Thursday, 24 June 2010

Dreamscape - An artists inspiration

Following on from the idea of images VS words I've written a short piece taking inspiration from the artist Antoinette Burchill. The below is the picture I used to spark a story. I wanted to see how such an abstract piece would create a complete idea of a story. However, as the piece is so abstract I feel in return my ideas were abstract. Instead of writing a full rounded piece I have written a short micro fiction which in the end became very personal.

The day I sat down to write this piece I had just discovered that two of my cats had to be put down, both of which I've had since I was a baby. In that respect this piece lends itself to express individual experience and I'm not sure if another writer would get any where near the same story. I can name the particular parts of the image I took inspiration from, which is what lead me to the final idea:

My first thoughts on the image was that is was quite an earthy natural picture. The yellow and red reminded me of a wilted petal. This in my mind related to the earth and ground, fresh in my mind of where we had buried the cats. The way the picture moves from a dusty dark in the top left corner to a softer white in the bottom right brought ideas to mind above recycling and the idea of the continuous pattern of life and death. Again it was probally my own situation that took these conclusions from the colours, but it would be interesting to see if someone else took the same notion of an idea from the image?



Untitled

We burried you together, by the oak tree. The tree was strong enought to hold a chair, a swing chair, and we buried you below where we could brush our toes against your memories. I think of your stillness, deep below the skin of the earth.

Swallowed whole.

You sit like gobstoppers, shrinking; disintergrating; switching from the colour of skin, to organs, to bones. Until the two of you are rotten, and become one.

I site above you, feet pressed to the grass, and imagine your breath is the wind.

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