flames. How much is remembered? How much is dream? What investigation I could do leads me to believe that the angel was actually a print or lithograph of Pinky. Thomas Gainsborough
Blue Boy was nowhere to be found. But for some reason the angel remains in my memory.

The chaos and conflict, the undertone of rebellion and the visual of the huge, gilt-framed painting in flames remains, immovable, in my heart of hearts. The falling of a once opulent and decadent family is a sepia toned history common enough in the south, real enough for me.

But, even more than mostly, I burn the works in this Relic series because I've always lived many levels of reality. Possibly because of my own mothers swings between genius and insanity, possibly because of the dichotomy of religion and folklore I grew up in. Likely because of my forays into chasms of dream, depression and imagination.

But possibly, it's simply that I like fucking with boundaries. Period. The Relic pieces (as well as many other works of mine) tend to blur the edge between two- and three -dimensional works, much to the chagrin of art directors who must categorize these pieces. They are both paintings and sculptures. When I burn one of these works----I refer here especially to
"Guardian of Sorrows" and El Maestro del Fuego, I not only incorporate fire into the story of the character I've created, but I spill the story out past the frame, into the presence of the viewer----namely, me and sometimes you.

So. I will have a glass of red wine and soak my feet in the pool and gather myself for tomorrow, which will come very, very soon. But first, I will email Gene Wolfe, because I miss him.

Have a good midnight