The Ether. Marie Wintzer - Japan

[cheryl penn]

I wonder if the Ether is like Camelot? I dont know, in the half light I thought I heard Lord Tennyson. The faintest of echoes in a winter sky.

"There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours -grey-

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot"

Like Free Falling I guess.

She tries to stay grounded, to live all her life in THIS world, but...

"She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott".

"And moving tho' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear,

There she sees the highway near

  Winding down to Camelot"

Two worlds are colliding here. The physical one and the Ether one. Each one playing a tune that calls to dance in steps that pervade. 

Dont become thin air.

"But in her web she still delgihts,

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral with plumes and lights

And music, went to Camelot" 

The Ether : (Marie)  A volatile substance that tends to vaporize, meaning that nothing lasts very long and if you want it you have to catch and grab it in that narrow time window when it is here. But on the other hand Ether is also a net in its own right, things get trapped in it, permanently." A web for sure.

"She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror cracked from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me', cried

The Lady of Shalott.

 

And I think the Ether IS like Camelot.

 

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Thank you, Marie.

[Marie Wintzer]

Ok DVS :-))

Those are pieces of definitions for Ether (Aether). Like "the heavens above", "the clear sky", that were once thought to be made of ether. Those pieces are scattered sort of randomly (but it is never entirely random) through the chapter. Then on one of the last pages I took some of them and made a poem, mixing the pieces of definition with my own words.

Sorry I didn't answer that earlier...

[De Villo Sloan]

Marie, didn't answer my question again. All the same - glad you like the Tennyson too; that one is a real gem and is absolutely relevant to your ether work.

[cheryl penn]

Marie - EVERYTHING you've just said - exactly what I felt when 'reading' your work.  Can the Ether be trapped within? O without a doubt I think that Katerina. DVS - the Allegory of the Cave - perfect!

[Marie Wintzer]

Thank you for this great blog, Cheryl. I wasn't familiar with Camelot, but after reading that poem, and your words, I still feel a bit overwhelmed at what a perfect image it is. I think it is soon going to become one of my favorite poems. Weaving a magic web, from her own hand. So, something we create ourselves, in a way. And looking at the world through a one-way mirror, some days a magnifying lens, some days a dark filter, sometimes a piece of chipped glass that makes us see only a blur. Reality transformed through it...

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Can the ether be "trapped within"? Even wrapped and tied...

Marie's ether to Greece seems to have "gone beyond", disappeared, and became "thin air": 

lost-in-the-mail ;-(

and I am the poorer for not having it...sigh.

This is a beauty, Marie!

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Perfect synthesis: Images of Marie's ether and Cheryl's commentary/the poem...all a most artistic moment. "Must take more time to view details, reread and ponder. Thanks you two...great blog!

[De Villo Sloan]

I really like those typewritten scraps too - I'm hoping Marie will tell us if they're randomly arranged or not. I think they work really well - they are really expressive of a struggle.

 

Darn CP-SA - and I was struck all this time thinking how similar "The Lady of Shalott" is to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" - the world of pure forms vs. a tarnished world.

[cheryl penn]

Some think that  The Lady of Shalott is indicative of  the distance one feels from general society - that all experience is filtered, viewed through a window. That is our license as artists - to  sift visually through the world, to find words and images that symbolize places we find ourselves in.   Ways to EXPLAIN - how lucky we are. Even Lord Tennyson battled. 

 

[DKeys]

so many beautiful details. the words look like they were done on a manual typewriter-vintage yet still modern