Delayed by business appointments, art dates, and rain – I finally got up in the tree today. I did not find the luscious, glorious magnolia blossom I was looking for. I found a burned up, bug-ridden blossom mid-collapse. Sigh.
What ran through my head as I looked through the viewfinder was, “Feed me Seymour!” As I look at this picture now though, I have to admit this bloom is MUCH more interesting than your standard grandiflora at its prime. Interesting, somewhat scary, and waaaay less pretty. I was going for pretty. (I realize that there is an element of artistic immaturity in plain ole pretty. I don’t care. I LIKE pretty. I was going for pretty.) The somewhat scary threw me. The less pretty is making me rethink. The image is growing on me. I notice that it is not really as burnt and ugly as I first thought.
Strangely, the way the edges of the petals are curling in upon themselves reminds me of Edith Piaf at the end of her life (in the movie). She was portrayed as physically folding in on herself. (She’s seen throughout the movie as curved in some ways. Her shoulders are never really thrown back. The effect is just so much more pronounced at the end where she looks like her life is being sucked down and out of her through her belly button.) The way the movie was shot, there was layering and overlapping in the chronology. The story just didn’t unfold all at once and progress linearly. I don’t mean the film was told in a series of “flashbacks”. It was much more organic feeling than that. Parts of the story played out in their entirety and other parts were only glimpsed. You felt the whole plot was advancing but you kept getting different time perspectives. At the very end some elements looped back and you saw her again, young, in her prime. At the last minute, even as she lay dying, you learned something the story hadn’t told you yet – and that linked her disintegration back to her wholeness and beauty. THAT is why my pathetic blossom reminds me of the dying Edith of La Vie En Rose.
Clearly my blossom is not long for this world. Still, though – as the petals brown and drop away, as the bugs invade and the integrity of the blossom collapses – there remains magnolia-ness: that fragrance, the center fruit, a few last traces of ivory.
I’m drawn to doing something with this. NOT some schmaltzy “Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may” thing. I’m much more interested in a piece about appreciating the beauty that remains – if I can pull that off. I had to take a good look to see the remaining beauty for myself – so I don’t know what I’d have to do to pull off a piece that would merit enough looking to allow the beauty remainder to come to the fore. Therein lies a challenge, eh?
And, er, I still want the pretty magnolia quilt. Sparky, spark, spark. Purple magnolias, classic magnolias, burned up and dying magnolias… I may hate magnolias before I even get to the cutting of the fabric. (But I doubt it!)
Peace.
Tuesday, 7:37 pm
