Thank you for your e-mail regarding my poem and painting
'Door face - Shield face'. I sometimes receive e-mails from students requesting further information on my art work, usually they are working on some sort of project or doing essays for school. I shall try and provide a sensible answer that you can use for your essay.

Usually I write the poem before painting a picture ( for a different approach to my paintings refer to web page Still Life and Portraits ). The poem 'Door face - Shield face' gave me reference and purpose for the painting. It also helped having a strong emotional attachment and passion in order for me to persevere with the painting. It is often the case that an artist can be lost in their work if they are finding it difficult to find an image and have some thing to say. In the struggle to have some thing to say art can sometimes become pretentious. I hasten to add that having nothing to say does not mean that art (in my view) is empty. I was pleasantly surprised at art college and again at university to witness a variety of talent.

All the paintings and poems on my web page love poems and symbolist paintings , including 'Door face - Shield face' are about the same person. The poetry and paintings were done at different times over many years and are individual in their own right. Yet at the same time they can also be considered as one work of art. There is another poem and art work to be included, title being "Fire on Beacon Hill"

Any way, to get back to "Door face - Shield face": I have written the poem with the belief in a spiritual existence and strong emotional powers, being various forms of love . I wanted to present the augment of the tangible, quantifiable World versus the existence of an unmeasured spiritual reality, i.e. thought, love and emotion. The unseen world of feeling is of course, very real.

In the poem, and shown in the painting 'Door face - Shield face' l say we can hide behind masks. Shown in the painting the DOOR FACE and SHIELD FACE, together with the pyramid in the centre of the picture, represents the stable, three dimensional World. A rational and solid World of stability, safe in quantifiable terms, all within the law of physics. Yet behind each mask ( face ) is the invisible side of each person, with memories and feelings. The birds in the picture behind each face signify the past, such as relationships and past events. So to quote the poem

Although we meet eye to eye
In the literal construct of reality,
Do we ever see what is really there?

I then go on to say in the poem - quote:

My mind is not on a planet
Speeding around a sun.
There is no clock.
It is you that draws me close
In the here and now.
You are the gravity that pulls me in.
There is no time. Just here and now.

"There is no time, just here and now." The issue here is that although the time of the clock, being measured time, is in accordance with the gravitational pull of the sun. Spiritual time is where the heart is and can be considered timeless ( the idea being there is no time in the centre, only outside it ).

Many people have the belief that there is no spiritual existence. That God does not exist e.t.c e.t.c. They view the World purely in pragmatic and empirical terms.The belief that if some thing can not be proved, then it does not exist. I think this atheist belief can be healthily, provided people are aware of the right and wrong in life. I mention this because I am aware that my poem and painting can be dismissed. People can declare certain parts my art work to be untrue or untenable, or not what it is stated to be. After all, dreams are not real.

Certainly, my dreams regarding the woman I love are real to me. I mention in the poem 'Door face - Shield face' the feeling of euphoria. There are several facets to the state of euphoria in my dreams. I refer to a warm feeling in my poems when l am in the presence of the woman in my dreams, as shown in my poem - see web page: 'The Day Covers' The burning sensation I have in these dreams could be a result of some sort of purge of grief, or perhaps I am in a state relating to a spiritual dimension. Maybe there are elements of both, or something else besides. Who can say for sure? It is a known fact that certain anti-inflammatory medication result in side effects, such as hallucinations and strong emotional experiences. These feelings could be the cause of the mind blowing manifestations in my dreams. This pragmatic and empirical approach to analysing the cause of dream experiences is likely to be the view of people in the sciences, such as the medical profession. People in this category can not really afford to say otherwise. I do have a chronic medical condition that has required me to take strong anti-inflammatory drugs through out my life. Starting with a kidney infection when I was eight, and as a consequence, continuing with rheumatoid arthritis ever since then.

Quote from my poem:

Thinking of you
Inside this tub of flesh and bones
My consciousness smoulders
In a warmth of euphoria. Actually,
Side effects of anti-inflammatory medicine.
All the same, embers of a past fire
Is enough to sustain and fortify the sanity
Of this wreaked ship, sinking on crumbling joints.
Emotional lava that lies within
The crevices of my mind
Is still there.

Sometimes, the mellow flame of memory
Flickers from that furnace of my heart.
A potent force spills
Over into a volcanic froth,
And I am aglow within,
Turning myself inside out into
the realm of dreams, where you always were;
And there you are always.

The first verse here and half of the second verse obviously refers to love. Though the 'volcanic froth' is the literal physical feeling of euphoria, a consequence of taking the anti-inflammatory medication I was taking at the time l wrote the poem. The feeling is like I am some sort of over flowing 'gas fizz drink'. In the last part of the verse I arrive at the conclusion that love is inevitable. It is always there anyway.

The next verse:

My fantasy swan, a graceful beauty
That is indeed a reality
In make believe; so, like a fool,
I pine inside, for a memory.
Myself, a two faced clown
Not showing how I feel.
Instead, in dreams and in so called "reality"
I hide behind doors and shields.

In the final verse I reason that as 'I pine inside, for a memory', some thing in the past, I am a fool. Because although the feeling is real and will always exist in heart, it has over time turned into something that is not real. A beauty that now is a 'fantasy swan'. So, living the mask in a tangible, quantifiable World where we are (suppose to) behave in a rational way, I coexistence with the invisible side of myself. Quote:

Myself, a two faced clown
Not showing how I feel.

I am saying I am a fool to myself. Not necessarily that I am a clown to any one else ( though I might be ). Even though we have to live the lie in the real World we also some times have to live the lie to ourselves.


I hope this insight on my poem and painting is OK - If you would like to ask about something in the poem or painting that I have not covered, or if you have found something in this 'Artist's notes' text that is confusing or in error, please tell me so I can make the information clearer.