The World of Lady M
I say I have an active imagination. Which is true. I do. I say I’m obsessed with the Heian Period of Japanese history. Which is true. I am and have been. I’ve read The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu countless times in six different translations. I’ve traveled through Japan looking for displays of early Yamato-e, the style of indigenous Japanese painting on paper that depicts the life and aesthetics of Heian life with unique compositional devices and color.
It’s like a parallel reality existing just beyond the rays of daylight.
But that’s not the whole story. The whole story involves a shadow world that I have difficulty talking or writing about. It’s like a parallel reality existing just beyond the rays of daylight. That shadowy world of patterns, textures, smells, sussurating sounds and elusive light patterns the words of poetry, shapes and forms, flow and dance. If I am lucky and quiet and watchful enough, I can catch something whole and it will flicker into the full light of my consciousness. If I am attentive and quick, I can capture it with pencil or brush or pen in an image. If I am attentive and devoted, a fully formed work from The World of Lady M emerges, step by step.
That’s how it really works. Attention and lots of magic.
Annunciation