A favourite painting

I have always been interested in the arts - especially theatre and dance. I dedicated over twenty years into moving my own body to music.  When working in London, I sometimes went to The National Portrait Gallery. I found the experience surprisingly unmoving. Faces from throughout history stared back at me but had little effect. 

When a visit to the cinema in 2003 introduced me to Vermeer, I was entranced by his 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. If you had asked me then which was a favourite painting, that would have been my response. 

A trip to Liverpool in 2015 changed all that. There was a Jackson Pollock exhibition at Tate Liverpool and we went along. At first I wasn't at all sure about modern art.  In fact I wasn't sure about Pollock either.  That was until I moved into a room dominated by his huge canvas 'Summertime.'

As I looked at the canvas, I was filled with music. It seemed to be dancing - and I began to dance too - right there on the parquet floor of the gallery. A curator saw me and laughed. It was a truly moving experience.  The repeating patterns in the painting seemed like choreography. How thrilling to be so affected by an artwork that it makes you dance. 

Summertime: Number 9A by Jackson Pollock, 1948

Jackson

You used your 

whole body
to create art.
You danced as
you dripped
and splashed
your energy
onto canvas.
I was still life
until I felt it leap
and suddenly
I danced too
filled with the joy
of Summertime.

Thanks for reading. Adele 

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Doppelganger

A doppelganger, or aesthetic double, was first heard by me in context of ‘Stone Roses’ guitarist John Squire who, in emulation of artist Jackson Pollock, crafted the ‘doppeldosseldorfelganger’, by throwing tins of emulsion paint on huge sheets of paper.   

One of my other fondest memories of school (refers back to last month’s blog) was the skilful and conscientious approach my fellow students and I too to ensuring all teachers had a doppelganger. I recall ‘Tom Sellick’, ‘Blackadder’, ‘Jimmy Hill’, ‘Taggart’, ‘Dirty Den’, and thus we amused ourselves with such, blissfully unaware of how such practice could hamper harmony and career development in the real world. 

I was astounded to hear last week that people confuse ‘James Bond’ heartthrob Daniel Craig with overly self-indulgent candy-rapper Craig David.  I have been likened to Ewan Macgregor, a young Robert De Niro, and Max Beesley have been suggested over the years as my doppelganger, but Sports/News reporter Dan Block is the only one I have ever been mistaken for. And yes I did ‘fess up’ despite the young lady in question seeming to want ‘plus-de-autograph.’ I do have to sleep at night. 

But as a poet, using the word ‘Like’ is pivotal in description. My romantic poems usually want to convey adoration by likening to natural beauty other than the girl I’m writing about. Nature poems, and poems about places will also usually personify, to bring them to life in the mind of the consumer. Although not a ‘doppleganger’ per se, it is a pairing of sorts. 

Researching poems about ‘doppelgangers’ turns up some interesting themes. Whitney Metz, a fellow blogger, suggests her ‘doppelganger’ may be a parallel whilst antithesis version of her that’s done everything differently, and seems quite hopeful of this. I’m not sure I’d change that much about me, would you? I mean about you, not me. I’ll look at me. And my doppelganger.

No regrets

Some yet’s

No pets

No vets

bill yet

Other me

I see

Can’t be

Maybe

Loosely

© Ian Rusetear MMXV

Have a wonderful Sunday. The leaves will dance around, freed to reveal the bony fingers of trees, and silver grey barks await the winter snow.  Natures great shows continue.

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